I swear we were brothers or next door neighbors in another universe.
Playlife Reactors are USD Sway’s with a bit cheaper material. USD and Playlife are sub companies of Powerslide. I’ve never gotten to try them, but I have a feeling they’re fine for a beginner.
When looking to buy new skates you also have to think about the wheels and wheel size. Think of it similar to skateboarding. Smaller wheels are on regular skateboards, big wheels are on cruisers/long boards. Same concept on rollerblades, the bigger the wheel, the faster you will go with less effort involved.
This is a good channel imo, this guy came back to blading about 7 years ago and does reviews. He’s elder gen x or something so it fits for us 25+ older folk getting back into it.
Personally, the only brand I could ever recommend is Xsjado because they’ve always been my favorite. They went under a while back, USD bought them out then took a few years to relaunch the brand under USD. They released some trash snowboard boot monstrosity, community responded by not buying them, they realized their mistake and went back to the OG formula with the Laintimer editions and people can now get their Xsjados again. The beautiful thing about these is that you could ultimately wear almost any low top sneaker with these. Sambas, Pumas, Vans, etc… Usually, the shoe itself that comes with the skate feels pretty good, they’re basically like comfy skateboard shoes.
Here’s a set I know you would dig, they made them for Chris Farmer’s last signature before they went under. Nintendo themed.
Here’s a video because I know this is the type of content you like (shot on a miniDV cam)
Good luck, stoked to see you join the fruitbooters 