Rodea the Sky Soldier Review

**Becky** Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:29 pm

Rodea the Sky Soldier is the brainchild of Yuji Naka (creator of Sonic) and originally developed on Wii in 2010 by Probe, it wasn’t released however until 2015 with the Wii version being packaged in with a newly developed Wii U version by Kadokawa games.

There is a Wii U and 3DS version which are the same game only with the 3DS version having ever so slightly and I mean slightly worse graphics, but added 3D. There’s a reason for this, despite seeming like a rush job Kadokawa’s Rodea started its development on Wii and rather than remake the whole game it was ported to Wii U. Why Kadokawa games started remaking a finished game the creator of Sonic was happy with is beyond me.

The story did captivate me and found myself wanting to know about both Rodea’s past and what will happen next, at the start we are told of two continents that only connect ever 1000 years, one wants to invade the other and makes a key that can connect them. The princess steals it and teleports half of it away with her robot bodyguard Rodea. Rodea upset by his princess teleporting him away takes out his frustration on some sand, yes sand… This isn’t any old sand though, this sand is strong enough to break a robots arm.

Rodea is no match for sand

Rodea wakes up a 1000 years later after being found and fixed by a pre-pubescent girl called Ion as obviously in games only kids can save the day, convenient that it was a 1000 years later as now Rodea can save Garuda from the invading Naga forces.

Fans of Sonic and Nights into dreams will be reminded of one of the two series at almost all points of the game as it is a modern fusion of the two. Lives have been replaced with spares and rings with gravitons, rather than red coins to collect there are medals in each level.

The controls start off rather confusing, A is jump (but it takes so long to jump I actually forgot there was a jump button at one point), then you aim a reticule and press A to fly to it. Rather than controlling Rodea himself in the air you click his flight path and go on what often feels like a long haul flight. When flying you use flight energy which starts out very limited, once you’re out of juice gravitons are gobbled up quickly to carry on flying for you to look for somewhere to land.

Oh my so many gravitons (sorry I couldn't help myself, play Rodea and you'll see why)

The camera angle is sometimes Ninja Gaiden levels of bad so as you get used to the controls you’ll spend a lot of time crashing into and bouncing off the underneath of floating islands, all’s good though because sand, hard rock doesn’t damage you.

It appears odd that Rodea bounces off of almost everything. My conclusion is that most objects are made of bouncy castle. This is because bouncy castles are Rodea’s one weakness, as they disrupt his flight controls. For which the only cure is a long queue of people slapping Rodea in the face (a la Airplane). Alternatively when Rodea starts free falling after bouncing off something you can press Y which is meant to fly up into the air but has the added effect of Rodea regaining his composure. The real reason for this is that Rodea has to lock onto something to fly to such as a wall or enemy, he can’t just fly where ever he wants, no no no, that would be far too convenient.

Get a hold of yourself Rodea

Once you get used to the difficult control scheme it is a greatly enjoyable game with a nostalgic 3d platforming vibe and fairly vast levels that are fun to explore leaving you often forgetting what you were even supposed to be doing.

Levels end abruptly when you get remotely near the finish which makes collecting medals rather difficult when a medal is near the end, this I’m afraid isn’t the worst of the problems, on one level everything disappeared leaving Rodea to just fall to his doom. Some bosses are super glitchy, the first boss comically attacks an invincible Rodea whilst in a tutorial, another boss I got stuck inside their leg and then died.

Who needs legs when you’re a flying robot

On a positive note there’s plenty of replay value as you collect items for defeating enemies which give parts for permanent upgrades and get 4 separate ranks for each chapter one for time taken, gravitons collected, chain of gravitons and combo hits against enemies.

The graphics for a Wii U game are quite frankly, in most places, poor : that’s because this is a port of 3DS game essentially. On the upside there's a beautiful pencil drawn effect on some objects, generally darker coloured objects, if the whole game had this effect all over and more pronounced, it would be visually stunning.

Cut scenes are full motion video literally taken from the original Wii version so look pretty awful for a Wii U game and are completely out shone by the static 2d cut scenes in which the characters actually display a lot of personality.

I’m proud of looking like a Wii game

The voice acting is a bag of mixed opinions much like liquorice allsorts some love and some find it so annoying they want to shove a hedgehog in Ion’s mouth, personally I think the voice acting is great. The entire story is voice acted with some tidbits during levels as well which you can change the frequency of, a fantastic addition I've never seen before.

The sound effects are fine and very reminiscent of 3d platformers but you always know when enemies lock onto attack you as it makes a sound so annoying you have to take notice, which I suppose is good.

Rodea the Sky Soldier is a good, under rated game let down by some glitches, Wiiesque graphics and bad camera angles. To me it is better suited to the 3DS, where the graphics are actually fine and would look amazing on a new 3DS with the 3D turned up. It is just a shame Kadokawa games didn’t just upscale the original Wii version which is more colourful, faster paced and with better controls. If you have a chance to buy the launch edition that comes with the Wii version don’t hesitate because you won’t regret it. Once time is taken to get used to the nuances of the controls there is a lot of fun to be had with Rodea the Sky Soldier on Wii U or indeed 3DS, but I hope someday NIS bring the Wii version to virtual console.

7/10

Linkx111 Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:57 pm

This Game is painful to start, hard to get used to and even more painful to progress into.

But you can't stop playing it O.o

Now if only we could get the wii version pleeease.