Sky Warrior - Gradius Style!

[zero00]

Before I work on a new game, I need to re-examine Sky Warrior (the first one).

Asking questions like "Why was Sky Warrior fun?" and "What could make Sky Warrior better?"
If you want to, please tell me your opinion on the Sky Warrior games or how you think they can be improved.

Your opinion could help the Sky Warrior games become even better!

[Nighthawk0973]

He asks my opinion... we'll here goes!

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Snowfire Games Presents....

Sky Warrior II....

The Review....

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The original Sky Warrior is with out a doubt, my favorite game on the Alice forums. And with good reason. Sky Warrior combines some great graphics and animations, an amazing soundtrack, outstanding gameplay, and a whole ton of difficulty tweaking, into one game, all wrapped up in a wonderful interface. Sky Warrior II brings us back more of what Sky Warrior did right, fixed what Sky Warrior did wrong, and adds some more weapons to Sky Warriors arsenal. But is this enough to make up for the damage Sky Warrior Returns gave to the Sky Warrior series? Find out in this review...

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Presentation
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Sky Warrior had it's presentation issues, but Sky Warrior II has none. Since Sky Warriors an arcade-style shooter, you won't have to worry about Story. You don't need it. The cutscenes are great but I'm mostly impressed by the GUI and HUD. The HUD looks awesome and when Sky Warrior moves up to the HUD it becomes transparent which might not matter too much, but just looks cool and gives a higher polish to the game. The GUIs, this time mouse based, (just like Sky Warrior Returns) look perfect and the transitions between GUIs are amazing.
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Audio/Video
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The Graphics are just as good as they we're in other sky warrior games. Everything from models, 2D images, and animations. There's also a new background environment this time around. The only gripe I have about this is that there is still only one environment. I guess I've pretty much gotten over this fact however, and since this background is a lot better than the default background that has been in all the Sky Warrior games. The same goes for the sound. The music is beautiful as always, and the sound effects really give the feel of playing an old sci-fi arcade adventure. I heard no lag with the sound at all, another perfection Sky Warrior II has acheived.
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Gameplay
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The gameplay is the same great Sky Warrior gameplay you know and love. You fight a series of challenging boss fights and then go into the options menu and make these boss fights tougher. The bosses are even tougher than before so I recommend playing Sky Warrior one if you don't want to much trouble beating the bosses since it will give you more experience towards beating Sky Warrior II. But if you havn't played the original this is going to be quite the challenge, just beating it on easy mode with 3 lives only. Anyways Sky Warrior II only has 2 bosses but they have more skills that they do. There's also longer game lengths which (since the bosses appear more than once) add more abilities to the bosses. The only flaw I see in the gameplay is the fact that you will notice about 5-6 frame rate stutters on each boss. These are minor and you won't get into a stage where the same thing will play over and over again until the game unfreezes and continues, but these frame rate stutters will probably end up in your getting hit and passing the restrictions of the screen, which you normally couldn't do.
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Replay Value
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Sky Warrior still doesn't have any extra modes or acheivements, but who cares. The real meat of Sky Warriors replay value has always been about what I call 'Difficulty Customization'. Sure you have the Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties, but than you choose how many lives you have, how long your games going to last, which replays the bosses for you but you don't reset your lives, and of course, what weapon you choose. They're are litteraly 216 different combinations that you could tweak the difficulty. I'm not kidding! 4 weapons, 3 difficulty levels, 3 game lengths, and 6 different choices for how much lives you have, (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. If you choose 0 you can't die, which I don't even think is possible) multiply those numbers and it's 216! This is what makes Sky Warrior so good and it makes Sky Warrior II even better.
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The Verdict
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Presentation - 10
The GUIs and HUD are flawless, and the cutscenes are really good too.

Audio/Video - 9.8/10
The sound has always been great in Sky Warrior games, and this is no exception. Plus the graphics are just as good as they were in the first, maybe even better. A new background switches things up but there's still only one environment.

Gameplay - 9.0/10
Brilliant, arcade-style, side scrolling shooter action. Sadly there's some minor lag, but it's only minor, and doesn't stop this game from being fun at all.

Replay Value - 10/10
216 different ways to play. Something that will stay loaded on your copy of Alice for quite a while.

Sky Warrior II Final Score - 9.7/10(Impressive)

Sky Warrior II does what every sequel should do. They fix almost all the problems the first game had and add new features and content without ruining the gameplay or adding too much new problems. This makes Sky Warrior II the ultimate sequel and my new favorite Alice Community game.
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Could you possible get me a .mp3/.wav of the title menu music for Sky Warrior II, I'm thinking about a video review

[Nighthawk0973]

Originally Posted by zero00

Before I work on a new game, I need to re-examine Sky Warrior (the first one).

Asking questions like "Why was Sky Warrior fun?" and "What could make Sky Warrior better?"
If you want to, please tell me your opinion on the Sky Warrior games or how you think they can be improved.

Your opinion could help the Sky Warrior games become even better!

Wky is Sky Warrior Fun? Addicting and Difficult. Try and continue the difficulty that Sky Warrior has, new boss fights, makeing them newer and more unpredictable and allowing veteran players to still enjoy the challenge that the Sky Warrior games are known for. That would be epic.

What could make Sky Warrior better? Acheivements, More modes such as multiplayer or survival, and adding unique bosses, instead of throwing in the same bosses replace them with new ones each game. Actually now that you think about it survival agains smaller enemies would be a good edition, smaller and increasingly more difficult enemies. Maybe a boss every wave? That would be epic too.

Anyways see what you can do. Maybe you could make a second .a2w be for the survival mode, that would make sense, and work.

[zero00]

Originally Posted by Nighthawk0973

What could make Sky Warrior better? ...modes such as multiplayer...

Any ideas on how I could get multiplayer to work with the game?

The only ways I can think of are a "2 player co-op" mode and a "sort of turn-based mode" (It's effectively single-player, but if player 1 dies, player 2's ship flies in and player 2 takes over. It's kind of like the first Super Mario Bros multiplayer I think...).

Co-op seems to be the most ideal (and hardest to figure out) option to me. Any ideas?

[ElectricKirby]

Originally Posted by zero00

Any ideas on how I could get multiplayer to work with the game?

The only ways I can think of are a "2 player co-op" mode and a "sort of turn-based mode" (It's effectively single-player, but if player 1 dies, player 2's ship flies in and player 2 takes over. It's kind of like the first Super Mario Bros multiplayer I think...).

Co-op seems to be the most ideal (and hardest to figure out) option to me. Any ideas?

Have both players onscreen at the same time. (True co-op)

That's really the only option in a side-scrolling space shmup.

[DensetsuNoKaboom]

You should make it so that Player 1 uses Up Down Left Right to move and Enter to fire, and Player 2 uses WSAD to move and Space to fire.

EDIT: 800 posts! 4/5 of the way to 1,000!

[zero00]

Originally Posted by ElectricKirby

[Co-op is] really the only option in a side-scrolling space shmup.

I agree! So I did just that!
I pulled up and old keyboard I had lying around, plugged it into my laptop, programmed in another player (using WSAD), and hoped for the best

Amazingly, it worked!
(Not used to things going that smoothly )

To play this, plug another keyboard in the computer!
Player 2 can't flip or shoot yet (I just wanted Co-op to work )

Tell me if it works for you or not! If it does, we may see Sky Warrior with a co-op mode
(I wonder how many smilies I've put in my posts... :0)

[zero00]

Just updated the co-op mode
Still trying to figure out a good control scheme for each ship. For now...

Player 1
Move--------Arrow Keys
Shoot--------Space
Flip-----------Enter

Player 2
Move---------WASD
Shoot--------- L
Flip----------- Q

Enjoy!

[x2495iiii]

This seems to be coming along nicely. Very well done, zero00. You should be proud.

[zero00]

Originally Posted by x2495iiii

This seems to be coming along nicely. Very well done, zero00. You should be proud.

Thanks!
I think I may create a single-player world and a multiplayer world
(Hopefully with different bosses for each one. )