Use the Remote and Nunchuk to steer your plane through the skies as you seek out and gun down enemy jets.
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I watched The Sky Crawlers last weekend and really liked it, so I figured I'd give the tie-in game a shot. It's a pretty solid package overall, providing extra world-building for the setting and a plot that, while not nearly as layered or harrowing by comparison, manages to tie into the film's story in a pretty cool way. Good companion piece but it probably won't do much for you without seeing the movie first. But watch it anyway cause it rules.
More people need to play this masterpiece.
"Why are we here? No reason, just nostalgia, I suppose."
I've said before, only half joking, that the Wii only has about 5 good games. I still believe it has a weak library overall but I will at least admit it must surely have some hidden gems, but they are WELL hidden. As it was released in North America, Innocent Aces is a game absolutely terrified of telling you what it is. I think it's the earliest released game that I own that has a reversible sleeve; the US retail package features different artwork from any other region, making it look exactly like every other flight game on this system. A side effect of the Wii's reputation for being a "casual" console is that not only are traditional "hardcore" games fewer in number, but for the sake of marketability they are made to resemble their competition as much as possible. The only real hints as to the true nature of the game are the fact that it was published by Xseed, and that savvy enthusiasts might recognize that the aircraft on the box is like no plane in the real world. It is otherwise indistinguishable (at least, on the surface) from games like Blazing Angels, Heatseekers, or WWII Aces.
The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is an Ace Combat spinoff made as a tie-in for an anime film directed by Mamoru Oshii. In the movie, in an alternate history setting, wars are now waged by the Rostock and Lautern corporations as spectacle. The combatants in their live-fire engagements are Kildren, genetically engineered ageless child soldiers. Nobody ever wins, nobody ever can win. There's a legend on the battlefield that somewhere in the sky is a plane with a black wildcat on its nose, piloted by the only adult man still in active duty. Sometimes some poor kid leaves the fight to try and be the one to take the man down, but nobody even comes close. It is implied that in Innocent Aces, you play as that very man in his younger years, just as Rostock starts making the switch to test-tube babies.
The presentation of the game is quite striking. In the post-mission rundown, the paths of all planes, friend and foe, are traced through the sky as red and blue ribbons. Many levels feature large environmental setpieces, a city, a volcano, a castle. Once in a while between missions you'll be treated to anime cutscenes done by Production I.G. The soundtrack is excellent, the mission briefing and debriefing tracks stand out as particularly memorable.
I was initially a bit disappointed with the weapon selection compared to Ace Combat, but that was before I understood how to use "Tactical Maneuver Commands". If you stay within close range of an enemy for a short time, you'll start filling a gauge at the bottom of the screen. Once it fills up enough, you'll be able to execute various scripted motions with a single button press that will automatically align your plane for a perfect shot. It's somewhere between the movement capabilities of Sonic's lightspeed dash and the Doomslayer's glory kills. It's very satisfying to be able to charge headfirst into a swarm of enemies, and once you've safely closed the gap, pick them off one-by-one with ease.
As you might expect with a Wii game, the controls can be an issue. While you can use a traditional controller (Classic Controller/Pro or Gamecube), it comes with some hiccups. The tutorial only teaches you how to play with the default control scheme, the remote and nunchuck. Not only are the button configurations so different between control types that you'll need to learn them yourself or consult the manual, many tutorials are actually impossible to complete with a standard gamepad because the fire button on gamepad is also the skip tutorial button. The controls are also simplified compared to typical Ace Combat fare, and while there is an "expert" mode meant to reimplement this, it puts yaw control on the D-pad meaning you'll need to use a left-hand claw grip if you want parity with the level of control you have in mainline games.
I played through the game with a Classic Controller Pro but I replayed the first few stages with motion controls out of curiosity; if nothing else, it was somewhat illuminating. For one thing, it all but confirmed my suspicion that the "Tactical Maneuvers" were a band-aid fix for how difficult it is to play with motion controls (though these moves are, perhaps accidentally, fun enough that I don't care). The motion controls are terrible. You move and aim with the nunchuck. Not the nunchuck's joystick, mind you, that would make too much sense. No, you move and aim, the most important gameplay functions of any flight combat game, using the nunchuck's motion sensor. When playing the game using the Classic Controller I sometimes found the controls to be over-sensitive, with small corrections requiring unusually subtle joystick movement. I now suspect that this is a side-effect of the nunchuck's limitations.
The game's pacing is excellent. Craft restrictions are introduced with a mission where you must use a poorly handling stealth plane to take pictures of enemy structures, and once fights break out at the end of the mission it's almost impossible to land a shot without using your TMC's. The very next mission limits the player instead to what it easily the most maneuverable plane yet. Some later missions require you to carefully regulate your speed, or navigate heavy wind currents. Even at their most challenging, straightforward air-to-air combat missions offer a breath of fresh air.
Aside from the controls, the most frustrating aspect of The Sky Crawlers is that even after playing the game and watching the movie I feel like I've still only seen too small a sliver of this world. We don't see much of what goes on outside of the battlefield, the newscasts, the bars, bowling alleys, and brothels near the bases. When we do get a glimpse into the lives of civilians in this world, they might sigh, they might slouch and stare out into the horizon, but they don't say anything. What do they think? What goes on in this world, who needs this war and why? Maybe the novels go deeper into this, but they're only available digitally and I've heard mixed things about their translation.
I've said before, only half joking, that the Wii only has about 5 good games. I still believe it has a weak library overall but I will at least admit it must surely have some hidden gems, but they are WELL hidden. As it was released in North America, Innocent Aces is a game absolutely terrified of telling you what it is. I think it's the earliest released game that I own that has a reversible sleeve; the US retail package features different artwork from any other region, making it look exactly like every other flight game on this system. A side effect of the Wii's reputation for being a "casual" console is that not only are traditional "hardcore" games fewer in number, but for the sake of marketability they are made to resemble their competition as much as possible. The only real hints as to the true nature of the game are the fact that it was published by Xseed, and that savvy enthusiasts might recognize that the aircraft on the box is like no plane in the real world. It is otherwise indistinguishable (at least, on the surface) from games like Blazing Angels, Heatseekers, or WWII Aces.
The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is an Ace Combat spinoff made as a tie-in for an anime film directed by Mamoru Oshii. In the movie, in an alternate history setting, wars are now waged by the Rostock and Lautern corporations as spectacle. The combatants in their live-fire engagements are Kildren, genetically engineered ageless child soldiers. Nobody ever wins, nobody ever can win. There's a legend on the battlefield that somewhere in the sky is a plane with a black wildcat on its nose, piloted by the only adult man still in active duty. Sometimes some poor kid leaves the fight to try and be the one to take the man down, but nobody even comes close. It is implied that in Innocent Aces, you play as that very man in his younger years, just as Rostock starts making the switch to test-tube babies.
The presentation of the game is quite striking. In the post-mission rundown, the paths of all planes, friend and foe, are traced through the sky as red and blue ribbons. Many levels feature large environmental setpieces, a city, a volcano, a castle. Once in a while between missions you'll be treated to anime cutscenes done by Production I.G. The soundtrack is excellent, the mission briefing and debriefing tracks stand out as particularly memorable.
I was initially a bit disappointed with the weapon selection compared to Ace Combat, but that was before I understood how to use "Tactical Maneuver Commands". If you stay within close range of an enemy for a short time, you'll start filling a gauge at the bottom of the screen. Once it fills up enough, you'll be able to execute various scripted motions with a single button press that will automatically align your plane for a perfect shot. It's somewhere between the movement capabilities of Sonic's lightspeed dash and the Doomslayer's glory kills. It's very satisfying to be able to charge headfirst into a swarm of enemies, and once you've safely closed the gap, pick them off one-by-one with ease.
As you might expect with a Wii game, the controls can be an issue. While you can use a traditional controller (Classic Controller/Pro or Gamecube), it comes with some hiccups. The tutorial only teaches you how to play with the default control scheme, the remote and nunchuck. Not only are the button configurations so different between control types that you'll need to learn them yourself or consult the manual, many tutorials are actually impossible to complete with a standard gamepad because the fire button on gamepad is also the skip tutorial button. The controls are also simplified compared to typical Ace Combat fare, and while there is an "expert" mode meant to reimplement this, it puts yaw control on the D-pad meaning you'll need to use a left-hand claw grip if you want parity with the level of control you have in mainline games.
I played through the game with a Classic Controller Pro but I replayed the first few stages with motion controls out of curiosity; if nothing else, it was somewhat illuminating. For one thing, it all but confirmed my suspicion that the "Tactical Maneuvers" were a band-aid fix for how difficult it is to play with motion controls (though these moves are, perhaps accidentally, fun enough that I don't care). The motion controls are terrible. You move and aim with the nunchuck. Not the nunchuck's joystick, mind you, that would make too much sense. No, you move and aim, the most important gameplay functions of any flight combat game, using the nunchuck's motion sensor. When playing the game using the Classic Controller I sometimes found the controls to be over-sensitive, with small corrections requiring unusually subtle joystick movement. I now suspect that this is a side-effect of the nunchuck's limitations.
The game's pacing is excellent. Craft restrictions are introduced with a mission where you must use a poorly handling stealth plane to take pictures of enemy structures, and once fights break out at the end of the mission it's almost impossible to land a shot without using your TMC's. The very next mission limits the player instead to what it easily the most maneuverable plane yet. Some later missions require you to carefully regulate your speed, or navigate heavy wind currents. Even at their most challenging, straightforward air-to-air combat missions offer a breath of fresh air.
Aside from the controls, the most frustrating aspect of The Sky Crawlers is that even after playing the game and watching the movie I feel like I've still only seen too small a sliver of this world. We don't see much of what goes on outside of the battlefield, the newscasts, the bars, bowling alleys, and brothels near the bases. When we do get a glimpse into the lives of civilians in this world, they might sigh, they might slouch and stare out into the horizon, but they don't say anything. What do they think? What goes on in this world, who needs this war and why? Maybe the novels go deeper into this, but they're only available digitally and I've heard mixed things about their translation.
Such an a beautiful and amazing game. Peak fiction.
The Sky Crawlers de Mamoru Oshii es una obra inteligente que habla sobre la perpetua necesidad del ser humano por conflicto para validar y medir su paz, y el daño psicológico que esto termina significando para los implicados, todo visto desde la perspectiva de seres genéticamente modificados para servir a una guerra artificial, quienes solo pueden encontrar su fin en medio del combate... mientras que esta precuela hecha videojuego tira todo eso por la basura para presentarte un drama básico y predecible que llega a ser contradictorio con el criticismo de la obra original.
Tengo mucha experiencia con las obras de Project Aces y puedo decir sin lugar a dudas que la propuesta tenia bastante potencial. Ace Combat ya tiene en su repertorio dos obras (AC3 y AC Zero) que conectan inteligentes narrativas sobre la guerra con una jugabilidad atrapante que resulta armónica con su trama, por lo que sinceramente no puedo entender como Innocent Aces terminó de esta manera... pero vamos por partes. La trama ignora completamente la razón temática por la que los Kildred existen en este universo, y esto se debe a que esta ya no es una historia sobre conflictos internos, si no una más directa, con villanos unidimensionales (que solo por su diseño ya sabes que son malos) y personajes con motivaciones simples como el obtener poder, o cosas ridículas como "divertirse", lo que no van nada acorde al cinismo del trabajo original, todo esto resulta en una historia sencilla e infantil, que se va bien a la mierda cuando sabes que esta es una precuela de una obra diametralmente opuesta en contenido y temática. Lo único ligeramente interesante de todo esto fueron las implicaciones de lo que terminarían por volverse los personajes de Lynx y Orishina para la película, y hasta en eso tiene sus detalles cuestionables.
Por el lado jugable, es la base para Assault Horizon Legacy, puesto que tiene las maniobras que el mencionado juego terminaría heredando pero con algunas cosas mejor llevadas: las maniobras ofensivas son exactamente iguales salvo que aquí tienes un nivel más de carga... lo que realmente no cambia el combate, solo vas a tener que fijar al enemigo por un poco más de tiempo si quieres algo preciso, pero por otro lado, las maniobras defensivas son más interesantes, puesto que ahora son totalmente manuales (gracias a dios), lo que si crea cierto nivel de estrategia a las batallas, aunque tiene el problema de que todas, excepto dos, hacen prácticamente lo mismo, por lo que técnicamente solo cuentas con dos habilidades defensivas, pero bueno, es mejor a los QTEs de AHL. Otra queja es que los aviones se sienten poco responsivos de momentos, estos se mueven, nivelan y caen de formas poco vistas en la franquicia de AC, claro que esto es justificado por la narrativa y el ambiente (el viento juega un rol importante) hasta cierto punto... pero luego miras la película y los aviones pueden realizar maniobras super elaboradas que si calzan en cualquier otro juego de AC, mientras que aquí, si osas poner a tu avión de cabeza prepárate para lo peor.
En general, encuentro a esta obra un claro ejemplo de potencial desperdiciado, había tanto que se podía haber hecho si tan solo Project Aces hubiese recordado los tremendos trabajos que su franquicia había logrado anteriormente, tal vez fue el hecho de que es para la Wii y querían apelar a un publico diferente, pero eso no importa para este punto, esta es un obra deficiente para la franquicia de AC y para la IP de The Sky Crawlers, solo quédense con la película o jueguen AC3 y Zero, encontraran una historia más madura y elementos más congruentes en cualquiera de esos títulos.
Tengo mucha experiencia con las obras de Project Aces y puedo decir sin lugar a dudas que la propuesta tenia bastante potencial. Ace Combat ya tiene en su repertorio dos obras (AC3 y AC Zero) que conectan inteligentes narrativas sobre la guerra con una jugabilidad atrapante que resulta armónica con su trama, por lo que sinceramente no puedo entender como Innocent Aces terminó de esta manera... pero vamos por partes. La trama ignora completamente la razón temática por la que los Kildred existen en este universo, y esto se debe a que esta ya no es una historia sobre conflictos internos, si no una más directa, con villanos unidimensionales (que solo por su diseño ya sabes que son malos) y personajes con motivaciones simples como el obtener poder, o cosas ridículas como "divertirse", lo que no van nada acorde al cinismo del trabajo original, todo esto resulta en una historia sencilla e infantil, que se va bien a la mierda cuando sabes que esta es una precuela de una obra diametralmente opuesta en contenido y temática. Lo único ligeramente interesante de todo esto fueron las implicaciones de lo que terminarían por volverse los personajes de Lynx y Orishina para la película, y hasta en eso tiene sus detalles cuestionables.
Por el lado jugable, es la base para Assault Horizon Legacy, puesto que tiene las maniobras que el mencionado juego terminaría heredando pero con algunas cosas mejor llevadas: las maniobras ofensivas son exactamente iguales salvo que aquí tienes un nivel más de carga... lo que realmente no cambia el combate, solo vas a tener que fijar al enemigo por un poco más de tiempo si quieres algo preciso, pero por otro lado, las maniobras defensivas son más interesantes, puesto que ahora son totalmente manuales (gracias a dios), lo que si crea cierto nivel de estrategia a las batallas, aunque tiene el problema de que todas, excepto dos, hacen prácticamente lo mismo, por lo que técnicamente solo cuentas con dos habilidades defensivas, pero bueno, es mejor a los QTEs de AHL. Otra queja es que los aviones se sienten poco responsivos de momentos, estos se mueven, nivelan y caen de formas poco vistas en la franquicia de AC, claro que esto es justificado por la narrativa y el ambiente (el viento juega un rol importante) hasta cierto punto... pero luego miras la película y los aviones pueden realizar maniobras super elaboradas que si calzan en cualquier otro juego de AC, mientras que aquí, si osas poner a tu avión de cabeza prepárate para lo peor.
En general, encuentro a esta obra un claro ejemplo de potencial desperdiciado, había tanto que se podía haber hecho si tan solo Project Aces hubiese recordado los tremendos trabajos que su franquicia había logrado anteriormente, tal vez fue el hecho de que es para la Wii y querían apelar a un publico diferente, pero eso no importa para este punto, esta es un obra deficiente para la franquicia de AC y para la IP de The Sky Crawlers, solo quédense con la película o jueguen AC3 y Zero, encontraran una historia más madura y elementos más congruentes en cualquiera de esos títulos.