One of the pleasant surprises to show up at NIS America’s press event in San Francisco a couple weeks ago was their announcement that they’d be localizing Rodea the Sky Soldier, and that it would be coming out on both the Wii U and 3DS this fall.
We got our hands on the 3DS version, and as of right now there are quite a few rough edges.Rodea itself has been finished for quite a while, but it was never released as there was no publisher for this Wii exclusive. Now that NIS America has gained the publishing rights, the game is currently being upscaled on the Wii U, with a 3DS version in the works.
The in-air gameplay seem reminiscent to that of NiGHTS? That’s because Yuji Naka had his hand in development.
Headed by Yuji Naka of Sega fame with his visions portrayed in Nights into Dreams and the Sonic series, Rodea the Sky Solider is an action-adventure game very much in the mold of the aforementioned titles.
The game puts you in the shoes of Rodea, a former soldier born again as sort of a robot. Because everything was in Japanese, not much was understood during the introductory cutscene, but obviously evil has been waging a war, and it’s up to us to stop it.
When on foot, the game is essentially a hack and slash, but most of the game will be played in the air. Whether you’re just platforming or dealing with enemies in the sky, the game’s controls on the 3DS version have quite the learning curve.
Unfortunately the playable demo didn’t have us doing much aside from jumping around from point A to point B.
Despite Rodea’s title, he doesn’t have the ability to stay in the air for long, so you’ll have to do a lot of targeting at the ground to keep him from falling to his doom. When launching Rodea up in the air with X, you take control of a reticle that can be moved with the analog stick, using the A button to move Rodea forward. The B button allows Rodea to strike, while the Y button causes him to shoot projectiles.
To go with the game’s rather choppy controls, the levels made playable in the demo were also rather barren. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in terms of combat, and despite the rings and other things to collect in the sky, the bulk of each playable level was just jumping around from one side of the map to the other — which, believe it or not, was actually a lot harder than it sounded.
Rodea the Sky Soldier is due for a Q3 release, so here’s to hoping we see some improvement leading up to the game’s launch.
Title:
Rodea The Sky Soldier
Platform:
Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS
Publisher:
NIS America
Developer:
Prope
Genre:
Action
Release Date:
Q3 2015
ESRB Rating:
RP
“Rodea The Sky Soldier” Hands-On
One of the pleasant surprises to show up at NIS America’s press event in San Francisco a couple weeks ago was their announcement that they’d be localizing Rodea the Sky Soldier, and that it would be coming out on both…
One of the pleasant surprises to show up at NIS America’s press event in San Francisco a couple weeks ago was their announcement that they’d be localizing Rodea the Sky Soldier, and that it would be coming out on both the Wii U and 3DS this fall.
We got our hands on the 3DS version, and as of right now there are quite a few rough edges.Rodea itself has been finished for quite a while, but it was never released as there was no publisher for this Wii exclusive. Now that NIS America has gained the publishing rights, the game is currently being upscaled on the Wii U, with a 3DS version in the works.
The in-air gameplay seem reminiscent to that of NiGHTS? That’s because Yuji Naka had his hand in development.
Headed by Yuji Naka of Sega fame with his visions portrayed in Nights into Dreams and the Sonic series, Rodea the Sky Solider is an action-adventure game very much in the mold of the aforementioned titles.
The game puts you in the shoes of Rodea, a former soldier born again as sort of a robot. Because everything was in Japanese, not much was understood during the introductory cutscene, but obviously evil has been waging a war, and it’s up to us to stop it.
When on foot, the game is essentially a hack and slash, but most of the game will be played in the air. Whether you’re just platforming or dealing with enemies in the sky, the game’s controls on the 3DS version have quite the learning curve.
Unfortunately the playable demo didn’t have us doing much aside from jumping around from point A to point B.
Despite Rodea’s title, he doesn’t have the ability to stay in the air for long, so you’ll have to do a lot of targeting at the ground to keep him from falling to his doom. When launching Rodea up in the air with X, you take control of a reticle that can be moved with the analog stick, using the A button to move Rodea forward. The B button allows Rodea to strike, while the Y button causes him to shoot projectiles.
To go with the game’s rather choppy controls, the levels made playable in the demo were also rather barren. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in terms of combat, and despite the rings and other things to collect in the sky, the bulk of each playable level was just jumping around from one side of the map to the other — which, believe it or not, was actually a lot harder than it sounded.
Rodea the Sky Soldier is due for a Q3 release, so here’s to hoping we see some improvement leading up to the game’s launch.
Written by: Danreb Victorio
Date published: 03/05/2015
/ 5 stars
by Danreb Victorio
