The first thing to notice is that the package proudly boasts a reversible cover which is more "anime-ish" than the standard, plane-oriented cover. It's a pleasant surprise as this second cover just features the ESRB rating and XSeed logo, not even Wii-specific graphical element.
Produced by Project Aces and based on Mamoru Oshii's latest movie, TSCIA is an arcade flight simulator where you play as "Link", one of the pilots of the ace squadron Cougar in service of Rostock company...the game main story should be before the movie and features many places and secondary characters directly from it. The story is narrated by an animated cutscene at the beginning of every mission; as every character is featured in these cutscenes it's rather disappoiting to see "Linx" (you) completely silent during missions and totally absent during the main story...why can't I have a face or just a voice? Pretty pretty please?
The game can be played with the Wiimote+nunchuk combo, the classical pad and the GC pad. Standard pads behave like they should and there's no big surprise here.
The Wii-specific controls, however do take some time to get used to: the nunchuk acts as the control stick and it's held on your dominant hand with the Wiimote acting as the throttle and held in your other hand.
Your aircraft move at a standard speed, moving the Wiimote to a vertical position increases speed; the airbrake (although planes slow down by deploying flaps) is mapped to B, target selection to up and down on the D-pad and yawing (with expert controls) on the left and right.
Tilting the nunchuck left and right makes the plane turn (roll if expert controls), tilting it up and down makes it climb or dive (pitch up/down if expert). Z fires weapons and C is used to switch between unlimited standard machine guns and limited secondary weapons like bombs, torpedoes, "shotguns" etc etc. The A button on the Wiimote is used to trigger special manouvers in conjuction with the analog stick on the nunchuk.
I begun playing with the Wiimote+nunchuk combo and while the throttle (Wiimote) is very sensite, the nunchuk is not. You can roll/turn fine, pitching up or down requires a full wrist movement and it's either stable flight or full movement, making dogfights a nightmare. This combo has the merit to keep all controls readily available and probably if you spend enough time with them, you won't go back to a standard pad, especially once you figure out how to play the game.
During dogfights, more time you spend near a targeted enemy aircraft (being on his six, you being on your six or just simply flying near it) will increase your maneouver pool: as you reach level one, you press a button and you're magically behind the enemy free to go wild with your guns; higher the level, the more time the enemy will be idling in your crosshair.
In the first missions I've played this makes all dogfights extremely easy and repetitive, as you just need a lvl 1 maneouver to go chasing your enemy and unload your guns on him for a spectacular but rather easy kill.
So I tried to ue maneouvers as little as possible, but the game graded me down for not using them enough. Oh well...you do get rewarded for unaided skills, but aside that there's nothing more to it rather than your personal satisfaction.
Manual maneouvers can be pulled at any time by combining one of the eight directions of the nunchuk control stick and the A button. Used them only once, during the first bombing run to get quickly on ground targets I missed in the first pass.
As you progress through the game you get new parts and new aircrafts with different abilities. On normal setting the game is quite easy, with enemies flying the same patterns and giving you enough time to get aligned for a very easy kill even without helps. The rare moments you get someone on your tail, it's usual enough to speed up, shake the control column a bit and you're free to go...if the chasing plane actually manages to hit you one time.
I just hope it will get more engaging with the later missions, or maybe by increasing the difficulty setting. Missions are short despite a large time limit (even 30 minutes) and they are automatically completed when all TGTs (targets) have been destroyed. The first missions are very straightforward and do not have any secondary objectives, something I'll hope will evolve in future assignments.
Technically speaking the game is sound, nothing particularly special but it never slows down and features decent textures with no popups and a good drawing distance. Ground targets are really poor nad there's no real sense of scale when you should be grazing the treetops, but that's a common problem with all flight simulations.
The anime cutscens are good, greatly animated and shown no compression artefacts.
There are no Japanese voiceovers but you're struck with English subtitles all the time; English voices are decent for the most part and also the voice-lips synch is good.
So far it has been enjoyable, if limited. Despite the "guided" dogfights, aerial combat is fine but there's no real pressure in getting something done, you just target the nearest plane, shoot it down and continue. You might get sidetracked sometimes (like allowing a cargo plane to drop supplies) but your wingmates will graciously remind you when there's more than enough time that you have to get the job done.
Produced by Project Aces and based on Mamoru Oshii's latest movie, TSCIA is an arcade flight simulator where you play as "Link", one of the pilots of the ace squadron Cougar in service of Rostock company...the game main story should be before the movie and features many places and secondary characters directly from it. The story is narrated by an animated cutscene at the beginning of every mission; as every character is featured in these cutscenes it's rather disappoiting to see "Linx" (you) completely silent during missions and totally absent during the main story...why can't I have a face or just a voice? Pretty pretty please?
The game can be played with the Wiimote+nunchuk combo, the classical pad and the GC pad. Standard pads behave like they should and there's no big surprise here.
The Wii-specific controls, however do take some time to get used to: the nunchuk acts as the control stick and it's held on your dominant hand with the Wiimote acting as the throttle and held in your other hand.
Your aircraft move at a standard speed, moving the Wiimote to a vertical position increases speed; the airbrake (although planes slow down by deploying flaps) is mapped to B, target selection to up and down on the D-pad and yawing (with expert controls) on the left and right.
Tilting the nunchuck left and right makes the plane turn (roll if expert controls), tilting it up and down makes it climb or dive (pitch up/down if expert). Z fires weapons and C is used to switch between unlimited standard machine guns and limited secondary weapons like bombs, torpedoes, "shotguns" etc etc. The A button on the Wiimote is used to trigger special manouvers in conjuction with the analog stick on the nunchuk.
I begun playing with the Wiimote+nunchuk combo and while the throttle (Wiimote) is very sensite, the nunchuk is not. You can roll/turn fine, pitching up or down requires a full wrist movement and it's either stable flight or full movement, making dogfights a nightmare. This combo has the merit to keep all controls readily available and probably if you spend enough time with them, you won't go back to a standard pad, especially once you figure out how to play the game.
During dogfights, more time you spend near a targeted enemy aircraft (being on his six, you being on your six or just simply flying near it) will increase your maneouver pool: as you reach level one, you press a button and you're magically behind the enemy free to go wild with your guns; higher the level, the more time the enemy will be idling in your crosshair.
In the first missions I've played this makes all dogfights extremely easy and repetitive, as you just need a lvl 1 maneouver to go chasing your enemy and unload your guns on him for a spectacular but rather easy kill.
So I tried to ue maneouvers as little as possible, but the game graded me down for not using them enough. Oh well...you do get rewarded for unaided skills, but aside that there's nothing more to it rather than your personal satisfaction.
Manual maneouvers can be pulled at any time by combining one of the eight directions of the nunchuk control stick and the A button. Used them only once, during the first bombing run to get quickly on ground targets I missed in the first pass.
As you progress through the game you get new parts and new aircrafts with different abilities. On normal setting the game is quite easy, with enemies flying the same patterns and giving you enough time to get aligned for a very easy kill even without helps. The rare moments you get someone on your tail, it's usual enough to speed up, shake the control column a bit and you're free to go...if the chasing plane actually manages to hit you one time.
I just hope it will get more engaging with the later missions, or maybe by increasing the difficulty setting. Missions are short despite a large time limit (even 30 minutes) and they are automatically completed when all TGTs (targets) have been destroyed. The first missions are very straightforward and do not have any secondary objectives, something I'll hope will evolve in future assignments.
Technically speaking the game is sound, nothing particularly special but it never slows down and features decent textures with no popups and a good drawing distance. Ground targets are really poor nad there's no real sense of scale when you should be grazing the treetops, but that's a common problem with all flight simulations.
The anime cutscens are good, greatly animated and shown no compression artefacts.
There are no Japanese voiceovers but you're struck with English subtitles all the time; English voices are decent for the most part and also the voice-lips synch is good.
So far it has been enjoyable, if limited. Despite the "guided" dogfights, aerial combat is fine but there's no real pressure in getting something done, you just target the nearest plane, shoot it down and continue. You might get sidetracked sometimes (like allowing a cargo plane to drop supplies) but your wingmates will graciously remind you when there's more than enough time that you have to get the job done.
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