So, originally I was going to write a “review” about the HD Remaster of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, but I was busy with other things and completely forgot about it. However, I played the demo of Wild Blue Skies and the actual game itself. The reason why I put “review” in quotation marks is because I don’t know if I could call what I wrote in the past reviews anymore. To be honest, I just wanted to have a general discussion of Wild Blue Skies and why I found myself disappointed with the game itself. Before I do that, I encourage you all to watch videos of the game from “I Dream of Indie Games,” “The Byte,” and “Amalia Solaris as they explain their issues/suggestions with the game much better than I can. Also, I STRONGLY urge you NOT to harass the developers of Chuhai Labs; harassing them will NOT make things better and only make things worse. Alright, let’s get started.
First, I would like to get the positives out of the way. Honestly, I really love the art style the devs chose for Wild Blue Skies. Although, I guess it’s not too surprising since I am a sucker for cel-shaded/comic book art styles and love Wind Waker and Sly Cooper. I know it’s not going to be everyone’s favorite, but I just thought I’d mention it here. Now I would like to bring up some of the issues this game has. Ever since Wild Blue Skies was announced, it has advertised itself as a game inspired by the Star Fox series, mainly Star Fox 64. Now being inspired by something you loved isn’t anything new or always a bad thing as long as you know what you are doing. Different forms of media like games, movies, music, etc. can serve as inspirations for the things you are making. For example, the games I played like Fur Squadron (2023), Whisker Squadron: Survivor, and Ex-Zodiac are games inspired by Star Fox but have their own ideas to make themselves stand out. However, I want to reference something a YouTuber, “Nana’s Tomb” said in her video about a game which shall not be named created by a dev who shall also not be named. She said too many recipes are a bad thing. The reason I am bringing this up is because I believe having too much of one ingredient can cause problems as well. Wild Blue Skies suffers from this by taking too many elements from Star Fox 64, so much to point of it feeling like a blatant copy. I know this sounds archaic and harsh, but this is one of the problems we will see as we continue on.
I already mentioned this game takes a lot of things from Star Fox 64 but there is one glaring conundrum that I have never seen Star Fox or any Star Fox-inspired game do before. Mapping the lasers and charged shots to separate buttons. Lasers on the west button and charged shots on the south button. As you can probably imagine, this can be annoying for someone who has played any Star Fox game and wants to land a charged shot on targets. Before playing the game, I changed my laser settings to continuous fire and turned off the inverted controls to fit my playstyle. My first thought was playing the training mode first before starting the game, and I noticed something ridiculous that a lot of other players mentioned. Not only does your ship move slowly while not boosting, but whenever you hit the brakes, your ship will descend to the ground. I have never seen Star Fox or any Star Fox-inspired games do this, and this kind of feature could end up getting yourself hit by obstacles or killed. You all want to do a barrel roll? Well, now you can do a dodge roll. While handy for dodging, I prefer doing barrel rolls to deflect enemy fire. Sorry to keep bringing up Star Fox 64 again but I also wanted to mention that Wild Blue Skies borrowed another mechanic from another Star Fox game, Star Fox Zero. I’m going to get a lot of disagreements for this, but I personally love Star Fox Zero. However, one of the things I found really annoying from that game is the fact that you lose your laser upgrades one at a time as you take damage instead of losing your wings. Wild Blue Skies does this too except it’s worse. Instead of losing your laser upgrades one at a time as you take damage, you lose ALL of them! In what world is that supposed to make sense?
I haven’t mentioned yet, but you play as the leader Bowie and fly with his squad, Chuck, Roe, and Throne. I apologize if I sound mean-spirited here, but your wing mates might as well not even be there because they barely do anything except get themselves into trouble. Also, the Blue Bombers’ ships have to be the most fragile ships in the dang Lylat System. While you’re in all-range mode, your squad will NOT give you ANY indication that they are being chased or taking damage. You won’t realize this until A.) you finish the mission and see their shield gauge, or B.) they have taken too much damage. Also, Bowie’s ship does not return to full shield capacity once you start a mission. What, did the Blue Bombers not have enough budget to afford shield canisters or fund the repairs? I hope you are ready for some more Star Fox 64 because now you have Wild Blue Skies’ version of Star Wolf, the Prowlers. They just share the same design as the Blue Bombers’ ships except they have a different color palette. This is going to sound nitpicky, but when I was taking the bottom (easy) route and shot down the Prowlers the first time, I assumed they would not appear again for the rest of the route. However, the Prowlers are still alive for no reason other than to just waste the players’ time even more. I am not going to spoil the finale, but I want to mention that once I got to the final level, that was the point where I decided to give up on the game entirely after getting a game over.
A franchise like Star Fox is bigger than any developer or individual person. Even if most of the games after 64 don’t live up to fans’ expectations they can still have some aspects about them that can be unique or bring new stuff to the series. There are many reasons why people love the games they played like Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and even Star Fox. This is going to go off-topic, but I want to bring up something personal, I am learning how to make games in my spare time and one of the games I am working on is inspired by games like Banjo-Kazooie, DK64, 40 Winks, etc. However, I want to bring up a harsh truth that I need to learn MYSELF. If you take too many aspects from a game you love without improving on its flaws or adding your own unique ideas, then you are royally screwed because before you know it, many will say your game will come off as plagiarism. It sounds ridiculous but I just cannot comprehend how this keeps happening. Mighty No. 9 was influenced by the Mega Man series but has so many flaws and tries too hard to imitate the series it is based on. Yooka-Laylee takes a lot of inspiration from Banjo without improving or refining one of Rareware’s best games ever made. Yes, Banjo-Kazooie is one of the best games ever and I will die on this high ground. I know Yooka was not well received when it first launched but when I tried it out on GOG, I found myself liking some parts of the game.
I went to go play the Star Fox SNES, 64, 643D, and even Assault to understand why I love this series so much. I think it’s because while they provide that arcade-like feeling, the devs of those games were not afraid to test new ideas and provide players a fun but fair challenge. Those games also have a lot of heart in them. To make it clear, I DO NOT want to put down the team’s work here. All I want them to do is to look back on their mistakes, play more games they loved playing, and get creative with their own unique ideas. I know Chuhai Labs will probably not see this but if they do, I want to wish them good luck on their next project. If you love Wild Blue Skies, then I fully respect your opinion. Do not let this discussion discourage you from playing. Thank you all for reading and have a great day.
