The sky. Mankind assailed itself against the wall of the cerulean canopy for centuries, until two bicycle-making brothers from Ohio managed to chuck a self-powered plane off Kitty Hawk over a century ago. Since then, our race has found itself enamored of flight, making ever bigger and brighter planes-- some to carry passengers and some as weapons of war. The image of a fighter pilot in World War I was a dashing, almost reckless daredevil who fought not only the enemy, but the caprice of the winds and air itself. It's interesting to note how many games have taken a look at the world through the crosshairs of a Sopwith Camel. I can guarantee you, though, that none have done so as stylishly-- and spottily-- as SkyGunner.
I suppose it's unfair to consider SkyGunner a WWI fighter simulation, as the setting of the game is cute and certainly distanced from the War to End All Wars. Rather than re-enacting that conflict, the game instead uses elements of early twentieth-century Europe in its style and environments. You play as one of a handful of pilots, known as Gunners, assigned to the protection of the town of Rive as a massive World's Fair-type exposition. The hitch is that during this event, a perpetual-motion machine known as the Eternal Engine is to be revealed, and criminal mastermind Ventre has made no secret of his intent to possess the device. To accomplish this he has at his disposal a nearly infinite number of baddie-drones called Poulets, who exist only to serve him (and occasionally do something silly). Your task, obviously, is to fend off Ventre's assaults and either protect the Eternal Engine or take Ventre down.
There's very little wrong with the game visually. Character and ship models are detailed and adequate for the task at hand, and the story is progressed through still-motion hand-drawn cutscenes and voice acting. So you'll find yourself able to pick out every accoutrement shown on your chosen character, from his head to his tail (all the characters in the game have tails for some reason, while looking otherwise human).
As far as the gameplay goes, it's a standard free-form aerial battle not unlike the "duel" scenes in Star Fox. The camera normally shows you in relation to your current target, so it can be disconcerting to note that your plane isn't facing the enemy, and thus you're not shooting at him but off into space somewhere. You can also set the camera to a tail view, but changing your target causes the camera to switch back. Rather than give you a hard-and-fast energy meter, your plane instead has a balance gauge. Taking hits or using certain special weapons causes your plane to become off-balance. If your plane becomes too tipsy, you will enter an uncontrolled dive, and to recover you must mash buttons. Failure to recover in time means game over, while a recovery puts you back in action. The number of button hits required to recover increases after each successful recovery, though, so don't think you have unlimited lives.
You can initially select from two characters on your first play. Depending on which character you choose, your plane will have differing abilities and special weapons. For example, Femme's plane has the ability to instantly face whatever enemy she wants to take out next, while Ciel's plane can hover in mid-air momentarily. You also have a temperature gauge on your plane, which increases as you fire your special weapons or utilize your plane's special ability. If you overheat, you will be relegated to using your basic machine gun until the engine cools. Nothing in life is free, though-- while you gain money (points) for shooting down enemies in creative ways such as combos and chains, you lose it every time you take a hit, lose your balance, fire your guns, or utilize a special weapon. Additionally the game ranks you at the end of each mission according to your accumulated money. It takes a few runs through the game to fully understand the scoring system, but eventually you'll be able to reach to top rankings and unlock new features.
As I said, though, nothing in life is free. At first blush, the graphics are stellar and provide an excellent incentive to keep playing, but once you get into a heavy firefight, you'll occasionally notice some intense slowdown, particularly when using the "fireworks" (chain bomb) special weapon. An option exists to lock the framerate at a lower level, thus reducing the slowdown, but that isn't available until you unlock it by completing the game with one of the unlockable characters-- meaning, after you've played through it two times with spotty performance. There's also a code to unlock it, but that's not the point. The game plain and simple needed more time for optimization, or it should have been locked at the lower framerate by default. (For those of you too lazy to look it up, the code, according to GameFAQs, is Up, Triangle, Left, Circle, Down, X, Right, Square entered at the title screen. Once it's unlocked, save and it will be unlocked for good.) Moreover, the game's uneven difficulty level makes it a rough ride-- some missions are straightforward, while others are perplexing to the point of obnoxiousness. If you do decide to tough it out, though, there's plenty of action to be had in unlocking the three extra characters and various game modes.
In terms of sound the game has a very light-hearted musical score, which fits with the game's anime-inspired charm. Players are given the option of using the original Japanese voice acting or the English dubbed track, making the game palatable to folks who prefer their voices either way. Sound effects and voices are all right-- certainly nothing memorable or amazing, but not detrimental either.
SkyGunner has a lot going for it, but it suffers greatly from being in the lineage of the great pioneers of the genre, specifically Wing Commander and Star Fox. There's no doubt it's a fun game-- after all, who doesn't like hopping in a plane and making a rain of lead-- but its flaws make it a bit inaccessible to someone new to the style of play. All in all, if you can find the game (it's a bit hard to come by as Atlus stopped production on it shortly after its release), it's worth a rental at least.
