The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
Game » consists of 3 releases. Released Jan 12, 2010
An aerial combat game for the Wii set in the world of the novels/film of the same name.
Oh wow the controls in this game are... wow, just wow... (bad)
I'm absolutely baffled by how the controls work in this game. To control your plane you tilt the nun-chuck like you would tilt a flightstick which sounds fine when you consider how well the flying mini-game in Wii Sports resort worked (that did have M+ that factored in though).
However in order to turn the thingies that make your plane go up, down, left and right to the maximum (excuse me for the highly technical terms here) for the sharpest possible turn I'm under the impression that you have to tilt the nun-chuck 90 degrees(EDIT in my initial post i wrote down 45 by mistake). Which means that you will have to twitch your wrist 90 degrees, something that is called a broken wrist when doing it in a upwards thus when your wrist is not broken is impossible. So what I'm having to do to tilt my plane upwards is to actually raise my hand as well as tilt the nun-chuck and this for all the directions. The thing that makes it even worse is that Z is the by default trigger button so you can't just loosely hold the nun-chuck and twist it with 3 fingers.
There also is no way to "strafe" the plane (here again excuse me for the highly technical aviation term). You would assume that you could do that with the analogue stick on the nun-chuck but there just is no strafing in this game. (EDIT 2 there is actually a strafe button, it are left and right on the d-pad)
I'm merely an hour in the game so perhaps it will grow on me but up to now it has been nothing but a source of frustration. Anyone else having this issue or am I the only one who does not have a rubber wrist?
Had to read that three times and I'm still a little fuzzy on what exactly is going on. O_o Anyway, how's the game itself?
The reason that i switched from normal to expert was because the auto levelling got me killed a couple of times,once it forced my plane to auto level just when i was trying to gain altitude to avoid a cliff.
I just played a bit more of it and it really is at 45 degrees that you have to tilt the nun-chuck to get the maximum pitch, would it be less then this would not have been such a issue.
45 degrees doesn't sound like an issue to me. You don't have to ONLY move your wrist and break it. Try to imagine it like the top of a real joystick, you wouldn't only move your wrist to control one of those. Did you swap hands? You can always play with the classic controller if you really can't get the hang of it. As for the cheap special maneuver, later pilots can avoid it, and it's not very different to fire and forget missiles other games have.
And yes from what I hear it's best to play in the setting that doesn't have any flight aids as they can mess you up instead of help (they slow down to help you aim enemies in the crosshair but that means they can out-turn you). Also the first few planes are sluggish themselves. You get better.
" Had to read that three times and I'm still a little fuzzy on what exactly is going on. O_o Anyway, how's the game itself? "Pretty ok, Interface is basic and graphics are not all that hot but the cut-scenes are anime movie quality (they might be from the movie it is based on but i'm not sure) controls are well... debatable.
@Al3xand3r said:
" 45 degrees doesn't sound like an issue to me. You don't have to ONLY move your wrist and break it. Did you swap hands? You can always play with the classic controller. As for the cheap special maneuver, later pilots can avoid it, and it's no different to fire and forget missiles other games have.And yes from what I hear it's best to play in the setting that doesn't have any flight aids as they can mess you up instead of help (they slow down to help you aim enemies in the crosshair but that means they can out-turn you). Also the first few planes are sluggish themselves. You get better. "Ehhh yeah so it has been a while since i had to use degrees... it is at a 90 degree angle that you have to twitch the nunchuck, 45 would indeed be fine.
I Always knew the controls were a little fucked up by simply looking at Japanese walkthroughs. If they are not perfecly intuitive for a game of this type, on this platform - they're kinda shit. I find it funny to think Ace Combat on 360 is said to have easier controls than this Wii game...
I was hoping the controls would be reworked for the West after Famitsu and other Japanese reviews highlighted the control issues, seeing as though they haven't., I think I'll pass. All the fun of this game should be derived from simple intuitive controls. If the game had them dogfighting would have been awesome.
@Al3xand3r said:
" 45 degrees doesn't sound like an issue to me. You don't have to ONLY move your wrist and break it. Try to imagine it like the top of a real joystick, you wouldn't only move your wrist to control one of those. Did you swap hands? You can always play with the classic controller if you really can't get the hang of it. As for the cheap special maneuver, later pilots can avoid it, and it's not very different to fire and forget missiles other games have.And yes from what I hear it's best to play in the setting that doesn't have any flight aids as they can mess you up instead of help (they slow down to help you aim enemies in the crosshair but that means they can out-turn you). Also the first few planes are sluggish themselves. You get better. "
You sound like someone who hasn't even played the game, yet who's all too ready to preach about it to someone who actually does. Now, where have I seen this before : ?
He already said he made a mistake about the 45 degrees, and agrees 45 would have no issue. Using common sense is now preaching? And how is telling him he can play with the Classic (or GameCube!) Controller anything more than information he may have missed? And how is providing factual information about the difficulty of the later game and the capabilities of planes you can unlock preaching? Get over yourself, Linky.
I'm sorry I tried to get someone more optimistic about his purchase. I should have gone "lol, waste of money, Famitsu gave it a 32/40 (8/8/8/8), which must mean it has crippling control issues (despite generally good reviews), I'm not gonna touch this budget price game with a 10 foot pole" instead.
Played some more of it and with a gamecube controller it works so much better, it puts the standard control scheme to shame. There is a option to get a motion-free control using the wii-remote and nunchuck but it appears to not have a a way to yawn (strafe) but i'll have to check that.
There does not seem to be a way to change the buttons on the gamecube controller. They've set it up in a really weird way making the analogue stick for steering and the D-pad for the yawn, problem is that these two are both on the left side of the controller so you can't do both of them at the same time which make lining up targets harder then it should be. The should have just put the yawn on the C-stick (the little yellow one) and instead of making the A button the fire button use one of the shoulder buttons. I don't have a classic controller so i do not know if they were perhaps smart enough to map yawn to the right analogue sitck instead of the D-pad.
I think i'll continue playing the game for the story, missions so far have been pretty boring and the scenery well... there is none but the story is intriguing.
@Rallier said:
" Played some more of it and with a gamecube controller it works so much better, it puts the standard control scheme to shame. There is a option to get a motion-free control using the wii-remote and nunchuck but it appears to not have a a way to yawn (strafe) but i'll have to check that. There does not seem to be a way to change the buttons on the gamecube controller. They've set it up in a really weird way making the analogue stick for steering and the D-pad for the yawn, problem is that these two are both on the left side of the controller so you can't do both of them at the same time which make lining up targets harder then it should be. The should have just put the yawn on the C-stick (the little yellow one) and instead of making the A button the fire button use one of the shoulder buttons. I don't have a classic controller so i do not know if they were perhaps smart enough to map yawn to the right analogue sitck instead of the D-pad. I think i'll continue playing the game for the story, missions so far have been pretty boring and the scenery well... there is none but the story is intriguing. "
It's unlikely they would remove the strafe ability on the non-motion option, developers naturally try include everything in some form on alternative control types.
If your forced to use the Gamecube controller, it's definitely a failure of this game. To me Sky Crawlers appears to be yet another Wii game that could have done perfectly well without any motion control in the first place.
Yeah so in control option D the only one that does not require you to have a joystick as a wrist you can actually not yawn... I've played the game somewhat more and even with the gamecube controller it is impossible to play since you can not yawn and pitch at the same time. I can not comprehend how someone can make such a bad control scheme.
At some point in the story a dramatic accident happens to which I could only laugh and say "yeah well that happens when your planes control like hell"
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