Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Sky Gunner

Written by Chris Reiter on July 24, 2002

Full Review: It's my way or the skyway!

Are flying shooters a thing of the past? Atlus doesn't believe so, and I believe they are right. Smack dab in the middle of a game market where genres like third person action shooters, sports titles, platform games, and RPGs are draining our wallets, Atlus has brought over to America one release that surely stands out above the rest in a genre that's not as popular as it once was. So strap on your flying goggles, because Atlus is about to take you on a bumpy ride!

Inside a fictional anime inspired world, there exists both the elements of good and evil. Sharing the same setting, both coexist with mechanical and flight technology, in which is used as a daily routine transportation, but is also used for bad things. Ventre, an evil mastermind of sorts, is about to steal a newly developed experiment called the Eternal Engine. This device is capable of providing perpetual motion without draining power from an outside source. It's now up to three unique fighter pilots for hire to help the police chief of this world and its strong plane force to put a stop to Ventre's fiendish plot before its fate rests in his hands.

Sky Gunner is not your typical 2D flight game. This is 3D, and in a 3D environment, the rules change drastically. At the beginning of the game, you have the option of either proceeding with the story, or entering the practice mode where you can train yourself to maneuver a plane and all of its components (which I would highly recommend, considering not everyone is familiar with the swooping and alleyooping type of games). Through the main feature, you'll follow the role as either Femme; a hired female plane gunner with a duty to protect the capture of the new Eternal Engine, or as Ciel; a feisty and famed gunner who, by choice, decides to take on the mission of helping out to save the day. Soaring through either of the stories will also allow you to later unlock a third character, Copain: Ciel's buddy in arms.

But by opting for either character, you're not only deciding between a male and a female pilot, you're also facing the fact that these two characters are unique in their own way. If you're looking to choose the easier of the two pilots, then Femme would be the better option, since she has an ability all of her own to automatically rotate the plane back and forth in switching between enemies in front and in back of her for a less difficult shootout. Ciel on the other hand lacks this function. What he can do however, is lock down on any enemy's weak spot to break them down by the numbers. There's a control issue too, in that while Ceil's plane is for the more accomplished of players who know everything there is to know about Sky Gunner, Femme's plane is meant towards any rookie with a more natural choice for absorbing a real feel of intense flight action.

Handling the planes can be great fun, but frustrating at the same time. For instance, there's much you can perform with any playable aircraft. From being able to zip in any direction, gun down any opponent you wish with your never ending machine gun stockpile, implement a barrel roll defense, or even turning up the power boosts to boot, Atlus has thought of about everything in including flights of fancy features. My gripe lies with little tidbits, though. The camera angles in Sky Gunner can and will become cocky and misleading from time to time. Like for example, you can go down or up conducting a full 360║ forward or backward flip. But when the time nears for the real heavy action, it's easy to get sidetracked in remembering which way is up and down as you're trying to tail a bunch of smaller airplanes that rarely give you the opportunity to fire upon them. Plus, the plane's targeting system is very loose. A lot of the time you'll manually have to aim directly at an enemy, and at very close ranges. This method can be a problem if for one you can't keep up, and for two, there are others trying to knock you out of the skies. It's not that the controls are that terrible, but combined with the screwy camera angles and the loose plane compatibility...Sky Gunner tends to be bothersome, at least in some cases.

Venturing into the main portion of the gameplay, you'll find that there's a much deeper layer of variety than what you might have originally expected. With over 25 gameplay missions, it'll be up to you to become victor of the tasks at hand. From one area to the next, each mission applies a set of rules for you to follow. As the story takes flight, you'll be prompted to defy the odds of evil by sometimes having to eliminate specific targets -- whether they be a set of a ship's destructive cannons or a troop of fast moving squadrons; guard an ally's mode of transportation from harm; or just simply defeating a massive boss surrounded with numerous offensive factions seeking to destroy you. After one task is done, you'll move right on to the next one, so you'll constantly be strewn through lots of heavy hitting action. What bothers me about the ever-present gameplay is that your objectives are delivered through character dialogue windows that appear on the bottom right side of the screen. These text windows don't remain for very long, and always pop up right in the middle of the gameplay. With that, you have reason to browse these messages, but I don't see why they should be forced upon you while you're trying to avoid getting hit.

What's interesting about the gameplay though, is that there's more to Sky Gunner than just the basic attack and defend pattern. Equipped with a set of three types of missiles -- being the dog missiles, the fireworks missiles, and the cross missiles -- you have at your disposal more than one way to rid of enemies, and by depending on the path you choose throughout each fight, will affect your outcome greater or lesser in the end. Basically, every gameplay mission has a challenge for you to meet and beat. Defending against and pummeling enemy forces isn't entirely always your focus point, as your abilities are also being tracked and scanned in order to succeed in every encountered mission. This is where those missiles come in handy, as you're able to use them greatly against a number of foes all at one time. Players who are always prepared will know that there are ways of locking onto a formation of enemies, and then can master each kind of missile to further develop a combo string after every hit. The bigger and better the combos you paint the screen with, the more points you'll rank afterward. With these earned points you can then use towards gaining new parts to your plane, such as a new engine. Keep in mind though; that in every mission you'll also be competing against your two co-pilots for the ride of your life to see which out of the three main characters will become the rightful champ in the finish.

Stepping through an environmental landscape of art that executes a close mixture between both anime and cel-shaded clusters, Sky Gunner proves itself worthy on a number of levels with all of its graphical glory. Skies take you to the limit as you have entry into a number of colorful gameplay arenas. Up and above towns that spread across the ocean's top, hovering amidst the clear and clouded skies of aircraft warfare, and even dog fighting within structured fortress locales, Sky Gunner grabs the player and opens up their eyes to a moderate amount of visual beauty. But, the game isn't without its flaws. Peering into these individual environments, you'd be able to clearly see that some in-game objects appear roughly very disoriented, and sometimes even blurred and pixilated.

More so, Sky Gunner seems to suffer immensely from its build up of on screen additives. Every air battle is big: so big that the frame rate will slow to a crawl from its current 30fps rate. Compressed with both allies and enemy alike, the game can push a lot of technical info on screen, most of which are all singled out from the familiar objects, and thus the power has to affect the overall performance of you and everything else you see. And what you will see is pretty nice indeed. Each type of aircraft -- friend or foe's -- has their own style of animation and quality. After blowing away one of the smaller enemy pilot's planes, they'll jump out and parachute downward, for starters. Your actions, most of all, outshine everything else, like with the ability to set off missiles that in turn, present a short but dynamic explosive effect each and every time. Completing a barrel roll or even a power boost, and you'll notice how white wind streams tag behind your plane as you breeze through the air in heightened speeds. Overall, the game does a fine job of conveying the amount of pleasure for your eyes you'd expect, even though a few more tweaks of the game could've helped out in the long run.

Sound is another essential key to Sky Gunner, and it works for the most part. Everything that should make a noise does. Whether you're gunning down a squadron of bad guys, boosting up and blasting away with your turbo charges, or are simply tuning in to the battle all around you, there's enough in-game noises that stay true to the animated world of Sky Gunner. To back you up through each fight, you'll also receive a light and dark set of tunes that provide an interesting and likable enough theme not to turn that volume switch down. At times the music will maintain a bright outlook giving you the idea that the war will be yours, but in later portions of a mission, an ominous build up fills in the space whenever it's imminent that evil will prevail.

Also, like any anime feature film, Sky Gunner has a cast of strangely enough voices that blend into their character's roles well. Ciel and Copain are portrayed with spunky and peculiar voices, whereas you'll find the main villain Ventre's voice taken with a more distinguished, but still strange quality turnout. During the missions, the voice actors provide you with their talents from time to time in pushing the plot along. However, I feel that the game could've been much better if these voices were put more to use during the aforementioned dialogue text boxes that quickly disappear off the screen through each varying mission. That way, you can just listen to what the character needs to say instead of distracting yourself from the action at hand. Interestingly enough, there's also an option from the start up of the game, where you can choose from either American or Japanese voice work, which can be helpful if you'd rather experience an anime themed title just like the Japanese do.