Rodea the Sky Soldier Review (Wii U)

Rodea the Sky Soldier is an odd one considering it was ready for release four years ago on Wii but was held back to release on the Wii U, but was it worth the wait?
 
I’m a huge Yuji Naka fan as I love Sonic the Hedgehog, especially the ones he created, and his influence is evident here with an attack similar to the spin dash and rings and item boxes being similar to those found in the Sonic games but, well, Rodea flies a little too close to the sun. Okay, I’ve reviewed the Wii U version and I’m aware that Naka has stated that the Wii version is the best version but honestly, the controls aren’t the biggest issue about the game, it’s the gameplay itself that no controller is going to fix – everything feels rather sluggish which is made worse by a poor checkpoint system.
 
It’s all just very underwhelming. Rodea is an android who’s caught between a war between two worlds, Naga and Garuda, and is teleported away by his friend and the princess Cecilia with half of the Key of Time so that Naga cannot invade Garuda. 1000 years have passed and, being a robot, Rodea is deactivated but brought back to life by a woman named Ion. Rodea may remember nothing about the past, but he remembers his mission to save Garuda and Princess Cecilia but with so much time having passed, he searches to find out about what happened and to fulfil his mission to the best of his capabilities. It’s pretty straightforward and I can’t say it gripped me in any way, and I struggle to see what exactly this game was set to accomplish because despite Naka’s insistence on other versions other than the Wii version not being that great, its problems stem from bigger issues than the platform it’s on.
 
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The biggest issue is the gameplay. It’s so incredibly slow, clunky and an absolute chore to play – maybe Naka didn’t want to associate himself with ‘speed’ all of his career but going as slow as this (and you can fly!) is massively dull. You can ‘fly’ around but flying in Rodea means to lock on to a target and slowly drift towards it unless you burst which quickly eats up your stamina – this game goes out of its way to be the slowest game around. Combat is similar with you flying around and towards enemies whilst pulling off a short variety of moves to deal damage and, honestly, it’s not fun. At all. Rodea is a pretty poor game, and it’s one of the weakest games I’ve played in 2015.
 
It’s not blowing any minds visually with it being a port of a Wii game, although I think the Wii U version might’ve been ported from the 3DS version, but none of them are pushing any of the systems to their limits. Areas are bland, character design is decent but didn’t leave an impact on me and everything is rather blocky and rough around the edges. I’m not a big fan of the 2D portraits either and whilst there may not be a problem with them inherently, I’m not a fan of the style used whatsoever.
 
I’m almost tempted to ask if there was even an OST for this game but, well, I assume there was? I genuinely cannot remember it. I’m trying, but I can’t. It’s a wonder I’ve even managed to write this review considering how poorly I remember this game. The English Dub isn’t poor but not up to NIS America’s usual standards but I feel they realised that Rodea hasn’t got a huge market and maybe even they realised it’s not a great game and didn’t want to put more money into it. Maybe the voice-actors and actresses weren’t into it either.
 
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Rodea the Sky Soldier is going to make a lot of ‘game of the year’ lists, it might even top a few if the topic is regarding disappointments of 2015. It took ages for this game to release and it wasn’t worth it in the slightest and, as much as I respect Yuji Naka, if the best he can do away from Sonic is make a game so heavily influenced by it but nowhere near its quality, then he might aswell retire now. The artwork for this game was amazing and I’m severely let down by the final product – who was this even supposed to please? If I wanted a poor Sonic game then there’s more than a few of those floating about, but I’d rather play those than play this.

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