PixlBit

As you may already know from our podcast-based Developer Specials, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is the latest work of Project Aces, the team behind Namco's popular Ace Combat series. With this title, the team has made a departure from the gritty action for a more light-hearted anime adaptation.

The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is a prequel to the 2008 film, The Sky Crawlers, and follows the tale of Lynx. Quite honestly, as someone who is not familiar with the original movie, or the mangas the story is based on, I didn't really follow along with the story much. However, fans of anime may truly appreciate the well done animated cutscenes present in between each mission.

Being that the story held little significance to me, the most important part of the game was the gameplay. In The Sky Crawlers, players pilot propeller-based planes that seem to be pulled straight from the World War II era. As such, the planes featured in the game are lower-tech than what players may be used to in much of Project Aces' other work. No targeting systems are in place, and firing down enemies is done via a good-old fashioned machine gun.

Players will be responsible for shooting down both in-air and on-ground enemies throughout the game's brief 17 missions. As the game progresses players earn a number of new weapons that can assist them with both types of resistance. Bombs are the first of the secondary weapons to be unlocked and they make it signficantly easier to destroy ground-based threats without losing much altitude.

Each mission has a number of objectives, but ultimately, players are responsible for destroying as many enemies as they can over the course of the outing. To make things easier, a few special moves have been added, giving players the competitive advantage over their foes. Players can execute both Manual Maneuvers and TMCs (Tactical Maneuver Commands). Manual Maneuvers give players the ability to perform quick backflips or spins in order to escape a trailing enemy or quickly pursue them as they pass. TMCs on the other hand operate a bit differently.

While in range of an enemy, players will begin to fill a gauge. When this gauge fills at least one time, players can activate their TMC which will, through some computer-controlled trickery, place players directly behind the nearby enemy. As you might expect, this gives players the ability to quickly and easily dispose of their foe. At the end of each mission, players are graded on how often they take use of this tactic, and a higher score means more points to upgrade your plane for the next mission.

The inclusion of TMCs made the game a bit too easy. Because you can loiter around an enemy easily, even when they are traveling opposite of you via the brake, I found myself constantly executing TMCs after the gauge filled once and immediately defeating the targeted enemy. Of course, it was still enjoyable to execute the move, but some more challenge would have been welcome.

Because The Sky Crawlers is exclusive to Wii, Project Aces was able to implement a unique control scheme that involves the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. The combination of the motion control featured in both devices allows players to both pilot the ship and throttle it, via some particular gestures. However this control scheme didn't appeal to me, even after I tried to use it for a few missions. Switching to the Classic Controller or even the GameCube controller proved to be far more effective and enjoyable.

The Sky Crawlers' biggest issue is its length. The game's missions fly by (pun intended) all too quickly, partly because there aren't many of them and partly because they are enjoyable while they last. Thankfully the game offers four difficulty settings to complete as well as a number of parts and planes to collect, as well as the ability to customize all of them.

Though not a major issue, the game is not very graphically appealing, and often times things on the horizon are quite challenging to see. It seems as though a bit more effort in the presentation could've gone a long way.

Those looking for a solid dog-fighting flight game on Wii won't be disappointed with the offering found in The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces. Its value pricing and strong gameplay make it a worthy purchase, though those who aren't fans of the genre clearly won't find much to like in the game.