"Why are we here? No reason, just nostalgia, I suppose."

I've said before, only half joking, that the Wii only has about 5 good games. I still believe it has a weak library overall but I will at least admit it must surely have some hidden gems, but they are WELL hidden. As it was released in North America, Innocent Aces is a game absolutely terrified of telling you what it is. I think it's the earliest released game that I own that has a reversible sleeve; the US retail package features different artwork from any other region, making it look exactly like every other flight game on this system. A side effect of the Wii's reputation for being a "casual" console is that not only are traditional "hardcore" games fewer in number, but for the sake of marketability they are made to resemble their competition as much as possible. The only real hints as to the true nature of the game are the fact that it was published by Xseed, and that savvy enthusiasts might recognize that the aircraft on the box is like no plane in the real world. It is otherwise indistinguishable (at least, on the surface) from games like Blazing Angels, Heatseekers, or WWII Aces.

The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is an Ace Combat spinoff made as a tie-in for an anime film directed by Mamoru Oshii. In the movie, in an alternate history setting, wars are now waged by the Rostock and Lautern corporations as spectacle. The combatants in their live-fire engagements are Kildren, genetically engineered ageless child soldiers. Nobody ever wins, nobody ever can win. There's a legend on the battlefield that somewhere in the sky is a plane with a black wildcat on its nose, piloted by the only adult man still in active duty. Sometimes some poor kid leaves the fight to try and be the one to take the man down, but nobody even comes close. It is implied that in Innocent Aces, you play as that very man in his younger years, just as Rostock starts making the switch to test-tube babies.

The presentation of the game is quite striking. In the post-mission rundown, the paths of all planes, friend and foe, are traced through the sky as red and blue ribbons. Many levels feature large environmental setpieces, a city, a volcano, a castle. Once in a while between missions you'll be treated to anime cutscenes done by Production I.G. The soundtrack is excellent, the mission briefing and debriefing tracks stand out as particularly memorable.

I was initially a bit disappointed with the weapon selection compared to Ace Combat, but that was before I understood how to use "Tactical Maneuver Commands". If you stay within close range of an enemy for a short time, you'll start filling a gauge at the bottom of the screen. Once it fills up enough, you'll be able to execute various scripted motions with a single button press that will automatically align your plane for a perfect shot. It's somewhere between the movement capabilities of Sonic's lightspeed dash and the Doomslayer's glory kills. It's very satisfying to be able to charge headfirst into a swarm of enemies, and once you've safely closed the gap, pick them off one-by-one with ease.

As you might expect with a Wii game, the controls can be an issue. While you can use a traditional controller (Classic Controller/Pro or Gamecube), it comes with some hiccups. The tutorial only teaches you how to play with the default control scheme, the remote and nunchuck. Not only are the button configurations so different between control types that you'll need to learn them yourself or consult the manual, many tutorials are actually impossible to complete with a standard gamepad because the fire button on gamepad is also the skip tutorial button. The controls are also simplified compared to typical Ace Combat fare, and while there is an "expert" mode meant to reimplement this, it puts yaw control on the D-pad meaning you'll need to use a left-hand claw grip if you want parity with the level of control you have in mainline games.

I played through the game with a Classic Controller Pro but I replayed the first few stages with motion controls out of curiosity; if nothing else, it was somewhat illuminating. For one thing, it all but confirmed my suspicion that the "Tactical Maneuvers" were a band-aid fix for how difficult it is to play with motion controls (though these moves are, perhaps accidentally, fun enough that I don't care). The motion controls are terrible. You move and aim with the nunchuck. Not the nunchuck's joystick, mind you, that would make too much sense. No, you move and aim, the most important gameplay functions of any flight combat game, using the nunchuck's motion sensor. When playing the game using the Classic Controller I sometimes found the controls to be over-sensitive, with small corrections requiring unusually subtle joystick movement. I now suspect that this is a side-effect of the nunchuck's limitations.

The game's pacing is excellent. Craft restrictions are introduced with a mission where you must use a poorly handling stealth plane to take pictures of enemy structures, and once fights break out at the end of the mission it's almost impossible to land a shot without using your TMC's. The very next mission limits the player instead to what it easily the most maneuverable plane yet. Some later missions require you to carefully regulate your speed, or navigate heavy wind currents. Even at their most challenging, straightforward air-to-air combat missions offer a breath of fresh air.

Aside from the controls, the most frustrating aspect of The Sky Crawlers is that even after playing the game and watching the movie I feel like I've still only seen too small a sliver of this world. We don't see much of what goes on outside of the battlefield, the newscasts, the bars, bowling alleys, and brothels near the bases. When we do get a glimpse into the lives of civilians in this world, they might sigh, they might slouch and stare out into the horizon, but they don't say anything. What do they think? What goes on in this world, who needs this war and why? Maybe the novels go deeper into this, but they're only available digitally and I've heard mixed things about their translation.

Y'know, maybe I should have been more wary. RGG have now proven they have a serious track record of fucking up re-releases. Monkey ball 1+2 got borked physics. VF5 got racist netcode. Yakuza 1+2 got Kiwami'd. And now it really feels like Ishin has as well.

RGG will really add an unforgivably terrible gacha Card system on what already seems like a way too bloated game, but not address that you can just bait one attack and gun down from across the room every story boss.

RGG will really just change what seems like a pretty well thought out original cast considering the conceit in what is obviously a shortsighted fanservice move that will reek in like 3 years.

RGG will really just not address the game's blatant issues like a quarter of the runtime consisting of you running to and from work, attaching Kiryu's morality system onto thi main character requiring consant contrivance and the game's map clearly being hamstrung by loading times on the PS3.

Deep,, deep under Nu-Ishin is the best Yakuza game. And frankly, I get the impression that it's buried a fair bit under the original Ishin as well - I don't think the Yakuza stuff helps tell the story at play (not-Kiryu just sucks the life out of what seems like a truly fascinating real person imo) there's a pointless aount of RPG nonsense that only detracts from the combat that I can't blame entirely on the remake, and the map is probably the series' weakest if you arent a huge nerd for this shit like me.

But im a huge sucker for stories from this period (WATCH YOJIMBO) i love the aesthetic, the combat whilst having issues gainst greatly from swords and guns, and the general plot is really cool. Frankly, just experiencing thils state of japan from the viewpoint of an RGG game is satiation enough for me, huge nerd. But god it could be so much better.

And Nu-Ishin is just the worst kind of re-release. It reminds me a lot of Strange Journey Redux - making pointless changes that dont help and just alienate, whilst adding pointless new stuff that's both terrible and bloats out a game that if anything needs cutting down.

RGG are a very competent studio, but god they need to stop doing this shit.

PS: the translation/localisation here feels really rough. To the point i've spotted multiple spelling mistakes. Makes it particularly tempting to go back to the original once i've improved my Japanese... a lot.