thought i'd wrap up my thoughts on the wii u version now that i've beaten it completely (well... not completely, but i've seen the credits at least - there are still more secrets and the like).
rodea the sky soldier for wii u is probably the worst-reviewed game i've ever legitimately enjoyed. it used to be stuff like sonic and the secret rings which i actually thought was more flawed but was able to forgive it for its experimental nature and sega trying something new. i think here kadokawa also tries something new, but mechanically it all tends to work out fairly well.
controlling rodea was an issue for me for about 10 minutes, and then i understood what i was supposed to be doing. i understood that the a button doesn't make you go any faster if you push it again (the b button eventually does that). i got that you can't actually move rodea in the sky with the control stick (something i think would have been a nightmare), and that generally the game is slower-paced and built more around exploration. this allows for bigger levels that tease you with more goodies and secrets perhaps just out of reach and encourages upgrading and replaying levels. more on that later.
but the controls never bothered me. it was easy to point to where i wanted to go and then select where i wanted to go. if i ever needed to change direction, i could just move the left stick and push 'a' again and hold 'b' to go faster. eventually, i got in the habit of pushing the a button and immediately following it up with the b button, which made chaining attacks and moving through the level a lot more fun. and instead of double-tapping the a button, i eventually used the y button's 'fast rise' move, which made it easier to survey the level and determine where i would fly next. running around on the ground, which is not encouraged for progression, isn't difficult, with the left stick controlling rodea and the a button allowing him to jump. the gunplay, if it can be called that, is the weakest part of the controls, with the gun and later the visor attached to the x button, which was never as important or useful as the dash boost, except against certain enemies. eventually though, i could play the game with ease and felt like i understood subtle movements to the stick to move the cursor were necessary. sometimes the camera could be wonky, but the right stick allowed for easy camera control at least, and the game gives you the option to center the camera behind rodea by swiping on the touch screen.
the level design was generally pretty solid and this is where the game actually shines. kadokawa obviously owes a lot to yuji naka here - even the first actual level is sort of classic game design in how it teaches the player how to move around obstacles, with strategically placed structures and no enemies to kill the player. objectives vary per level, but they don't seem out of place. it never gets to that point where it was like sonic lost world and it felt like i was playing several levels within the same level. there are some occasional problems with some levels - occasionally there will be one where wind pushes you around, which is frustrating and comes across as unfair. you might also have to complete a certain amount of enemies before proceeding in an area. this isn't hard to do, but i've never been a big fan of it. fortunately, these elements are kept to a minimum, and most of the objectives involve simply from getting from point a to point b, in classic platformer fashion. the game mixes up locales to keep things interesting, and introduce some new enemies. occasionally there will be more than one way to a certain destination, and depending on what you have equipped, you can try out the fast way or a longer more risky path.
the game mechanics revolve around being able to stay airborne. one of the neat things in this version of the game is that if it's a solid object, you can fly towards it. as stated before, the game teases you with far-off places. these house special enemies that reward the player with legacy medals or gear parts. there are 5 bronze, 3 silver, and 1 gold legacy medal in 23 of the game's 25 stages, and collecting them unlocks extra skins, new music, first-person mode, and other goodies. collecting gear parts upgrades rodea himself and the ion wave, a ship main female protagonist pilots (however these changes to the ion wave seem purely cosmetic and only affect the inside of the ion wave). upgrading rodea is extremely helpful. in normal gameplay, he has a flight meter and a health bar, as well as different equipment and moves. you can increase the damage he deals to enemies, how fast he moves through the sky, the rate of fire and amount of ammo his gun has, the amount he can lock onto at once with his visor, and more using these gear parts. this further helps in exploration by allowing rodea to get to those far-off places more easily than before. for those who enjoy speedrunning, it can also help with a better time at the end of a level, as each level tracks the stats and ranks your play time, amount of combos, graviton chains, and gravitons collected with a rating as low as a 'c' and as high as an 's'.
as aforementioned, rodea has a flight meter which determines how long he can stay in the air. this flight meter is refilled in a couple of ways. the easiest is to simply land on the ground. in fact, touching any sort of solid geometry that isn't an enemy will refill his flight meter. you can also collect gravitons. gravitons refill rodea's flight meter in air, encouraging the player to stay in the air as long as possible by finding the next chain forward, otherwise they will be forced to land, fall to the ground, or fall to their death (if they're not above the ground). collecting 50 gravitons allows rodea to enter a special attack mode that targets all enemies in a nearby area. collection 100 gravitons grants rodea an extra life. and no matter what, your graviton count is a reserve flight meter. once you run out of your standard one, they fuel rodea for an extra amount of time. if you have 200 of them, that's about 5 more seconds of flight time that you didn't have otherwise, giving you an extra boost to reach that next platform or kick off some landmass to refill your meter more fully.
it's a forgiving system in that jumping off a landmass doesn't mean instant death. falling into air is quickly corrected by finding something to fly towards, or pushing the y button to fast rise. there are also checkpoints spread out rather generously throughout the levels, and the game auto-saves after every level. the only way you would have to replay a level from scratch is if you had a game over or if you started it again yourself.
on the downside, i noticed a couple of glitches. the most annoying and prevalent one would be locking onto an enemy and holding 'b' to boost into them, but rodea would occasionally circle around them until his flight meter would run out. the visor attack was even worse. you can at least let go of the boost, but with the visor attack, you are locked into your target until rodea runs out of flight time and has to fall if he doesn't reach it. this is especially annoying when he can't quite reach the target and instead rolls around in circles around it. another weird glitch was late in the game where i was inexplicably sent back to a previous part of the level, and shot forward in a blue tube. when i would try to land, i would start back at the blue tube, entering into a neverending loop that made no sense. thankfully, this only occurred once in my several playthroughs of that level.
also, the presentation is lacking. this is pretty obvious from the fact that it's a 3ds game ported to the wii u. kadokawa tried correcting this by putting a sort of valkyria chronicles-esque filter on everything, but the colors are still pretty washed out. what the wii u version really needed was a saturation boost, as i think even the 3ds version looks more vibrant than the wii u version. the standout in the presentation department is the music, which is nothing terrific, but gets the job done and can be catchy at times. the story is pretty weird and clunky though, and i wasn't a fan of any cutscene in particular except for one that looked like it was drawn with crayon. this part makes the whole plot of the game worth it in how sudden and severe the switch is, coupled with perfect voice acting for the flighty sonia and the overdramatic rylus. consistently the best part of the story is the banter between ion and rodea though, which happens during gameplay and can be fun and charming, which harkens back to 2012's waking nightmare, kid icarus: uprising (where banter in-game was also a highlight). ion is the real star of the show, who is fun and goofy, but good at what she does and helpful as well. after some weird sonic the hedgehog games, i'm glad that there is no love story in this game whatsoever (or at least anything that isn't platonic).
in the end i really liked rodea the sky soldier for wii u. it's not an amazing game, but i enjoyed my time with it and then some, to the point where i was replaying levels after i'd beaten the game to level rodea up more, find more legacy pieces, and keep exploring what was out there.
