A 3DS Mess – Rodea The Sky Soldier Review

<p><em>Rodea The Sky Soldier<&sol;em> had a crazy development cycle&period; Yuji Naka finished his new game back in 2011&comma; but for some reason Kadokawa Games did not localize it&period; Time has since passed&comma; and the game has finally seen a release on three Nintendo platforms&colon; The Wii U&comma; Wii&comma; and 3DS&period; I decided to try out the 3DS version&comma; as I was curious to see how the game holds up on a portable console&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Rodea The Sky Soldier<&sol;em> is about a robot&comma; aptly named Rodea&comma; and his struggles to save the floating kingdom of Garuda from the Naga Empire&period; When the story begins&comma; we witness the Naga Empire attacking Garuda&period; A princess by the name of Cecilia is trying to flee to Garuda alongside Rodea&comma; with an artifact called the Key of Time that the Naga Empire wants&period; Things go wrong&comma; Cecilia teleports Rodea to Garuda with one half of the Key to stop the invasion&comma; and 1000 years later Rodea is awoken by Ion the mechanic&period; Even though the base story setup is as simple as it gets&comma; the story and characters in the game are one of its stronger points&period; I personally enjoyed the character design&comma; and some of the more RPG-ish humor that the game sports is pretty fun&period; It does not reinvent storytelling in any way&comma; but this is one of those games that works well with sticking to what&&num;8217&semi;s already known&comma; story-wise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;95442" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-95442" style&equals;"width&colon; 428px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;11&sol;04110555&sol;rodea&lowbar;the&lowbar;sky&lowbar;soldier&lowbar;bagogames&lowbar;4&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"wp-image-95442 " src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;11&sol;04110555&sol;rodea&lowbar;the&lowbar;sky&lowbar;soldier&lowbar;bagogames&lowbar;4&period;jpg" alt&equals;"rodea the sky soldier" width&equals;"428" height&equals;"513" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-95442" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Rodea The Sky Solider&comma; NIS America&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Right after Ion meets Rodea&comma; the first level starts&period; As I took my first baby steps as Rodea the robot&comma; the first thing I noticed was the horrible framerate&period; It does not matter if you play with 3D on or off&comma; the 3DS version of <em>Rodea The Sky Soldier<&sol;em> has framerate issues from start to finish&period; This really poses a problem&comma; since it makes it harder to time and pull off the moves that each level in the game demands from the player&period; The second thing I notice is that the graphics look bad on the 3DS&period; Textures look drab and stretched&comma; and the character models resemble something I would see in an early PS2 title but with better animations&period; I am not a graphics nerd&comma; however&comma; and I have nothing against older looking games&comma; so I could have accepted that the game holds back in this area if the frame rate issues were not constantly present&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rodea can run and fly in all directions in the game&&num;8217&semi;s many stages&period; He also has a homing attack at his disposal that feels really satisfying to use &&num;8212&semi; When it works&period; All too often does this goes wrong&comma; however&comma; as the game will select a target further from the closest target&comma; or it makes Rodea go past his target if you start attacking too close to them&period; This is a huge problem&comma; since the player has very little control over the camera angles&period; The action in <em>Rodea The Sky Soldier<&sol;em> is fast and furious&comma; and as long as the camera stays behind Rodea&comma; it all works fine&period; More often than not&comma; however&comma; I found that the camera points in one direction while I want to go in another&period; This holds true even when I used the game&&num;8217&semi;s lock-on targeting mechanic&period; It does not help that the camera also points down towards the ground ever so slightly when you stand still&period; You can turn on gyro controls while airborne&comma; but that does not work well either&comma; since the camera in the game never feels truly analog&period; Had these problems not existed&comma; the action would have felt pretty nice&comma; but as things are now&comma; it all feels clunky&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;95440" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-95440" style&equals;"width&colon; 414px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;11&sol;04110613&sol;rodea&lowbar;the&lowbar;sky&lowbar;soldier&lowbar;bagogames&lowbar;2&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"wp-image-95440 " src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;11&sol;04110613&sol;rodea&lowbar;the&lowbar;sky&lowbar;soldier&lowbar;bagogames&lowbar;2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"rodea the sky soldier bagogames" width&equals;"414" height&equals;"497" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-95440" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Rodea The Sky Solider&comma; NIS America&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>One would think that the mini-map would help you keep track of enemies and such when the camera is of the mark&comma; but as the action is often very fast&comma; keeping track of the small dots on the map while navigating through the air becomes difficult&period; Other then that&comma; the HUD shows information such as energy and lives without being too intrusive&period; You can also use the lower screen of the 3DS to decide which weapon to equip by tapping the corresponding icons&period; This is nice&comma; as it keeps the main screen unoccupied with unnecessary weapon icons and such&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When <em>Rodea The Sky Soldier&&num;8217&semi;s<&sol;em> controls and camera work&comma; it is really fun to smash enemies and explore the world&period; It is just too bad that the game is plagued by frame rate issues and bad controls that make Rodea feel stale as well as uncontrollable&period; The bad graphics are not even comparable to the Wii and Wii-U versions&comma; and it is painfully obvious that it was not meant to exist on the Nintendo 3DS from the beginning&period; I do see a good game hidden beneath this port&&num;8217&semi;s shoddy surface&comma; however&comma; and I can easily imagine that the it plays better with a Wii-mote in hand&period; So&comma; I might try the other versions of the game to find out how they hold up&comma; and I would give the same advice to anyone that wants to give <em>Rodea The Sky Soldier<&sol;em> a go&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A 3DS code for Rodea The Sky Soldier was provided by NIS America for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;