I don't write many reviews so any constructive criticism is very welcome, or if you liked it you could leave me a compliment. Up to you really ha.
Project Sylpheed Review (Xbox 360)
Developed by Game Arts/SETA/Anima
Published by Square Enix/Microsoft Game Studios
Starring: Vic Mignogna, Kari Wahlgren, David Rasner.
June 2007
It?s June 2007, our lives are much simpler, games were much simpler, graphics were a hell of a lot simpler and Halo 3 hype was running high, back then only one space game mattered and it wasn?t even set in space! Out from nowhere like an asteroid in outerspace, no one noticed Project Sylpheed, sure it had a demo on Xbox Live but that was way back when the blades reigned supreme. The demo came with a tutorial and one epic space battle, it was a decent demo but nothing spectacular. Any hype surrounding this game at all was about the word Sylpheed a mis-spelled Silpheed from the 80?s and any hope of a shooter revival on the 360. Project Sylpheed wasn?t quite like it?s long lost uncle in the 80?s but more like another space shooter starring a certain Fox who tends to be in the Stars most of the time?.(Star Fox).
Once upon a time a young man named Katana Faraway (Mignogna), yes I know, was training in military school with his friends Ellen Bernstein (Wahlgren) and Margas Mason (Rasner), who I kept thinking was either named Marcus or Margret before I realised his real name, when Margas was evicted from Earth due to his alliance with an unfriendly nation and taken away from his friends. Sometime later Katana and Ellen had both finished military school and joined the Terra Central Armed Forces (or TCAF) in hopes of flying with their friend once more. A days training with Commander Raymond Logan (Dave Fennoy) turns nasty with an attack from ADAN forces and the start of a war between ADAN and TCAF. Claiming the TCAF were responsible for the destruction of their planet Acheron, ADAN Alliance begun to concoct a strategy of their own to deal with the Terran government. It?s all very predictable and basic stuff but the story and characters are enjoyable enough, even if sometimes the story stops making sense.
Project Sylpheed may have more in common with Star Fox than it does 80?s shooters but that?s not all, Project Sylpheed is actually more of a flight simulator than anything and because of that the controls are very awkward at first. It would be a huge mistake to overlook the big tutorial title three options down from start new game but you will need it, just to get to grips with the basics. Once you?ve got the basics firmly nailed into your head, which may take a few hours, the game is very solid and in fact the dogfights are really intense and fun and getting over the first hurdle you will find a lot of enjoyment from this title. The only problem is, the game gets very frustrating, very quickly, this is because of a few reasons. The first of which would be its ridiculous difficulty curve, some missions will be very easy and some will make you want to rip your hair out. This may or may not be helped by the second major problem and that is a lack of objective, the screen is so busy it?s hard to pinpoint who or what you should fighting or who?s about to unload on the ship you?re meant to protect and even who you?re meant to be protecting isn?t exactly explained very well, not to mention that the bonus objectives aren?t even shown to you until you actually complete them which means you have no idea what would make life easier for you until you do it. The biggest problem I have though, is that all missions are timed missions, only you aren?t told exactly how long you have left to fulfil an objective until it?s way too late. You have 24 fighters to shoot down, not so hard, until you get told you have 3 minutes left and you have 12 fighters still hanging around. Most of these problems become apparent the further you progress in the game though, a few missions where you have multiple objectives, none of which are pointed out to you, you can spend up to 15 minutes just flying around trying to kill a few really wiry targets only to hear your base has gone down or you have 3 minutes left, it?s utterly annoying. There is a ship customisation feature but you don?t get much out of it once you have some of the better weapons and I feel Game Arts and SETA really missed a trick here with the omission of a multiplayer, as I?ve said the fighting is so intense and fun that some form of online or offline multiplayer co-op and versus would have been a great idea and probably given some extra life to the game.
Square Enix have a lot of money behind them, so much so that I can only name 2 poor looking games on their budget in the last ten years, Sylpheed isn?t one of those games. First of all, everything in flight is beautiful, especially the missions set in atmosphere, all the colours look amazing and it?s just so busy that you can?t not be amazed by the pure effort put in just to show off the great engine behind this game, it?s just a shame that it?s so busy the engine can?t cope and sometimes you get a lot of slow down. So the space bits look amazing, the character models, not so much. Honestly most of the characters look terrible, Katana and Ellen look very standard but at least they don?t have the scary porcelain doll looks the Star Ocean characters have and Margras and Raymond Logan are very well designed characters but the rest just don?t have anything interesting going on with them, apart from one woman, who in one cutscene it seemed her hair had a mind of it?s own but I can?t even pretend that?s a good thing.
I?ll start with the most prominent sound and that?s the voice acting, Mignogna (Bleach/Full Metal Alchemist) isn?t particularly good and while I?m sure the script could have done with a touch up, his voice is still grating. Wahlgren (Dead or Alive/Devil May Cry 3) was a lot better and actually sounded human but wasn?t anything spectacular. Special mention again has to go to Rasner (Bleach/Final Fantasy XII) and Fennoy (Bayonetta/The Walking Dead: The Game) who both gave some pretty excellent performances with Fennoy having a few off moments in more emotional scenes. I?ve also gotta give some recognition to Johnny Yong Bosch (Mighty Morphin? Power Rangers/Bleach) and Crispin Freeman (Tales of Symphonia/Kingdom Hearts II) for being two of the best characters in the game despite not having any story moments and being restricted to radio chatter, come to think of it the radio chatter is actually quite good, though not very helpful. I do have to talk about the soundtrack because no matter how little you actually hear, when you do hear the music it?s wonderfully composed but that may just be what you get when you hire three people who have worked on multiple Final Fantasy games to do the soundtrack.
At the core we have a pretty excellent flight simulator with a pretty mediocre story and very nice graphics. If you?re into the Japanese gaming scene, especially anime-style games and want something new and very fun then this is probably the game for you. If however you like depth and great narrative in your games and aren?t too keen on flight simulators, you may find some love for main anti-villain Margras Mason but everything else will seem pretty lacklustre or get on your nerves
Overall: 6/10 - Fun, very enjoyable, solid game with few technical faults, it just has no magic to make it a truly thrilling game that meets it?s potential.
Project Sylpheed Review (Xbox 360)
Developed by Game Arts/SETA/Anima
Published by Square Enix/Microsoft Game Studios
Starring: Vic Mignogna, Kari Wahlgren, David Rasner.
June 2007
It?s June 2007, our lives are much simpler, games were much simpler, graphics were a hell of a lot simpler and Halo 3 hype was running high, back then only one space game mattered and it wasn?t even set in space! Out from nowhere like an asteroid in outerspace, no one noticed Project Sylpheed, sure it had a demo on Xbox Live but that was way back when the blades reigned supreme. The demo came with a tutorial and one epic space battle, it was a decent demo but nothing spectacular. Any hype surrounding this game at all was about the word Sylpheed a mis-spelled Silpheed from the 80?s and any hope of a shooter revival on the 360. Project Sylpheed wasn?t quite like it?s long lost uncle in the 80?s but more like another space shooter starring a certain Fox who tends to be in the Stars most of the time?.(Star Fox).
Once upon a time a young man named Katana Faraway (Mignogna), yes I know, was training in military school with his friends Ellen Bernstein (Wahlgren) and Margas Mason (Rasner), who I kept thinking was either named Marcus or Margret before I realised his real name, when Margas was evicted from Earth due to his alliance with an unfriendly nation and taken away from his friends. Sometime later Katana and Ellen had both finished military school and joined the Terra Central Armed Forces (or TCAF) in hopes of flying with their friend once more. A days training with Commander Raymond Logan (Dave Fennoy) turns nasty with an attack from ADAN forces and the start of a war between ADAN and TCAF. Claiming the TCAF were responsible for the destruction of their planet Acheron, ADAN Alliance begun to concoct a strategy of their own to deal with the Terran government. It?s all very predictable and basic stuff but the story and characters are enjoyable enough, even if sometimes the story stops making sense.
Project Sylpheed may have more in common with Star Fox than it does 80?s shooters but that?s not all, Project Sylpheed is actually more of a flight simulator than anything and because of that the controls are very awkward at first. It would be a huge mistake to overlook the big tutorial title three options down from start new game but you will need it, just to get to grips with the basics. Once you?ve got the basics firmly nailed into your head, which may take a few hours, the game is very solid and in fact the dogfights are really intense and fun and getting over the first hurdle you will find a lot of enjoyment from this title. The only problem is, the game gets very frustrating, very quickly, this is because of a few reasons. The first of which would be its ridiculous difficulty curve, some missions will be very easy and some will make you want to rip your hair out. This may or may not be helped by the second major problem and that is a lack of objective, the screen is so busy it?s hard to pinpoint who or what you should fighting or who?s about to unload on the ship you?re meant to protect and even who you?re meant to be protecting isn?t exactly explained very well, not to mention that the bonus objectives aren?t even shown to you until you actually complete them which means you have no idea what would make life easier for you until you do it. The biggest problem I have though, is that all missions are timed missions, only you aren?t told exactly how long you have left to fulfil an objective until it?s way too late. You have 24 fighters to shoot down, not so hard, until you get told you have 3 minutes left and you have 12 fighters still hanging around. Most of these problems become apparent the further you progress in the game though, a few missions where you have multiple objectives, none of which are pointed out to you, you can spend up to 15 minutes just flying around trying to kill a few really wiry targets only to hear your base has gone down or you have 3 minutes left, it?s utterly annoying. There is a ship customisation feature but you don?t get much out of it once you have some of the better weapons and I feel Game Arts and SETA really missed a trick here with the omission of a multiplayer, as I?ve said the fighting is so intense and fun that some form of online or offline multiplayer co-op and versus would have been a great idea and probably given some extra life to the game.
Square Enix have a lot of money behind them, so much so that I can only name 2 poor looking games on their budget in the last ten years, Sylpheed isn?t one of those games. First of all, everything in flight is beautiful, especially the missions set in atmosphere, all the colours look amazing and it?s just so busy that you can?t not be amazed by the pure effort put in just to show off the great engine behind this game, it?s just a shame that it?s so busy the engine can?t cope and sometimes you get a lot of slow down. So the space bits look amazing, the character models, not so much. Honestly most of the characters look terrible, Katana and Ellen look very standard but at least they don?t have the scary porcelain doll looks the Star Ocean characters have and Margras and Raymond Logan are very well designed characters but the rest just don?t have anything interesting going on with them, apart from one woman, who in one cutscene it seemed her hair had a mind of it?s own but I can?t even pretend that?s a good thing.
I?ll start with the most prominent sound and that?s the voice acting, Mignogna (Bleach/Full Metal Alchemist) isn?t particularly good and while I?m sure the script could have done with a touch up, his voice is still grating. Wahlgren (Dead or Alive/Devil May Cry 3) was a lot better and actually sounded human but wasn?t anything spectacular. Special mention again has to go to Rasner (Bleach/Final Fantasy XII) and Fennoy (Bayonetta/The Walking Dead: The Game) who both gave some pretty excellent performances with Fennoy having a few off moments in more emotional scenes. I?ve also gotta give some recognition to Johnny Yong Bosch (Mighty Morphin? Power Rangers/Bleach) and Crispin Freeman (Tales of Symphonia/Kingdom Hearts II) for being two of the best characters in the game despite not having any story moments and being restricted to radio chatter, come to think of it the radio chatter is actually quite good, though not very helpful. I do have to talk about the soundtrack because no matter how little you actually hear, when you do hear the music it?s wonderfully composed but that may just be what you get when you hire three people who have worked on multiple Final Fantasy games to do the soundtrack.
At the core we have a pretty excellent flight simulator with a pretty mediocre story and very nice graphics. If you?re into the Japanese gaming scene, especially anime-style games and want something new and very fun then this is probably the game for you. If however you like depth and great narrative in your games and aren?t too keen on flight simulators, you may find some love for main anti-villain Margras Mason but everything else will seem pretty lacklustre or get on your nerves
Overall: 6/10 - Fun, very enjoyable, solid game with few technical faults, it just has no magic to make it a truly thrilling game that meets it?s potential.