We have a rule around here. You need to play through the game for at least four hours before you do up a review. It’s a loose rule but one that is always a good idea to follow. You see there can be growing pains when trying a new game, especially playing through a new game cold with nothing similar to compare it through.
At first glance with Rodea the Sky Soldier I was a bit underwhelmed. The game really looks like a last gen Wii game especially considering that the game is also available on the Wii and 3DS. But behind the simple look to the game is a pretty good experience and a cute game.
As the title of the game suggests you are a sky soldier and most of your combat takes place in the air. While you are quite capable of walking around on the ground, much of your speed comes from flying and the world you’re in is very much up in the air.
Think of the Skylands from Skylanders.
The game starts off a thousand years in the past during an epic battle. Emperor Geardo of the Naga Empire has sent an army of machine soldiers to invade the sky kingdom of Garuda. Thanks to the efforts of Princess Cecilia and Rodea, a machine soldier who promised to protect Garuda, Emperor Geardo’s assault was thwarted.
This start to the game is like a tutorial which introduces you to your controls. Movement, attack, flying and the such. It is a good set up with not a lot of real threat to you. And of course you’ll face off in a boss battle as well which you aren’t going to win.
Fast forward to the present day where a spirited inventor named Ion discovers Rodea, who appears to be an abandoned robot that has fallen into disrepair in the heart of a scorching desert. Upon completing her repairs, Rodea stirs to life. Stunned to find himself in the future, Rodea learns that the Naga Empire is no more and that Garuda has known peace for 1,000 years.
Of course that peace isn’t going to last and the forces of Naga have returned to wage war against Garuda. Remembering the promise he made 1,000 years ago, Rodea takes to the skies to defend Garuda from the Naga Empire once again.
Despite the tutorial mission the controls did take a bit of getting used to. Flying and attacking are pretty easy, but they’re not always as responsive as I would have liked.
For the most part when you are flying you point your reticle at an enemy and press the attack button to send Rodea flying towards an enemy. If you’re too far away your attack might not hit your target. In that case you’ll have to press the button again to prevent yourself from merely colliding with the enemy and taking damage.
You can also initiate an attack, or send yourself towards an item to collect it, by also pressing the attack button from a standing position. Though this doesn’t always work unfortunately. One neat similarity is the way you collect items in this fashion. When you are airborne and press the attack button to collect an item, if they are in a straight line you’ll zoom through and collect them all. You will also trail around curves and bends when you collect them all. Shades of Sonic Adventure here and it feels good.
To start flying you hold the (A) button to display your reticle and release it to take off. You can also jump by pressing the (A) button and then it the attack button (B) to launch yourself into the air at an enemy. Perhaps the easiest way to start flying though is to press (Y) which will launch Rodea straight up in the air. This gives you a great look at your surroundings and you can then easily start flying and attack.
Flying around is actually pretty intuitive and fun to do, but one of the drawbacks is that you’re drawing fuel when you do fly. If you run out of fuel you’ll lose a life.
This almost feels like a glitch or an oversight. When you do run out of fuel in the air you’ll fall helplessly below and the game will fade out. This looks fine and makes sense if you’re trying to get between floating islands, but when this happens above land I felt cheated. Rodea can do an intentional fall to the ground from very high up in the air and land unscathed. Why do I lose a life if I run out of energy in the air above ground.
This is also very apparent when this happens when you’re trying to land. You can be mere inches above the ground still in a flying position and die laying on the ground because your meter ran out.
Considering the meter instantly recharges when you do touch land ordinarily this feels like an oversight.
I also encountered a pretty damning glitch in one of the levels too near the start. At one point you’ll be facing off against what look like giant robotic jellyfish clustered about. There are about a dozen or so in all. Hitting a certain one in the right instant, which I wasn’t able to pinpoint which one specifically, will send Rodea … somewhere. You’ll end up flying in an area devoid of, well everything. No enemies or land as far as the eye can see. All you can do is float helplessly until you run out of fuel and fall to your death. I was able to duplicate this glitch three times, the first two times by accident. I left the jellys alone after that.
If you do find yourself running low you can, as I previously mentioned, intentionally fall to the ground below to save yourself with a quick press of the down and (Y). This can be a leap of faith though since if there’s no ground below you then you’re suck. It’s too bad there’s no way to quickly move the camera to a top down view so you could see below you.
You can press the [R] and [L] buttons to rotate the camera and also use the (R) stick to rotate the camera around. A way to quickly look up or down would have been a nice addition.
The game has a generous learning curve as well with most of the early enemies very much passive. The robotic enemies go about their business until you attack and destroy them. A few of the later ones will fight back and fire at you, but for the most part they’re easy to avoid with a quick dodge with the (Y). You’ll also get a weapon to fire at enemies as well.
It can get tricky later on with more enemies but it hasn’t gotten too hard.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of the game is actually the banter and conversations between Rodea and Ion. While you play the levels Ion will talk to you, give you suggestions and excitedly encourage you. It’s actually pretty fun listening to her when you play. Though the folks at NIS have put an option to reduce Ion’s chattiness if you’d rather not listen to her.
I found her quite adorable. In fact the voice acting is generally pretty solid throughout the game and the inclusion of the original Japanese language track is a nice touch.
One thing I mentioned before is that you have lives, which you can lose. This doesn’t affect the overall story progression, but if you do die in a level you’ll start over from the latest checkpoint. If you get a game over you’ll have to start the level over. Not all bad, but the levels can be pretty lenghty and if you’ve been collecting gears as you progress you’ll lose all that loot.
The gears you collect are used to upgrade Rodea making him faster, stronger, better. He is a robot after all. You’ll also be able to upgrade your weapon and other items you obtain through the game.
One last thing that I would be remiss not to touch on is GamePad play. Becoming something of a necessity in my mind is this feature, which is thankfully present in the game. It’s nice to have the option to turn off the tv and relax with the GamePad in my hands. Any game that has the off tv gameplay option gets an extra point in my books.
So overall is Rodea the Sky Soldier worth the money? Absolutely. It doesn’t have the shining polish of many next gen games but the game is definitely fun to play. Rodea the Sky Soldier will be released for the Nintendo Wii U on Tuesday, November 10th.
