Skycadia [Xbox]
Studio Nisse’s Skycadia is an arcade-style flight-based-shooting game where the skies are filled with pirate bounties for you to take out, and cash in. Done in an arcade style, the menu itself is set in the Tavern, where the pilots all relax in between jobs. You start the game as Captain Sanders; an all-rounder statistics-wise, with two other characters; Big Bucket, the high attack/defence combo; and Lord Yolka, the lightning-fast agile one; available to be unlocked upon collecting $20k and $80k total bounties, respectively. There are a few different game modes on offer here, with the main one of course being Bounty Hunt, as well as a Cruisin’ mode for when you want to just go off and explore. You can also select from a few different weapon options from the Tavern, with Scattershot and Chargeshot being unlocked after collecting enough bounties. Although the initial weapon still feels the best, so unlocking worse weapons feels a bit frustrating when you’ve been hoping for something great.
Sadly, the exploration is confined to the skies - and whilst the map is decently large, there’s not a lot to fill it. You’ll be flying above islands and mountains, with small villages whizzing underneath as you fly over but sadly there’s nothing more to them than something interesting to look at from a distance. This makes the Cruisin’ mode feel entirely unnecessary, as there’s no way to land and explore from a ground-level view, or maybe find out more information about each area you pass by - you’re simply doing what you’d be doing in the normal Bounty Hunt, just without any bounties. Even something like items to collect or landmarks to find would give more purpose to Cruisin’ mode, so we were surprised that this wasn’t included.
Thankfully, Skycadia is absolutely gorgeous with a retro low-poly art-style that is a joy to look at, and with the three areas of the map having different appearances including different times of day, snow-covered mountains and sunny beaches - it allows for the looping nature of flying around each area constantly shooting to feel slightly less repetitive than if you were to reload into the same one over and over. There are also a bunch of different enemy designs that are interesting, with varied bug-looking designs that are further showcased when you are defeated by them. The music works in harmony with the action, getting more intense as you progress, and with unbelievable numbers of enemies swarming the screen, as well as showers of coins for you to collect after destroying each enemy - things can get pretty hectic, pretty quickly.
It also feels really enjoyable to fly around, particularly when you have the option of other pilots who might better suit you. Playing as any of the three offers their own distinct flying style, and all feel fantastic - so it really is just a matter of preference as to who’ll be your favourite. A Bounty Book is also available that allows you to go back and see all of the enemy types you have defeated, as well as how many you’ve defeated (thus earning bounty from) and how many times you have been defeated by them. This is useful as it will highlight which enemies are proving more difficult for you to ensure you can be more cautious of these, as well as prompt you to work hard against them and seek to take those ones out quickly.
The game was recently updated to include Stats and Leaderboards, which were a very much needed addition. The game was still a lot of fun initially, don’t get me wrong, but without the Leaderboard being available it really did feel like something was missing, so we’re both really glad that this has been implemented now.
Priced at £8.39 on the Xbox Store, it’s a really fun arcade game that is really easy to get into but sadly still feels like there could be more to it. I’d even like to see a way to regain health during a hunt added in some way - obviously not too frequently, as that’s a big part of the challenge, but maybe with every additional $1000 gained on a run you’ll get one heart back, or something along those lines. That would give you a push to keep going if you’re nearly out of hearts, as it’s very easy to lose large chunks of health particularly once things get super packed on screen. Hopefully the developers will continue to work on it, and maybe we’ll see other features in the future.
In the end, we decided to give Skycadia the Collecting Asylum rating of 7.5/10.
Have you played Skycadia yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Studio Nisse for the Skycadia Xbox review code!
