the original Xbox catalog is very underrated and this is no exception to it

very fun flight combat game with pretty wacky planes like you can get one that shoot lightning and the one you start out with has a damn jet thruster on its back

boss fights are a miss unfortunately minus the final one which is very very fun overall if you can deal with Xbox emulation running this game at like 15 fps then i say go for it

Okay this game slaps

It def feels like an old game in both, a good way and a bad way. Let's start with the bad:
1) The hitboxes are sometimes bullshit. It's hard to measure the distance to the enemy and with the lack of a directional target(like in any flying game, to shoot ahead of the enemy's movement) it's hard to aim sometimes.
2) The story is meh.............. Characters and motivations are..... there
3) Lack of some UI elements for the flying game: directional-target crosshair, distance meter... That's mostly it.
4) There are different types of planes and that's good, but the variety mostly comes from the special weapons, but the stats or normal weapons don't change that much.
5) Upgrades are kinda wack because for the same reasons

The goods:
1) you fight big fucking nazi war machines: spiders, big ass flying zeppelins, big ass flying castles, big ass snakes, and others. holy shit! And you actually fight them, and not just its minions. amazing shit
2) the world. That's one of the most unique worlds I've ever seen in a video game. It's simple, but yet so believable. It's easy to understand the rules of this world, and it doesn't require you to watch 1000 cutscenes or have a degree in something, plane simple, super effective
3) Diesieslpunk. Diesieslpunk slaps
4) Chicago fucking slapssssss


The goods easily overweight the bads. Amazing and very unique games, I miss games from ps2/xbox era.....

It's a shame how the majority of planes that are new to this game are simply less visually interesting than the ones that don't make a reappearance from the PC game. Maybe this was because they wanted to give planes unique secondary weapons. Gameplay-wise however, these unique secondary weapons had the further unfortunate side-effect of making me feel like I'm selecting a weapon, and the plane it happened to be attached to was just incidental.

An additional disappointment was the replacement of Nathan Zachary's incredible voice actor with Timothy Omundson. Omundson does a serviceable job but he doesn't capture the /verve/ of the PC game's original performance.

In the early 2000s, somebody thought, "What if we made a Wild West outlaw game, but you fly an airplane the whole time" and it turned out incredible. However, unsatisfied, they then proceeded to wonder, "What if it became a Chicago mafia game, but you fly an airplane the whole time", and it was just as good. But with more yet to give unto the world, they looked the original Xbox right in its single green eye and posed the ultimate question: "What if it ends up being an Indiana Jones game... but you fly an airplane the whole time??"

I truly do not believe that games need to look any better than Crimson Skies. This is peak sixth-generation aesthetic, and it looks phenomenal upresed on Series X. There's so much style and charm on display here, with a delightfully pulpy performance from Timothy Omundson (!!!GALAVANT REFERENCE!!!) in the lead role. But more than anything, this is the most engaging air combat I've ever experienced, with its dogfights' tension regularly making me clench up and lean into turns while sitting on my couch like the guy in the N64 Tilt Pak ad. The final segment of the penultimate level in particular is one of the most intense, nail-biting sequences in any game I've ever played. I loved all of it!

Now lastly, we have to acknowledge the loss of a reviewing giant. Recently @Elkmane announced his retirement. As a lifelong Elkster, I knew this day was coming, but thought we had more time. While it's not the name he used here, I knew him as Big John. It just so happens that Crimson Skies features an ally character of the same name, and in the final level, King Richard kept shouting his name. I became fond of this game's Big John, but I'll miss the real one far more. So long, pal.

Elksters for life.

Nostalgia is dangerous. Never meet your heroes, they say. This game, like Ace Combat also did, appeared by random chance in my childhood for just long enough to make a lasting impression on me and then disappeared into the ether. Unlike Ace Combat, however, I never returned to it when I had an Xbox 360 because I never ran into something to remind me of its name. By the time I did remember its name and bought a copy, I had already become a master procrastinator, so I didn't get around to actually playing it for a long time. Well, now that I finally did, I'm a little sad.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not here to complain about how bad the game is or how much I hate it like I did with the Need for Speed games, Heat especially. I don't even think this game is bad at all, it just falls short of expectations, but it's hard to tell if those expectations are unreasonably high due to the aforementioned nostalgia or not. I want to talk about that primarily, about what sparse and fragmented memories transformed Crimson Skies into in my mind over the years, and maybe gush a little bit about that new ideal.

I do have some things to complain about though so I'm going to get them all out of the way real fast.

First and foremost, and this could easily be purely preference, I can't stand the controls. I've never been able to figure out flight controls where left and right is turn instead of roll, and this one is especially hard for me because there ARE roll controls on the right stick, and the plane rolls a little on its own sometimes making things very disorienting and confusing, especially with the limited field of view given by the aspect ratio, and that you have no free camera control, only an enemy tracking camera that tracks whatever it wants with no option to change targets and limited 90 degree rotation on the D-pad. Can't remap controls at all either. I do like the maneuver system though, that's pretty fun. The controls are imprecise too so it's rather difficult to aim, and pretty much all your offense options are guns that need to be aimed, so that's an issue. Making that worse is how small the hitboxes are. Making it worse still is how often the framerate tanks hard, not just a little chuggy here and there, but regularly under 30 fps, sometimes even hitting what feels like a stuttery 10. Every single one of these problems all get combined and emphasized towards the end of the game when you're stuck in small confined spaces with lots of obstacles AND are still expected to fight, along with a nice massive difficulty spike to top it all off. Also the audio mixing is just so, so loud. Like, crazy loud.

Now then… let's set all that aside and get to what I really want to talk about.

Can we all agree that dieselpunk is the coolest alternative technological setting? Pretty sure we can't all agree on that but it's my favorite by a country mile anyway. Cyberpunk is awesome, steampunk is pretty cool too, but dieselpunk is where it's at. This game, in my opinion, is at the peak of what dieselpunk is. Propeller driven aircraft seem to have basically replaced the car, zeppelins are everywhere, air travel in general is vital to the existence of this world, which leads to sky pirates. Man, pirates are cool, and giving them airplanes and zeppelins is just beyond perfect. In fact, it seems to have defined the dieselpunk genre before the term was even coined, because Crimson Skies actually originated as a board game in 1998, and then this game itself is a sequel to the original adaptation of said board game that came out on PC in 2000. The worldbuilding and lore, the sheer detail of this world, is just beautiful. Playing this game comes with a sense of nostalgia for a time period that you not only didn't experience, but never even existed in the first place, where the US broke apart into several independent nation states in the 1930s after a failed attempt to make prohibition constitutional and multiple influenza outbreaks leading to dramatically increasing views of isolationism, and eventually leading to constant chaos and small wars between these new nations. Perfect conditions for pirates to take hold.

Where the themes of Ace Combat focus on valor, glory, and honor, Crimson Skies is much more romantic in its presentation. Sure, the stakes may be extremely high in both games, but it feels much more personal in Crimson Skies, like it's all happening directly to you, because there's no government for you to answer to, no superior officers, no country to serve, only you and your crew. Jets are awesome and I love them, but there's something special to be said about propeller driven planes… especially biplanes, or unusual planes with the engine and wings in the back, and this game is chock full of both. They just have "something about them" that draws everyone in, that extra spark, the kind of thing that would make anyone's eyes light up regardless of age or experience. Add to that the zeppelins swarming the skies and the swashbuckling nature of pirates, and the absolute excess of personality and style dripping off of everything you see, it's genuinely one of the most enthralling settings I've ever encountered. Pure romance. I only brought up Ace Combat here because that game is extremely romantic in its own way, and Crimson Skies almost makes it look drab in comparison.

From what little I had to remember the game by, all of these traits were still there in force. I remembered all the best parts about the setting, the aesthetic, and the concept as a whole, and over time started to glorify these traits and project their quality onto the gameplay, assuming that the game must feel just as awesome to play as the themes are to experience, envisioning something fast, smooth, and rewarding. Unfortunately that's not really the case, as I already mentioned with my Big Chunk Of Complaints™ above. To summarize all of that, the game feels sluggish in both performance and gameplay, clunky, disorienting, claustrophobic, and devoid of any real challenge, the source of difficulty instead being fighting to play the game at all. The worst part is almost all of these problems could have been solved by simply changing the control scheme to something that gives the player more… well, control. Like Ace Combat, they nailed arcade flight controls a whole console generation earlier than this. Or maybe this is just a me thing… I know there are some people who simply can't figure out how to control a plane in a game when left on the stick is just roll rather than a full turn, maybe I have the opposite problem. Even worse still is that apparently the PC game before this DID have the control scheme I'm asking for.

I came into this game expecting to experience the glorious game I remembered. I finished thankful it was over.

Is it a bad game? No, not at all. It's just nowhere near the level I thought it was. Heck, it has to be good considering the cult following it has, and how it's often regarded as one of the very best games ever released on the original Xbox. That said, I do wholeheartedly believe that the game is deeply flawed and could have been so much better than it is, even after getting past my nostalgic ideal version of what it should have been. Only adding to this is that after doing some research on the original PC game, it seems like that game really ticks all the boxes and solves all the problems I have with High Road to Revenge. Maybe I should find and play that one sometime…

Another thing is that, again, even after getting past my old nostalgic ideal, everything I just said about the world and themes being beautiful still rings true, and I feel like I'm understating just how much I love it. For that setting alone, I desperately hope that one day this franchise can return, or at the very least, someone new can pick up the torch and create something similar. There's nothing out there quite like this series, and the untapped potential here is immense. Ace Combat came back after 12 years, Crimson Skies has kept us waiting for 17 now. Pikmin fans would know this pain well.

But about the nostalgia thing… I called it dangerous at the start of all this. Personally, I've always been wary of recommendations for old games because I've found time and time again that the games simply do not live up to the expectation set up by the person making the recommendation. They could still be good or even great games, sure, but if you decide to play them based on the shining recommendation of someone else, then even if the game is still great you could come out feeling disappointed, or worse, be completely turned off the series, or even the entire genre if it's unfamiliar to you. I would have felt terrible if I'd recommended this game to my friends based on what my nostalgia made me believe it was like, though I never did because I never remembered the actual title. I am 100% sure that at least three of my friends would have sworn off the flight genre entirely if they played this first.

All in all, this game doesn't suck, but I can't recommend it either. It's deeply flawed, but I'm in love with the setting, the world, and the potential it has.

Nostalgia is dangerous. Consider it due diligence to give an old game another try before you recommend it to someone… but remember that you may disappoint yourself in the end.

(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/crimson-skies-nostalgic-road-to-nowhere/)

Crimson Skies is definitely one of my favorite original Xbox exclusives. Backward compatible for the Xbox 360/One. The box cover is magnificent to check on. Drew Struzan (famous for Indiana Jones movie poster) designed the box cover. The opening for booting Crimson Skies is straight up epic.

Gameplay: Aerial combat are the central focus for gameplay. Piloting the planes are easy to control due to the simply controls for the Xbox controller. Each aircraft comes with its own speed, health and weapons. Certain planes carry unique secondary weapons such as missiles, flamethrowers and even Tesla coiled attack. Aiming on enemy planes are slightly difficult due a lack of aim assist. Destroying planes, zeppelins and monstrous aircraft are satisfyingly to witness. Split screen multiplayer are a blast to play with family & friends to determine who's the best air pirate. There's a wild chicken gametype which is straight up hilarious. The flying pilot helmet chicken replaces the flag in Capture the Flag gametypes.

Story: Crimson Skies takes place during an alternative 1930s United States. America was divided into sovereignties/regions such as the Nation of Hollywood, Arixo and Industrial States of America. Zeppelins and aircrafts became essential transportation across the globe. Nathan Zackary, Betty and the Fortune Hunters faced off the opposing air pirates and the fascist empire, Die Spinne. Locations consist of Sea Haven, Arizona, Chicago and a lost civilization in South American. The campaign is excellent and fun overall.

Other thoughts: Graphics still hold up to this day.nThe voice acting is exceptional well suited. Timothy Omundson (Carlton Lassiter in Psych) does an excellent job for the player controlled character, Nathan Zachary. Music perfectly captures the aesthetics of adventure films. Even though there's no plans for developing more Crimson Skies titles, it still holds a special place to me. Recommend to check out the video down below for a greater understanding of the franchise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eck6ufpq04I