'Sky Force Reloaded' a Great $0.99 Vertical Shoot 'em Up
posted March 5th, 2009 9:14 AM EST by arn in $0.99, Reviews, Shooter, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Infinite Dreams has ported their 2006 mobile game Sky Force Reloaded to the iPhone [App Store].
This vertical shoot 'em up apparently received rave reviews during its original release, and the iPhone version seems to live up to the reputation.
The game is a traditional vertical arcade shooter in which you must battle across eight different levels culminating in a boss-battle at the end of each. The game offers a variety of pickups and powerups along the way.
Sky Force Reloaded feels like a real arcade shooter. In contrast, many of the existing iPhone shooters have felt more like glorified tech demos without enough attention placed on gameplay balance. Sky Force Reloaded also offers 3 different difficulty levels (easy, medium and hard) and 3 different ships to choose from. Ships range from slower/more shields to faster/less shields.
The developers opted (thankfully) to use touch-controls for ship movement. While it's still no replacement for a joystick, their implementation is quite reasonable. Sliding your finger around the screen results in ship movements slightly offset above your finger. The ship's movements, however, have a certain lag/heaviness to it which feels appropriate and allows you to dodge enemy fire in a somewhat natural way by sliding your finger around the screen.
This video shows the gameplay across the first three levels. In the video it appears that the finger is covering up the ship, but in practice it's not as big a problem.
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
The game is currently selling for a $0.99 "limited time" price. At that price, we certainly recommend this game which offers the best vertical shooter experience on the iPhone.
App Store Link: Sky Force Reloaded, $0.99 (limited time)
Sure what the hell. It looks good and only a dollar.
Thanks for posting. Definitely a must have if you're into this genre. It is a polished game and reminds me of 1942 in a way. It flows nice and is well done – not a rushed out the door before it was finished game. Recommended.
was my fav game in the past (n95)
Looks good.
But don't see much power ups, other than the barely noticeably growing projectiles.
For those who know this game, do we have to get to different levels just to see double shooting, bombs/missiles, etc?
My fav would be a Raiden port T.T
Great game for all arcade lovers. A bargain price!
It's look like Hybris on the Amiga. Very cool Game!
Great game. Reminds me a bit of the Amiga classics Hybris / Battle Squadron from Discovery.
Had this on my old Sony Ericsson Symbian (UIQ3) P1i…it was already amazing then. Now i hope Infinite Dreams also ports K-Rally to the iphone…you will be amazed
Call me ADD, but I don't like shoot-em-ups where you can miss ships because they fly in between your bullets.
Overall though I'd say it looks like one of the better iPhone shooters. Controls look really nicely done.
This was a great game on Windows Mobile, and it's super cool they ported it to iPhone! I think this will probably be one of the best vertical shooters on the AppStore. I love the hybrid 2D/3D engine.
I don't agree that touch controls are no replacement for a joystick. You're not gonna get any more responsive than touch controls.
one of the best in the market
and i kinda like the BGM
i prefer spacex
I love the Amiga feel with the C64 sid chip music … sweet!
the video and reviews were enough for me to buy this.
Now it only we could have official(and un-modernized) Truxton(Tatsujin), and Twin Cobra on the iPhone!