Sky Gunner (PS2 Review)

Where, oh where have all the good shooters gone? Being a seasoned veteran of video games, I have come to miss the days when Defender and Space Harrier reigned supreme in the arcades. Today, everything has become a Halo or Grand Theft Auto clone. No longer are the adventures where a player would go up against unbelievable odds of enemy fighters on the forefront of gamers’ minds. Now we are bombarded with ‘fragfests’ and ‘jacking a ride’ instead of hunting down swarms of baddies to victoriously face the big boss in a final showdown. While I don’t mean to diminish these games for their fun factors or gameplay, it just isn’t the same experience that I was taught to enjoy.

Even though the majority of the gaming community may have forgotten what drives the soul of older gamers, Atlus still can be counted on for giving us a quality trip down memory lane. Let me introduce you to their latest creation with the complete retro feel still intact, SkyGunner. This ‘retro’ reference is not meant to confuse the newcomer to the gaming world. SkyGunner is a completely new work from the studios of Pixel Arts that has its roots deeply embedded in classic games of the past. 

The story begins aboard the luxury liner Merveilleux, where the unveiling of the Eternal Engine is about to begin. This engine will revolutionize current technology since it is capable of running forever without an outside power source. The town of Rive has created this Expo especially for this event. Although this is a time of celebration, the town officials have planned for the worst. They have employed the SkyGunners to protect their ship and its precious cargo. Even with these safeguards in place, the criminal genius Ventre has devised a plan to use the celebration as a distraction and to steal the Eternal Engine for his own evil purposes. With the help of his created Poulet army, Ventre sets sail for Rive and thus begins our adventure.

There are so many aspects that I wish to discuss about the game, it is difficult to pick a starting point. So I guess the best place is to start at the basics and work our way forward. SkyGunner has enough bells and whistles to please most players. The audio selections have multiple menus where you get the choice of individual volume levels for the background music, sound effects and character voices. The standard mono or stereo choice is also available, but this is one title that really screams out for surround sound audio. It would make your gaming experience much more detailed if the player could hear the enemy fighters coming up from behind using satellite speakers. All of the musical selections, including the exceptionally well done opening credits, fit beautifully into the game. As a player, you will remember them being there, but never have to worry about becoming distracted by their style or volume.

There are two basic control schemes that can be customized for the player’s preference. In both the novice or expert layouts, you have the option to mix or match the plane control, enemy selection and x-y axis selections. Pixel Arts has given the player the choice of picking one or the other of each separate decision which makes the game more player friendly. You can either pilot your plane using the left analog stick in the novice option or additionally use the shoulder buttons for rudder control in the expert setting. While some games make you get used to figuring out which way is up, SkyGunner gives the player the ability to choose what style is most comfortable for you. So now when you push forward on the analog stick, your plane is going to go in the direction that you want it without forcing you to constantly correct after initially picking the wrong direction. Customizable control schemes are always welcomed by the dedicated video game player and it’s a shame that most companies don’t incorporate this more into their games.

The main course of the game is its Story Mode. All of the cutscenes are done in an anime storyboard style with the characters voices speaking as the plot evolves. The entire game is broken up into different difficulty levels. Each of the five playable characters, three of which have to be unlocked, raises the bar with more complex assignments within the same missions. The first three characters all redo almost the same missions, but each has different assignments within them. An example would be in saving the Merveilleux during the first mission. Femme, the easiest of the three characters, simply has to take out the fighter squadrons, while Ciel and Copain both have other separate targets to contend with.

Each plane has its own special maneuvers and weapon selections. All of these can be learned by going through the training lessons for each plane once they have been unlocked. This is another nice consideration provided by Pixel Arts, not forcing a player to learn their new plane in the heat of battle, but in the comfort and safety of an educational training exercise.

Let me suggest that you use these as none of the missions will be a cake walk the first time through. Enemies come fast and furious in great numbers. It is easy to become distracted from your assignment because there are so many baddies on a screen at the same time. There are as many as 500 different targets to contend with on each of the missions. One nice addition is the help that your two wingmen provide. Unlike other games that have computer controlled partners, these pilots actually will help out in a pinch and make the odds a little less obtrusive. From the in-game picture you can see the massive amount of targets in the upper right corner remaining for this one segment. Even with the help that you are provided, it’s still a long hard fought contest.

Mission style is greatly varied. You will find yourself running escort missions, dog fighting with squadrons of fighters, defending cities, storming island retreats and taking on ridiculously huge battleships. Sometimes you will have the help of your partners while other stages will have all the weight riding on your shoulders alone. Usually there will be missions within the main task, all of which will help your scoring if they are completed along with the primary one. 

The more money that is earned is directly reflective in your final ranking once a specific difficulty level is completed. Simply put, the higher your ranking, the greater amount of extras unlocked. Bonus money can be earned by conserving special weapons and by creating combo explosions. Cash is lost when your ship receives enough damage to cause it to become unstable and fly out of control. Moreover, laying heavily on your basic machine gun drains your cash reserves with every bullet spent. While this all may sound easy in theory, it is more difficult than you could imagine to put everything together into practice.

The computer AI really isn’t very big on attacking you at every opportunity. Rather they prefer to maintain their distance and defend themselves once you encroach upon their territory. This is especially evident when you go and take on one of the many big boss ships that populate the levels. These big mothers will take a tremendous pounding. Only by using the chain reaction explosion techniques can you hope to even start to weaken their structural integrity. 

Graphically, SkyGunner is extremely attractive. If you stop to smell the roses while playing you can see subtle details like shot-down ships crumbling into pieces and burning as they fall from the sky. The water effects in the game are also well done, especially the rooster tails that appear when your plane gets close to the water’s surface. There is no draw-in evident and all of the environments are beautifully created. Explosions can be like a Fourth of July finale, with shells and missiles screaming all over the place at the same time. This is not without some cost to the game’s integrity as the framerate will start chugging along, like a semi going through the Rocky Mountains, when the shooting gets exceptionally heavy. However when this happens, it’s more of a godsend than a curse as it gives the player time to deal with all the activity going on and almost feels like the game is going into slow-motion on purpose. 

There are two optional views that can be used in the game. The default method will keep your target on the screen centered while you are forced to flip and twist in the wind to get your bearings. While this is great for keeping an eye on your targets, since there is no in-game radar, it does make everything more difficult than it should be. The other version is a tail camera that follows your plane nicely. The setback with this viewing choice is that it’s easily to get distracted from your main target and lose sight of where it is in the battlefield. I found that using a combination of both, since they can be switched with a simple button tap, was the most effective for my tastes and abilities. Nevertheless, I was disappointed in the fact that I had to invent a workable view rather than just rely on one invented by the developers. However in all fairness, this was the same issue that I had in playing the flying levels in the recently released Drakengard, so it may be a three-dimensional flying problem rather than a developer issue.

Missions are basically timed through the limits of your fuel tank. Once you run out of fuel, the game ends. Your game can also end prematurely if your escort is destroyed or if you cannot recover your plane’s stability after been shot up before a timer expires. The game does allow for three continues to be used throughout each five mission game. However once they are depleted, your game is done. 

While some have criticized Skygunner for its short five mission length, it took me over ten hours to get through the game the first time with just a “B” ranking. While I may not be the greatest player on earth, I usually can hold my own with a crowd. The three and four hour completion times reported in other reviews probably are not reflective of Joe Gamer’s abilities. Even so, there is much more to do once you have ‘beaten’ the game on the easy level. Replay-ability is quite high as the game has plenty to offer in extras and its great for a quick fix when you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to gaming.

SkyGunner includes unlockable time attack and survival modes. There is also an unlockable photo album in which both victorious and losing pictures are added depending on how you perform in the game. One extra touch is the choice of the player to either have the original Japanese voice-overs with English subtitles or to have both done in English. While this may be overlooked by the casual player, it’s a nice touch that is appreciated by the gaming purist

Thus we come to the end of our trip down memory lane. SkyGunner is everything that shooter fans have come to expect. Even amidst its slowdown shortcomings and camera issues, it is a game that any hard-core fan will happily sink their teeth into and enjoy the challenge for weeks to come. Like most niche games, this one will be in short supply and definitely difficult to come by. Nevertheless, it will be almost as gratifying to find it tucked away forgotten on a shelf as beating the game the first time through. SkyGunner comes highly recommended for fans of the genre. Those with commitment issues or little patience need not apply. Save your controllers for some other game.

Difficulty:9

Control:8

Visuals:9

Sound:7

Replayability:8

Overall: 8.2