Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Game Boy Color)/Gameplay

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is an arcade-based sports game that does its best to emulate the console version with several tricks, collectibles, and levels to keep things varied.

Main Menu
The main menu of the game features four game modes, two creation modes, and an options menu. Use to pick your selection,  to confirm it, and  to go back.

Modes
Career Mode has a skater of your choice go to different skate spots with a checklist of goals. Instead of tapes from the first game, your skater now earns money, which they can use to buy decks and levels. Beating this mode will unlock photos and new levels.

Free Skate allows your skater to stay in levels with no time limit. Use this mode to practice memorizing the level and find secrets.

Photo Album provides a gallery of monochrome photos you unlock by finishing all goals in a level in Career Mode. You can select a photo to see it close up as well as print it with the Game Boy Printer.

Password Input is where you can input a 12-letter code. Unlike the other versions, there is no save system, so passwords are the only way to resume your game. If you put the code correctly, you'll be sent to the skate shop screen. Passwords can also be printed out with the Game Boy Printer.

Credit shows the names of the staff that worked on the game. Press to skip to the next screen.

Starting a Game
Once you choose a game mode, you'll first pick your skater. Initially, they all have varied stats in four attributes:


 * Ollie: How high your skater can jump from the ground.
 * Speed: How fast your skater goes when on the ground.
 * Accel: How fast your skater can reach top speed.
 * Control: How well your skater can turn.

After choosing a skater, you pick their skateboard graphic to adjust their stats and then you choose the level they'll skate in. In career mode, you can spend money to buy new skateboards and access to new levels.

The Basics
When the game begins, your skater will slowly pick up speed and skate ahead from their starting position. With you can press left and right to move left and right. When you press the opposite horizontal direction, your skater slows down to a stop, then turns around. Some levels allow you to move vertically as well by pressing or. You can hold down to slow down and eventually stop and let go to move forward again. You can press to jump, which is called an ollie. If you ollie off a ramp, you'll get extra time in the air and more height.

While skating on a quarterpipe, hold the direction you're going on the D-Pad before your skater reaches the edge to fly forward and land away from the quarterpipe. While in the air, you can use for a quick 180 turn.

Finally, pressing will pause the game with a menu on screen. You can return to the game, start over or end your run.

Tricks
Your skater can perform tricks to raise your score. While airborne, your skater can perform a trick by pressing a direction with and  simultaneously. You can also press before or after doing tricks to spin. All skaters can spin up to 720, but only Tony Hawk can spin up to 900. If your skater doesn't finish their trick before landing, they will fall off their board and not earn any points.

Some objects and surfaces allow skaters to grind on them. To grind, you must press to jump and land on the grindable object. You can perform a 5-0 Grind in the neutral position or you can press a certain direction with and  to get into a grinding position such as a Crooked Grind or a Tail Slide.

To do a lip move, press a direction with while at the edge of a ramp. will do a Handplant while will do an Axle Stall. You can hold down either direction for more points, but hold it down too long and your skater falls off the edge.

Scoring
When executing tricks, the name of the trick along with its point value is shown at the top left of the skater. A successful landing rewards you those points. By performing two or more tricks, your skater can create a combo for even more points. When doing a combo, the base score increases and a multiplier is added. Tricks increase the multiplier by one. For example, a Crossbone rewards you 25 points, but a Crossbone and an Airwalk earns you 35 x 2 or 70 points. A Crossbone, an Airwalk, and a 180 spin gives you 40 x 3 or 120 points.

Grinds and lips give out more points the longer they're held. For example, doing an Axle Stall will earn you only 61 points, but holding down the grab button will hold that trick, earning more points the longer it's held.

How many times a trick is performed can degrade that trick's score over time, so it's crucial to use a variety of moves to keep your score high. For example, doing a Melon the first time earns you 20 points while the second time reduces it to 15, the third time to 10, and so on. Unlike the main version, if your skater bails, the deprecation of that trick's score will not occur.