AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Sky force reloaded level 139/1/2023 You will have a difficult time describing any given stage to someone who hasn't already seen the game. That said, despite the initial coolness factor, the levels are actually fairly nondescript. It's definitely a pleasure to look at from a design standpoint. The art style reminds me of Sine Mora: an attractive meshing of cartoonish with hyper realistic. Instead, what we have is a stylish-looking take on Raiden, unassisted by forgettable music, and a campaign whose progression model is both surprisingly addictive and unsurprisingly tedious. Then we might really have something here. If only things were less expensive: if only fewer medals were required to unlock stages, and if only fewer stars were required to unlock upgrades. There are only 13 stages in Reloaded, but the game feels much, much longer than that. You can see where this leads, can’t you? You'll be returning to the same stages over and over, until you can claim enough in-level accolades to unlock later levels, and, while you're at it, you’ll be earning valuable stars so that you can buy those coveted power ups. It's tough to rescue everyone who needs rescuing, while also killing everyone who needs killing on the same run. Without even playing the game, you can probably surmise that the objectives get in each other's way, too. The objectives attached to each medal aren't particularly creative: rescue every prisoner with your tether, take no damage, kill 70% of your enemies, and kill all enemies. Hard tier is not available until every medal has been achieved on Normal, and so on. Every stage has 12 such medals available - four unique medals to be won across three difficulty levels: normal, hard and insane. Access to every stage is gated, and a certain number of medals must be won on previous stages to permit you the right to play the next one. That’s right: beating level five, it seems, is no longer enough to earn access to level six. But complicating matters is the fact that you must also earn your way through the levels, and that task too, is costly. It’s fun-crippling, and it’s two-fold: for starters, you'll find that getting powered up adequately is very expensive. And that requires earning enough scratch, here in the form of stars dropped by vanquished foes, towards buying upgrades for your default gun, and unlocking more weapons: homing missiles, and one-time use lasers, shields and bombs. This is because, Reloaded in particular (and the Sky Force canon in general), is not about powering up within each stage it’s about powering up from stage-to-stage. It’s not even that the series has subscribed to the shameless pay-to-win model outright, but you can see where paying would definitely help ease the grind. A third Sky Force game, called Sky Force 2014 (guess when it came out?) ostensibly revived the sleeping franchise, as it was received well enough that it was updated and re-released as Sky Force Anniversary on iOS and Steam, and the spit-shined Reloaded looks like it’s set to keep the ball rolling.įinding out Reloaded was once a mobile title was definitely an “a-ha!” moment for me, and that has nothing to do with presentation. Reloaded itself began life in 2006 on the Palm OS (remember Palm Pilots? No?), before traveling to iOS a few years later, and then to the Sony PSP. The developers of the Sky Force series, Infinite Dream, have a long pedigree of crafting titles for mobile platforms. The way you must progress through the game however, is decidedly not old school, and that’s a questionable thing. The way you are expected to dodge enemy fire and return in kind, is decidedly old school, and that’s a welcome thing. And it definitely isn't in the bullet hell vein, as there is nary a projectile sheet here. It isn't manic bullets aren’t coming at you fast and furious. But Reloaded doesn't play anything like that long running vertical 2D shooter series. Both games feature futuristic, military style vehicles, duking it out over war torn terrain. Sky Force Reloaded reminds me more than a little bit of Raiden. "A younger, more stylish Raiden, Sky Force Reloaded is good for a fun time until it all grinds to a halt "
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |