SkyE

Shoot-em-up, the genre that inspired a certain infamous movement here on RMN, because of just difficult it is to do right in RPGMaker. I can also add that using engine designed for more story-driven experiences to create a linear game with an excuse plot is rather perverse on its own. SkyE, however, is a really nice exception to both rules I just mentioned, and a very deserving Featured Game on the whole.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)

The game starts off quite strong with a scrolling animated screen, which also changes randomly every time you start it up. Guild Raider! did the same thing, though obviously the rm2k mapping cannot really compete with the animated artwork on display here. Even the game title morphs back and forth a little bit! Once you do start playing, you’ll see a couple of adequately mapped rooms, but are unlikely to pay much attention to them, since you cannot move around them anyway, and the gameplay at the academy is essentially that of a visual novel. Instead, what attracts all the attention are the 2/3 body busts used for all the characters, and whenever 2+ people are talking, busts for all of them come up, with the speaker’s one being highlighted. The quality is very good, though like in Divided Infinity, I do wish the expressions, and perhaps, postures, changed depending on the emotion of the speaker.



There's this bit of an animated intro as well.

Once the siren rings, and the actual shoot-em-up gameplay starts, the background behind you all look very cool and sufficiently otherworldly, with various geometrical designs overlaid all around. It looks cool, but doesn’t distract you from the really important things: all the Rayth around, and their projectiles on the screen. The designs of Rayth are also quite fun, especially when it comes to the fully animated creatures like the golden-mask/hornet thing. Their reddish, variously transparent projectiles also look just the way they should, and the really large, circular ones some of the more powerful creatures and bosses shoot look especially impressive. The only thing that’s a little disappointing is the plain, default Game Over screen. Creative Game Over images were the bright side for games like Backstage, After Man or Nsala Sunset: here, you’re likely to see it a whole lot, so similar creativity would’ve been nice.

The soundtrack is all good. The menu theme is really relaxing and pleasant to listen to. The really interesting choice is the use of actual J-pop lyrics during many themes. It typically works during battles, although it can come across a little superfluous during some conversation scenes. Sound effects are also fine. One minor omission is that the stat-increasing “Elixers” (I assume that’s an error) are consumed with no sound at all, which is a little underwhelming.

Storyline

The dialogue is immediately starts off really good. It’s humorous, it flows well, and easily introduces everyone and what they do. That standard is kept up throughout, and on the whole, it is like that of a good anime; energetic, fun and well-written. It also helps that there’s clearly thought put into the world and the way its people interact. In fact, games like SkyE and A Hint of a Tint really should be the benchmark for how to set up and introduce the unique rules of setting, or, indeed, for just being actually creative instead of choosing the fantasy/cyberpunk/whatever templates from 20-50 years ago. Sure, everything about raye and rayth might still be drawing from similar templates about demons and parallel dimensions, but the way it’s all. New world-building elements, like raye locks, which only open if they detect the person’s raye energy signature, but can be fooled if someone else manages to mimic said signature, are introduced with minimum of fuss, as they should be, since it’s everyday reality for the people living in that world. Some more stuff is also taught through the Phineas’ lessons.



Sadly, we don't stay for long enough to see even a couple of these possibilities written out.

There’s also some non-linearity, in that you there are four times in a day (Morning, Noon, Evening and Night) where Celeste is back at her room, and once she’s done with equipment, upgrades and such, you get a choice of the places to visit: Class Room, Cafeteria and Lounge, and later, Laboratory and Library. You’ll get some different cutscenes there, although they’re usually (but not always) interrupted by another portal opening, and your character called off to deal with it. When you do come back, the cutscenes will also change, so don’t expect to see everything the first time round. Besides encouraging repeat playthroughs, this also means that death is not just a setback, but also an opportunity to see a different scene play out this time around. Sometimes, you’ll just get “this place is quiet” message and an opportunity to visit something else, but on the whole, there’s more than enough material here. About once a day, your choices also get limited so that the plot-integral scenes can happen, like at Day 1 Evening, when Laboratory is your only choice. It’s fine in general, but when there’s also a fight associated with it, then dying will mean seeing the same scene over and over, and I do wish there was a way to skip them after the first time they have played out.

Nevertheless, the storyline is very good and nails the largely light-hearted anime feel it’s going for. I do wish it was longer than the 4 in-game days, as I was just getting to know some characters more. Nevertheless, it still offers plenty of twists and turns, at first setting up one character as the culprit, before revealing their side of the story, and building up someone else, and then changing things again. How much or how little you understand does, in a way, depend on which optional scenes you’ve seen, and just before the last battle, you get asked on what you think is happening by the antagonist. I got the first question right but fumbled the second, though it doesn’t really matter. Still, it was quite interesting to go back afterwards and see some of the other scenes again, now knowing what they actually led to. I particularly liked how the scientist character essentially sympathised with the antagonists, and in a way that made sense from his perspective, but without being involved in any of the proceedings.

There are some spelling errors, which I’m leaving under the spoiler tag:


Gameplay

SkyE has four difficulty settings, which can be adjusted at any time in the menu. It’s on Normal by default, and I advise keeping it there, and not checking out Hard or Insane unless you have a lot of experience with the genre. After all, even the Normal is going to give you a fair share of deaths at first, while you get used to the unique mechanics in here.



You can do stuff like this practically from the start. A pity 90% of these shots went to waste.

Sure, it's still a shmup, but there are a few twists on the regular controls. Not only do you move around the map with arrow keys, but you are also allowed to switch between the slower Hover mode and a faster Normal mode, during which you’re also affected by gravity, and will naturally tend to come down without moving. Shooting is X, and z/space is shield, which is extremely important here, since a) there are no extra lives and b) shield regenerates, while your health doesn’t. It’s impossible to shoot with the shield up, but standing still with it while holding X charges the powerful Crest attacks: you’re allowed to charge them as much or as little as you want, depending on how long they need to last. Both the shot-creating Rings and the Crests can be swapped out on the fly, depending on whichever is more useful at the time. On Normal, I generally stuck with the Beam Crest and the Tri-Ring, though I suppose higher difficulties would force more switching up. It doesn’t hurt that while I got said Crest and 3 new rings practically in one burst, there weren’t a lot more items besides stat-increasing Elixers for quite a while. It would’ve been cool to see something like a Ring the shots of which were weaker, but did damage-over-time, or a slower-firing Ring that fired projectiles exploding on impact, or over time, for the sake of variety, but what’s in here is fun enough.

At first, the really notable thing here is just how much escalation there is from battle to battle. The first Crest attack appears overpowered when you first use it: then, you see the enemies you’re up against and immediately stop thinking that. New creatures, and/or new, challenging combinations of them, appear during every fight, and the last level’s boss is this level’s miniboss, and bosses from a couple levels prior are more akin to rank enemies. This difficulty evens out by the end of Day 2/Day 3, and a lot of the stages begin to feel a little too short. I guess the option switch the difficulty upwards is helps, but it’s still my preference not to do so. More bosses also wouldn’t have gone amiss, since they begin to repeat themselves a couple of times. I would’ve liked to see some more small-to-mid-sized bosses, and/or see some more ray attacks, or perhaps something like a solid wave, or mirror reflecting projectiles. As it is, nearly all bosses are about surviving their onslaught of projectiles for 20-30 seconds it takes them to die from your own shots. A longer, more gradual fight, one where a boss doesn’t shoot as much but lasts longer, and also changes up its pattern after receiving enough damage, would’ve certainly been appreciated.

Then, of course, there are the RPG Elements. You know how most games either increase your stats automatically or give you points to invest in (i.e. the now-cancelled Tristian: Lady of the Lion), while the more action-y RPGs like The Elder Scrolls or (now dead) Gothic series, instead increase certain stats/skills simply based on how much you’ve used them? Well, SkyE does both. Damage dealt increases based on how accurate you are, shield gets stronger the more stuff you successfully block with it, and there are also some nicely named stats (Radiance, Vibrance, Intensity, Harmony, Serenity and Purity) that you get to invest in manually. Some of them overlap, some don’t, and you can take some of the points away and reconfigure them at any time. I preferred to invest most into Serenity, due to how important the shield is, and because Celeste herself is a Serenity type story-wise. However, you might well find a better approach.
Like in many other XP/VX games, there’s also the unfortunate “stack level too deep” bug used when one tries to use F12.

Conclusion

One honestly wishes SkyE was longer, lasting a whole week or so, which would’ve likely allowed it to enter the ring with commercial games on its own terms. As it is, it feels a little cut-down. Nevertheless, a cut-down portion of a great game is still pretty great. Like A Hint of A Tint, it’s a game I wish any new devs considering another FF fangame/crystals plot, or abandoned mansion horror would be required to play, just to see that there are entirely different ways of doing things. As it is, it’s one of a kind, even though more games like it are sorely needed on here.