Stone Age Sport Evaluate: Skies Above

The parents at Flynn’s Arcade have been publishing various cool indie video games that resemble the arcade hits of previous. So after they approached me with a evaluate code for Skies Above, I believed I knew what to anticipate. However I used to be incorrect. Whereas the sport does certainly have the soul of an arcade basic, there’s an entire lot extra fashionable stuff happening. Right here’s our evaluate.

Skies Above could not happen in a easy arcade sport enviornment, nevertheless it’s not precisely set in a large, sprawling open world both. Quite, it’s set above one. The majority of the sport takes place on the again of a large flying whale. Sure, the sport calls it a leviathan, however come on. That lovely beast is a sky whale, and I like him. Anyway, it’s your mission to guard him from an countless wave of flying orbs that continuously shoot at him. You do that with a quite unconventional assault scheme. Your character has the flexibility to lock on to varied targets, and also you destroy them while you leap off one onto the following. As soon as. you have focused one thing, you dart straight to it, and you are able to do the identical along with your whale to re-center your self. Mainly, the gameplay loop is all about discovering probably the most environment friendly option to create chains the place you bounce between a dozen or so enemies at a time with a view to cease their fireplace from harming your whale pal. It took me some time to get the grasp of the controls, and I’m nonetheless not 100% certain I’ve them down if I’m being completely trustworthy, however as soon as you discover your groove, it’s an especially rewarding expertise.

Fortunately, as soon as your whale runs out of well being, it doesn’t die. As a substitute, it lands in a pleasant little hub space to relaxation whilst you fill up to your subsequent try and get him so far as you may. Right here, you’ve tons of choices to improve your weapons, your whale, study the sport’s lore, and extra. The gameplay itself isn’t filled with monumental surprises, and issues don’t actually evolve too far past the fundamentals you study firstly, nevertheless it nonetheless seems like the sport is properly fleshed out sufficient to be definitely worth the value of admission. It is bought an plain stage of cool to it, with some energetic music to tie all of it in a neat bow. That whale is tremendous lovable, too.

That stated, there are just a few drawbacks. The sport’s efficiency is not spectacular on the Swap, which is a bummer. It’s not doing something the system can’t deal with, nevertheless it nonetheless manages to chug fairly badly when your whale takes off. There are additionally some wacky grammar errors all through the sport’s textual content. Nothing unforgivable, however the script definitely might have used one other spherical of enhancing earlier than launch.

I additionally need to admit, I’ve not crushed this sport but as a result of I’m simply not adequate. Not but, anyway. I’ve made it to the third cloud layer, however I haven’t been capable of correctly grasp it to get any additional. Nonetheless, I intend to maintain taking part in it every so often as a result of it’s only a actually enjoyable sport! I like to recommend it.

Skies Above is accessible now on Nintendo Swap and Steam.