Project Sylpheed

Project Sylpheed

Review

Xbox 360

It tastes like dreams!!!

Ahem, before we get started I will tell you this up front; I really love Project Sylpheed, and I hate all the reviewers who trashed it.
That being said, let’s get this review started.

Project Sylpheed is a re-imagining of the old Sega Silpheed titles, a space shooter along the lines of Star Fox and any other flight simulators on the market.
The video game industry has a very severe lack of games in this genre right now, and Sylpheed breathes a breath of fresh air into those who enjoy the space shooters, and various other flight simulators.
While Sylpheed may not be nearly as, er, deep and complex as Flight Simulators tend to be, but Sylpheed has a very steepish learning curve, this falls upon the busyness and (at first) overwhelming number of enemy ships on the screen.
You are immediately over come by the complex control system, the unknown objectives, and the large horde of enemy vessels occupying your radar.
The tutorial doesn’t quite seem to nail this right, it gives you bare amount of knowledge you need to get through the first few levels. After which you get the hang of it.
The game starts off rather easy; you have a healthy number of friendly fighters picking up for your slack, and objectives are pointed out very bluntly.

That's one busy screen.

The game progresses however, that fleet that was once backing you up is gone, it’s you, your carrier, and your squadron, facing off nearly unbeatable odds. The game gets very hard fast.
Taking on a giant warship for the first time can be a difficult thing to over come; watching after your stationary carrier, while fighting off fiendish attacks.
The complexity of the controls grow on you quickly, as you upgrade your equipment, you feel prepared for the dangers ahead, weather it be two mega badass warships, or the center of the main story’s conflict; the Prometheus Driver.
The story is good; in true Square fashion it brings Anime and Video Game action very close together.
You play as Katana, a quiet ace pilot in training, you and your Wingman Ellen (Who is very annoying.) are best friends, and have been for awhile.
But you were not always a duo! Nay, there was once a third wheel, Margras Mason, who was forcefully taken from Earth when all people born on ADAN Governed planets were exiled from TCAF Planets. This is the tragic, and rather over used, story of two friends fighting on opposite sides of an intergalactic war. The story is presented via Super High Quality FMVs after each mission, and golly, are they well done. I mean, really beautiful, stunning even, the last part of the game especially.

Tis' a tragic tale.

You also get some story tidbits during missions, people are constantly sending you messages over the radio. No matter what’s going on, sometimes it’s cool, sometimes it’s annoying.
Voice acting can be good, but it also suffers from the over exuberant nature of a lot of English Voiced games, mainly it’s just Raymond. Katana’s voice actor is pretty well suited for the role, and so is Margras’, Ellen is just Ellen; I don’t think a different voice actor would make her any less unbearable.
VO aside, the characters can be really likeable, you feel sad for Margras, and you can understand Katana’s confliction. Raymond is a pretty cool guy.
I’m not exactly sure who this Brandon guy is, but they sure do talk fond about him in the first mission of the game.
Visuals are impressive, FMVs are particularly mind blowing. The Big ships like Destroyers aren’t anything special, but as you come closer to the fighters and warships, you may not notice during battle, but they are really detailed.
Space sceneries are pretty diverse, weather it be fighting in the atmosphere of Acheron, or near Hargenthen, there is always something different and stunning about the sceneries.
The sound behind Sylpheed is great as well; it’s what you’d expect from Square after all, classical type music with the occasional techno rock mixture when the action is beginning to pick up.
It’s your run of the mill Square Enix type plot, that pulls together quite nicely; that along with great visuals and awesome music makes Sylpheed a quality purchase at 40$.
But what really matters is how the game plays.
Sylpheeds control and game play is fantastic. Mixing Arcade like on Rails Space Shooters (Like Starfox), with flight simulators such as Ace Combat; you find this to be a sweet spot, Sylpheed is not nearly as complex and in depth as flight sims, but is much more complicated than Arcade Like shooters, while retaining some of those gameplay mechanics.
As you progress through the game, you get the option to develop and equip new weapons, Anti-Aircraft Weapons such as auto targeting Missiles, Cannons, and Rockets; then you have your “noise” weapons, weapons that are fired rapidly at a target, rather inconsistent, and you have a better chance of hitting a space cow then landing a few killer shots. These weapons consist of Lasers, machine guns, etc.
Later in the game you have the option to control your squad, giving them very basic orders such as attacking the target you have marked on your Radar.
Your squad isn’t very helpful, they’ll take down a fighter or two, but good luck getting them to take down a Destroyer, or some of the stronger enemies.
And with each mission you are given a number of sub-objectives, but for whatever reason, the game doesn’t tell you what these sub objectives are, making it really frustrating to earn the coveted ‘S’ rank. You’ll know you completed a sub objective when you complete one, there’s no other way of knowing.
And to be honest, I got bored playing some of the missions, but this was because I replayed the game over 3 times trying to get the damned ‘S’ rank on all missions.
On medium and easy difficulty it’s near impossible to get an S rank, no matter how hard you try. And I tried hard /cry.
Sylpheed is a game that, if just starting out, you can blow through in 7 or 8 hours. But with better equipment it’s limited to 4 or 5.
I finished the game 3 times, the first play through it took me 8 hours to complete, but once I went back with better equipment to get the S ranks, and to uncover Sub-Objectives, I finished the game in 4.
It’s one of the games that you can play over and over again, but the missions can get somewhat boring if you play over them too many times.
And the lack of multiplayer makes me sad. But hey, you get what you pay for, a great singleplayer experience, with a good story, great FMVs and graphics, with a wonderful soundtrack and Voice Over’s.


Sylpheed has been one of the best games I’ve played this summer, and while it isn’t particularly long, nor is there any multiplayer, the game is only 39.99 or cheaper, and for such a great game, you should really pick it up.