"A licensed game from the developers of the Ace Combat series."

It’s very odd that I would seek out a licensed game based on a license I (at the time) had never heard of, but The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces had several things going for it. First off, the team behind the Wii exclusive flight game is Project Aces; developer of the highly regarded Ace Combat series.

Secondly, it boasted a unique and ambitious use of motion controls, which is something I’d like to support. And finally, the game retailed at the budget price of $30 on the day of release, though admittedly that could be taken as a strike against its predicted quality.

While Innocent Aces is based on the Sky Crawlers movie by Ghost in the Shell director, Mamoru Oshii, (which is actually based on a series of novels) it doesn’t tell the same story. Seeing as how there is very little combat in the movie, that is a good thing. Instead, the game is a prequel.

In The Sky Crawlers, wars are fought by companies for show in a peaceful, alternate history. There are also mysterious pilots called “Kildren” that never age past adolescence. But unlike the movie, Innocent Aces stars a normal adult pilot; a skilled rookie who later becomes Captain. In fact, the entire squad is devoid of Kildren until the new recruits show up, though that happens very early on.

The story is told in a combination of in-game radio dialogue, pre and post mission cutscenes using the game’s normal graphics, and fully animated cutscenes that actually look better than the movie. The slow drama storytelling of the film has been replaced with a faster paced tale of action and betrayal. The game’s plot ties in with the film in a very clever way, which makes me really wish that I had actually enjoyed the film (unfortunately, it wasn’t my cup of tea).

"The quality of the animated sequences rival that of the film."

The flow of the game follows a very rigid formula. You’ll go from story section to mission briefing to mission and back again until the games’ seventeen missions are over. You’ll get various planes, weapons, and paint jobs as you progress. You’ll also get upgrades to customize the planes, but this feature has so few options and makes so little statistical difference that I can’t help but wonder why they even bothered putting it in.

One of the biggest draws for me to pick up this game were the controls. The Wii Remote is held in your left hand, acting as the throttle. Pulling up on it will increase your speed. The nunchuck is held with the right hand. Instead of using the analogue stick to steer, you move the entire nunchuck around as if it were a joystick.

On paper this works great, but there are a few glaring flaws. For one, your motion control joystick has no base to connect to which can kill your wrist. Fortunately, this can be mostly remedied by firmly planting the Nunchuck against your leg. The problem that really ruins it, though, is the size of the Nunchuck’s nonadjustable deadzone. You simply have to move the Nunchuck too far before your plane will begin to react. This requires you to make exaggerated motions, completely removing any hope of precision flying.

These flaws are a real shame because, if they were absent, it would be a truly ingenious use of motion controls. Instead, I found myself often switching to the classic controller setup, effectively eliminating the game’s biggest draw.

By default, the control type is set for a more arcade experience with your roll and yaw linked together for easy turning. Unsurprisingly, the more limited movement this causes makes hunting down agile enemies difficult. There are two systems in place to combat this. For one, there are a large variety of shortcut maneuvers that can be performed by holding the stick in one direction and tapping a single button.

"Some landscapes, like these mountains, are much more interesting than others."

Alternatively, you can perform a Tactical Maneuver Command (TMC) by flying within a certain proximity of an enemy for an extended period of time which will place you behind them. How well you’re positioned is dependent on how long you were flying within their radius. In a large portion of the game, TMCs are essentially the “I Win” button. Later, enemies manage to not instantly die when you appear behind them, but you’ll still rely on them so much when fighting agile enemies that you’ll start to wish the game wasn’t so automatic.

If you’re like me, this is the point where you’ll attempt to master the advanced controls where roll, pitch, and yaw are controlled individually. This is also the point where you’ll find out that, although the option is there, no control scheme supports it well enough to use. Rather than mapping roll and yaw to two different analogue sticks, every control scheme uses the d-pad for yaw. That means that, when using the classic or GameCube controller, you will need to use the d-pad and left analogue stick simultaneously to effectively maneuver your plane. I’m not sure how many people in the world have the two left thumbs required to do this, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a low number.

Ultimately, it feels like the game can’t decide whether it wants to support arcade or simulation control, and fails at both as a result. It’s certainly playable, but rarely satisfying to steer your plane no matter which option you choose. Even while flying like a drunkard, you’ll probably rarely (if ever) die on the game’s normal setting. Even when attacking special artillery built into a fortress located on the side of a volcano, I never felt like I was truly in danger. The ground posed more of a threat to me than any enemy could ever hope to.

Innocent Aces‘ aesthetics are very mixed. The menus are ugly as sin and you can tell a lot of corners were cut in this area. To illustrate my point, no matter which controller you have plugged in, the Wii Remote and Nunchuck will be shown when attempting to change button layouts. On the other hand, you have beautifully drawn, fully animated cutscenes (and a surprising number of them) and the graphics, while a bit drab at times, are certainly passable.

In the end, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, while not a terrible game, is rather mediocre and largely forgettable. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect more of something that’s both a budget title and a licensed game, but given that it was handled by a well respected developer in the very genre they’re known for, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

Tags: Ace Combat, budget titles, Flight Games, licensed games, motion controls, Project Aces, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, Wii, XSEED

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.