While nowadays in this day and age you have the spectacular 1+2 remake that you can play on consoles like the Switch, this GBA port handled by Vicarious Visions (who years later would go on to develop that remake) was pretty dang fantastic back at the time.

Although the game is played from an isometric perspective to accommodate the system, it still manages to play almost identically to it's big console brother and retains the exciting thrill of pulling off those big combos.

It definitely did the trick back then for those wanting a portable Hawk fix.

Vicarious Visions attempts to translate the tight, polished gameplay of legendary arcade sports title Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 through the firm limitations of the Game Boy Advance. It works....mostly.

Utilizing an isometric perspective to present the 3D levels of the original game in 2D, THPS2 on the GBA does a phenomenal job of recreating the geometry of the the classic levels such as Hangar, and School II. Oddly enough, levels of THPS are thrown in as well, such as Warehouse and New York City. These levels are faithfully rebuilt in the new perspective with minor adjustments to make it easier for players to navigate.

Unfortunately the controller limitations of the Game Boy Advance do not allow for a full translation of the gameplay itself into these new levels: the top down isometric perspective makes it challenging to consistently control your skater, and mapping the traditional face button actions such as performing flip tricks and pulling off grab tricks to the GBA shoulder buttons makes things a bit clunky.

Also the music is.....bad. I get what they were going for, but its not terribly interesting.

At the end of the day, its very playable with a ton of patience, but it is no substitute for the real deal on the PlayStation or the Dreamcast.

Tony Hawk's pro skater 2 is a very impressive port for the Game Boy Advance. Most games that use 3D on the GBA tend to be very choppy and slow, however this game will always run flawlessly. I have never been terribly interested in skateboarding video games and have never played any of the console Tony Hawk games, so I can't compare this game to its console counterparts, but i can say on its own I found it decently entertaining in short bouts which is perfect for the GBA. My one complaint is that the game features a free mode as well as a career mode, but i find there is no point in ever touching the career mode as it's just the free mode with a time limit and some objectives scattered about, but it is nice to have the option and it gives the game a little variety. For knowing very little about skateboarding, i think this game is pretty good.