(Played on PlayStation 4)

Vertical shooting fun

Vertical shooters are really fun games, they have easy to learn controls and the action is satisfying. Vertical shooters can also be quite addictive. What starts as a simple ten minute session can turn into an hour in no time. Sky Force Anniversary is a remake of the 2004 mobile game developed by Infinite Dreams. Infinite Dreams have given Sky Force the HD treatment and thus it looks more up to date. Is it fun? Is it addictive? The answer to both of those questions is a resounding yes.

Let’s start off with the graphics which are pretty good. Your ship looks great and even though the game has a top-down view, the detail on the ship is commendable. The colour is rich and vibrant it really stands out, you can’t miss your ship. The environments you’ll come across during the levels are lovely to look at, albeit the beautiful scenery will be the last thing on your mind.

The controls are incredibly simple and you’ll learn them as soon as you pick it up. You only have two controls at the beginning but as you upgrade up your ship more buttons are used however, the controls remain incredibly simple.

As mentioned previously, you can upgrade your ship from just having a basic cannon to becoming a war machine. You upgrade your jet by collecting stars which can be collected throughout the levels by defeating enemies or by shooting boxes. You can upgrade your ship’s health, the damage each of each weapon and buy new weapons for you to use. Upgrading your ship adds replayability to the game, as you’ll need to need to replay levels multiple times to get enough stars to upgrade your equipment. This does bring in an element of grinding which normally wouldn’t be a problem but there are only nine levels and seeing the same level, over and over can put some people off.

As just mentioned Sky Force Anniversary has nine levels which is a rather small amount but in order to access levels you need to earn a number of medals. Medals are earned whilst playing through missions. Each mission has four objectives and completing each one will reward you with a medal. Complete all four objectives for a level and you’ll unlock a higher difficulty for that level. Unfortunately the objectives remain the same for each increase in difficulty. It’s also a shame that each mission has the same objectives with the exception of mission five. The game would’ve benefitted from each mission having different objectives, it would help keep things fresh and stop the game getting less repetitive. All the bad points about the missions aside, they are a lot of fun to play and taking down the bosses is pleasing.

There is a ‘tournament’ stage which from what I’ve played is an endless mode to get the highest score. You can earn stars here so it is a way of farming so you can upgrade your ship.

Sky Force Anniversary does have a story but it’s nothing memorable. It feels tacked on and feels like it is only there to give the enemies and bosses some substance. The villain of Sky Force Anniversary is General who shot down a good pilot and now it’s up to you to cut through the General’s forces and take him down.

The game features a co-op element so people can play with a friend. There’s no online co-op which is a shame but it’s no big deal. However Sky Force does have local co-op so if you have a friend over, you can play the game together. Co-op is really fun and you’ll probably end up shouting at your friend for stealing your kill.

The music is cool and rather catchy if I say so myself. The main menu theme is really funky and the same applies to the music during the missions. You will end up hearing the same music often as you have to replay levels but it isn’t a big negative as the music is good. However I would’ve liked the game to have had more music.

Sky Force Anniversary isn’t perfect but it excels in two areas, being very addictive and incredibly fun. When I first played the game I thought I was only going to play it for half an hour. Four hours later and I was still playing it, I was consumed by it. The next day I played it again for a couple of hours, shooting down enemies and upgrading my ship. I couldn’t get enough of it. Add co-op to the mix and I was thoroughly addicted to it.

Sky Force Anniversary is a lot fun and you’ll be going back to it every so often just because it’s a really fun way to pass the time. The game is £7.99 on the PS Store and the amount of fun on offer at that price is a steal.

 

Score – 8/10

(I played this game for around 12 hours on PlayStation 4. I got the game whilst it was on Free Games for PS Plus)

 

I played this game on PS4 but I think it would be right at home on a portable console, luckily the game is also available on the PS Vita as well. This game would be great for the Nintendo Switch and it wouldn’t surprise me if it ends up on the system in the future.

Sky Force Anniversary is available on: PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox One and PC.

 

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