Wild Blue Skies: инди-шутер от создателя Super Mario 64 получил смешанный отзыв за отличный геймплей и слабую музыку

Y’all are lucky that the game’s more than willing to make animal puns itself, so I don’t have to force myself to make terrible ones throughout this review. I might, I may or may not find myself Moray-eely obligated to, but it’s not through Chuhai Labs needing me to make up for a lack of them. Equally fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t really have much in the way of complicated feelings for this game, because it’s not a super complicated one on its surface. Today, we’ll be looking at Wild Blue Skies, a largely on rails airfighter from the aforementioned Chuhai Labs, an indy team based in Kyoto, Japan, and which is part of the Vitei Inc… ecosystem? It feels wrong to put it like that, precisely, but I can’t think of the correct term, especially considering their work making this title with a cast of various anthromorphic folk. Anyhow, Chuhai was founded by Giles Goddard, noted as the “Mario Face Programmer” in Super Mario 64, the main programmer in 1080 Degree Snowboarding, and the original Star Fox, which on even a cursory glance at Wild Blue Skies would lead to a “yeah, that makes sense,” to name a few. Notably, he hasn’t worked with a PlayStation platform for what I would presume were contract reasons, making this the man’s first notable release away from Nintendo. So, how is it, you ask? Well… Look At That View Normally, I start with a basic overview of the story, main character(s), and how the game builds to the start point. In this case, it’s not super necessary, because the game itself doesn’t seem particularly concerned to start at least. On loading the game, provided you don’t skip passed the intro, you’re introduced to the main group, Bowie, our cover character and who should be in the thumbnail in the video above, voiced by Jonah Scott of Beastars fame. Following in rapid succession, in what brings to my immediate mind cartoons such as the Road Rovers, the obvious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Street Sharks. Roe, a female deer, voiced by Suzie Yeung, aka Yuffie in FF7: Remake, Rebirth and presumably Revelation, and Makima in Chainsaw Man; Chuck, an older steer, voiced by Edward Bosco, who was Ed in Street Fighter 6 and Chipp Zanuff in the Guilty Gear English dubs from Xrd: Sign on; and Thorne, a triceratops, which may cause immediately flashbacks for anyone that actually played Star Fox Adventures, played by Daman Mills, notably Weiss the Immaculate in the same titles as Miss Yeung’s Yuffie, and Frieza since Dragon Ball FighterZ. Immediately afterwards, you’re launched into a very good tutorial that covers the basics of what you’ll be doing quite nicely, and then, after faffing about in the settings to work the control sensitivity to what works best for you, although Normal works more than fine, it launches into introducing Grimclaw, what he was in the past, yada yada and a very simple but workable premise for the game’s story, as it were. All beautiful, much as the game as a whole. Then you move to a passport, of sorts, then the game map, and the game begins, properly, from there. Get Some Fresh Air The game itself is fairly simple, it’s an old-school arcadey on-rails shooter, as much as thinking of the 90s as ‘old-school’ at this point forces me to stare at the metaphorical sands pouring towards the bottom of the hourglass of my existence in unwilling but accepting horror. For those of our readers that were born in the late nineties/early oughts as an entity and thus largely missed the heyday of arcades as a whole, thank you for reading this. It is genuinely appreciated, and there is in fact still hope out there, no matter what people may try to tell you. Secondly, look into Time Crisis, the House of The Dead series, and Silent Scope for additional ideas of how the genre works. Graphically, they couldn’t be further from Wild Blue Skies, but if those look interesting, and you don’t mind how gun peripherals have largely stopped being a thing for a lot of very unfortunate reasons, you have an idea of how this goes. However, not describing it here for those that don’t want to look at other sources is also a dereliction part of my job as a reviewer, so; enter a mission, complete the mission, either the normal way or after completing a sub-objective, and move on to the next. Then you try to get the best score, and try to complete the game with a certain number of lives, whilst trying to complete additional objectives that, as far as I know, are meant for completion and additional unlocks for replay value. Simple, effective, and genuinely a lot of fun and a good way to spend time when you have spare time to spend. Wild Blue Skies does this quite well, I feel. Mind The Gaps The game controls phenomenally, and believe me, considering some of the turns and dodging you’ll be doing later on, the pin-perfect controls and good collision detection is absolutely necessary. Because, much like classic 90s on-rail shooters, it’s a classically difficult game. It’s arcadey in every sense of the word, other than the ability to put in quarters to continue, or attempt to brute force your way through if you’re not familiar with the game and it’s patterns, or not very good at the game itself, the latter being my main issue after a few repetitions of the early stages, as my nerves consistently got the better of me as the more times Bowie got shot down. To be clear, you can find additional lives, both in crates and in the field, but they’re largely few and far between. You can also get additional health flying through silver diamonds, and those are somewhat more common. Largely, however, you’re fairly reliant on your skill, ability to keep a cool head, and not letting enemy fighters get behind you. You do not have invincibility frames, and while that’s largely not a problem, it should be noted for those of us that aren’t super familiar with the genre or have gotten used to other systems where those are a bit more plentiful. Also Mind The Bogey On Your Tail- DON’T CHASE IT Which is to say, I have no issues with the game being difficult. It’s not particularly long, at least a successful run through the first six stages, assuming a first run goes very smoothly, which is probably considerably more likely if you’ve got better reflexes than I do at this point, especially considering some of the obstacles you have to dodge in later stages. I’m currently uncertain as to what the price is likely to be, although I may simply be bad at looking, considering how many runs it took me to notice the radar in the bottom right of the screen. Considering past titles from Chuhai Labs, and the publisher, Balor Games, track record and noted wishes to keep games reasonably priced, however, I have full faith that I can honestly say it’s worth full price. I do have to note one notable technical issue from my playtime, and it’s an unusual amount graphical choppiness at the start of one of the fourth stages, albeit one you might take a few runs to get to or choose, depending on how you do completing those additional objectives throughout the stages. I do also have to ding for the music being… not bad, per se, but not super memorable? Granted this might be unfair, considering my taste in music and extremely stiff competition from a considerable majority of the games I’ve reviewed for PSX Extreme, and it’s perfectly fine, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not particularly memorable. Which, in immediately thought association, is something I’d say for Wild Blue Skies as a whole? It’s good at what it is, and does and I fully recommend playing it should you have the money and want something to play in short bursts, 30 to 40 minutes per run, that’s considerably less likely to spike your blood pressure. It’s absolutely gorgeous, some decent action sequences, and it works for everything that it is. The other somewhat major issue, and it’s unfortunately a shared one with the genre as a whole; a decent number of the bosses just aren’t particularly interesting to dull? They’re largely, again, fine, if rather annoying, since they’re mostly capstones to the end of each stage. Additionally, I am coming off of Denshattack, MOTORSLICE and ROMEO Is A DEADMAN in terms of reviews so that is very much some rough competition from this year on the indie/indie-ish scene alone, so I may be treating the bosses here a bit unfairly, albeit unintentionally so? But it’s pretty much “just” the music and bosses I have issues with, the game otherwise works quite well, is extremely well-polished, outside of the otherwise uncharacteristic framerate issue with the fourth stage, as on-rails shooters tend to be!