>>718532897
Part of that yes, that's why I call it an RPG. If you want to roleplay as a skater (as opposed to just playing a game where you skate) then THPS4 did hit the mark.
But I don't think the time attack is totally alien to skating. Comes off to me as an adaption of lines and making skate videos. An adaption to games because the relatively basic and short lines you can do in real life aren't very exciting in videogames so make them two minutes long and fill the level with semi realistic props that are bizarrely conducive to skating. Also you have to make the whole skate video in one cut.
And yes, you can have time attacks within the RPG structure of THPS4, which is why RPG and open world structures became so endemic in that time period, you ended up being able to give the player a smorgasbord of content, though the content didn't always fit together as well (map design in THPS4 suffered a bit, hangar and foundry are still the best maps in the series) and the game having to accommodate each mechanic/mode meant that if you DID want the pure THPS3 arcade experience, you of course are going to get a sub-par experience in THPS4.
