Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire PC Review
Summary: A loving homage to classics RPGs like Skies of Arcadia that modestly succeeds at what it's trying to do. With a little more time and work, it could be great.
3.3
Occasional turbulence
It’s not uncommon for games to wear their influences on their sleeve. Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, is a traditional, turn-based, RPG that proudly shows off those influences, namely the Dreamcast and GameCube classic, Skies of Arcadia. Everything from the visual style to the theming is a loving homage to the beloved RPG.
Players pilot Glenn Windwalker, a newly graduated pilot from the town of Blossom as he assembles his team of aces to take on the Alliance, a group that threatens his family, and the world as a whole.
Gameplay in Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire takes place across three fronts. On-foot sections take up a large percentage of what’s going on. Glenn and his companions roam around the various towns and villages that float high in the air. Much of the story takes place here, it’s a standard take on RPG progression. Talk to people to uncover quests and take on objectives, each one moving the story on in some manner.
Occasionally, your team takes to the skies. Here much of the game’s exploration takes place. In control of Glenn’s jet, players can navigate these mini-open sections, finding secrets and engaging in combat with the enemies that are scattered around each map.
Once an enemy has been engaged (or engages you!) things shift again, this time to a turn-based combat system. It’s a similar setup to Final Fantasy X or Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. Each turn plays out in a specific order, handily represented on screen with portraits of all entities in a battle. Using this knowledge of who goes when, it’s possible to strategise, making key decisions to swing the battle in your favour. Each character queues up an action, be it an attack, one of many special abilities called ‘Arts’, or using an item. Once the queue is full, hit confirm, and the turn plays out.
As far as turn-based combat goes, it isn’t doing anything new, but it doesn’t have to. It’s a deep enough system with dozens of different abilities, each dealing out a multitude of status effects, both positive and negative, that affect the player and enemies alike. Strategy comes from combining these effects along with making the best use of the turn order system to outfox your opponents.
Being entirely air combat, Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire makes great use of dynamic cameras for when turns are playing out. Despite turn-based combat often feeling very stiff and static, this commitment to exaggerating the movements associated with flying goes a long way to making it feel a lot more fluid and dynamic. It can be very satisfying to watch a turn unfold, especially when making all the right decisions. As the story progresses, new pilots can be recruited and added to the roster of available aircraft, unlocking more strategic options for combat.
The vast majority of Sky Oceans is presented through text and animation, there’s very little in the way of voice acting. Most of what is here takes place during the aforementioned combat, often used to highlight a particular attack, or at the start of a turn.
These clips begin to repeat very quickly, even before the first couple of hours are up. It’s a shame because what’s there is well-voiced, there just needed to be more of it to keep the variety up. Sound in general is good, though. There’s some excellent music throughout, and during battles in particular.
The visual presentation is a little hit-and-miss. The combat looks great thanks to the array of animation, dynamic camera angles, and use of the game’s fantastic 2D character artwork. While on foot, however, it’s a little less impressive. The Steam store page claims that the visuals are Studio Ghibli-inspired, and I can see that’s what they’re going for.
In the occasional, fully animated cutscene, Octeto Studios nail it, but in terms of environment design during gameplay, I would say it missed the mark somewhat. Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire doesn’t look bad by any means, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s especially good-looking while on foot, either.
Final Thoughts?
All-in-all, Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is a decent enough RPG with an engaging story. It should run flawlessly on pretty much anything you can throw it at made in the last decade and there’s a demo available to try it out before committing to it.
Aside from one minor complaint that I had with the audio repetition, the only other gripe I have with the game is the camera while on foot. It follows the player character very rigidly, and as such even small movements translate to camera position changes, that after a while started to give me a headache.
This aside though, fans of classic RPGs, and Skies of Arcadia more specifically, might want to check this one out. It isn’t perfect, far from in fact, but there is stuff to love here if you can get past its flaws.
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