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A Basic Description of the Gameplay

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 21
Date: July 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Since there's not one up yet, I thought it might be helpful for people looking at this game to know roughly how it is set up

You start off as one of 3 friends who are torn apart by a civil war, with you and one other friend ending up on one side and the 3rd friend ending up on the other side, so you have to fly against your former friend. That's as far as the story side of it really goes as far as affecting gameplay. There are a ton of cut scenes that are very well done so at times this is more like watching a movie than playing a game. The down side to that is that the movie you'd be watching is your typical anime, so not everything makes sense and people frequently do things that look pretty but otherwise seem pointless

Ok, so as far as the gameplay itself goes, you're flying a fighter in space and the whole game is pretty much through your view of the HUD in that fighter. You have a very very small radar screen which is almost useless, but there will be on screen arrows and circles pointing out various important targets and objectives, so the radar screen is really not needed anyway

You have 4 weapons on your ship at any given time, most of which have a limited ammo capacity. You can select these weapons from a list of what's available to you before the mission starts, sort of like Wing Commander, if you've played that. If you run out of ammo during a mission, which never seems to happen except with your anti-ship missles, you can dock with your carrier and re-supply during the mission, then go back out

After the level ends, you'll be rated on how well you did, how much stuff you blew up and which objectives you achieved, then docked for friendly fire, and then given a points total. You can then spend those points to buy better weapons for the next mission

As far as the actual flight controls and all that, I find them confusing in the default arrangement (the bumpers are your weapons buttons?) but they're customizable so that's ok

My main complaint about the game, as of maybe 6 hours in, is that some of the major points are not explained well enough in the rule book, for instance the fact that you basically have to use anti-ship missles to hurt big ships like frigates, and all of your other weapons won't hurt it. It would be nice to know that before you run your guns dry trying to strafe one. Another thing that would have been nice to know up front is that you can click the right thumbstick to look behind your ship and lock on missles to ships that are behind you. But basically after you fail a few missions you'll figure it out, so its not so bad

my other complaint is that your targeting system is kind of iffy when it comes to cycling through the enemies in the area, seeming to skip certain ones. That can be a big problem when you're on a level where you have to take out a certain guy before time runs out and you can't get that guy to come up on your target list, even though he's right there

Other features include special moves like being able to slow down time for a minute in order to get a difficult shot, and afterburners that make you go faster but drain your shields. I'm not 100% sure since I'm on my first play-through, but it seems like the missions may branch out based on how well you do in earlier missions; for instance if you're supposed to guard 3 frieghters and all 3 survive you might get one mission, but if only 1 makes it you might get a different one.

There's a tiny bit of strategy in that you can tell your wingman to attack certain targets or come help you out, but honestly I tried it a couple of times and couldn't tell that they ever actually did anything that I asked them to do, so I'm not really sure how much that enters into the actual gameplay experience.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I'm not as far along as I usually get before reviewing a game, but I figured since there was next to nothing about this one in the product description some of you might appreciate a quick run down. I would definately reccomend you pick it up and give it a chance, especially since its only $40

A solid space-shooter with some minor hiccups

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception will probably be one of the most under-appreciated Xbox 360 titles released this year. It came out in Japan about a year ago, but didn't release here in the states until the week of the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo. With the gaming community's attention at E3, Project Sylpheed's arrival has tragically gone overlooked.

An arcade-style action/shooter, PS:AoD takes place throughout several human-inhabitated solar systems during the 26th (or was it 27th?) century. To be honest, the details of the story aren't that memorable. The game opens with a surprise attack from rebel forces who have banded together to overthrow the supposedly tyrannical government that controls all but four of the human-settled planets in the galaxy. Katana Faraway is on a training mission in a prototype spacecraft called the Delta Saber when he and his squadron are overtaken by a swarm of enemies on their way to attack a major settlement. The story thus follows Katana and the two flights of Delta Sabers from the outset of war to its dramatic conclusion above Earth itself.

The story, which is fleshed out through over an hour of very well-done cutscenes, mostly just serves as a backdrop for the epic space battles that ensue. Each mission usually has two or three parts, and typically has you destroying a certain number of fighters or sinking an enemy flagship. There are also a number of hidden objectives in each mission (normally at least three or four), and are given to you through audio cues or just plain guesswork (i.e. destroy the enemy destroyer that's so far away you can barely see it). Overall the missions don't have much variety, especially when compared to great space-combat games like Colony Wars, but they do get progressively more difficult and often culminate in some exciting moments. Shooting down your first super battleship with nothing more than some well-placed rockets is truly remarkable and results in some of the best explosions see in any game to date.

Speaking of, the graphics in the game are actually pretty spectacular, especially considering the game is technically already a year old. As evident in the in-game cutscenes, there are some excellent lighting effects at work and the whole game seems to be rendered with some really subtle cell-shading (sort of like Zone of the Enders 2). The special effects really make this game shine: vibrant contrails, massive ships, motion blur, and some incredible explosions from the later super-weapons you can acquire (just wait til you kill a carrier in one hit from a maelstrom bomb). However, there's one aspect of the graphics that is also the game's biggest downfall: the HUD. Besides the fact that all your ship's information takes up the complete bottom third of your screen (even on a 16:9 TV), there's just so much other stuff going on at any given time that you'll often be disoriented and overwhelmed. Every single ship onscreen has some sort of reticule and amplifying information attached to it. Multiply this by twenty to thirty fighters on the screen at once, plus multiple targets on the bigger ships, and you can really see how this could detract from the experience. There were several times I crashed head-on into my own carrier to attempt a resupply just because I couldn't tell where the ship was because of all the other HUD information in the way.

The controls on the other hand really do well to augment the experience. You can configure them however you please, and there's also an option to switch between professional and novice flight controls (the professional option has separate buttons for yaw, while the novice option integrates both roll and yaw into the left stick). By default, the right and left triggers control your thrust, and the right and left bumpers control your nose weapon and main weapons (up to 3) respectively. Various manipulation of the triggers allows you to do pretty cool moves and really lets players develop their own dogfighting techniques. For instance, if you're in the middle of a huge furball of fighters, you can double-tap the right trigger to activate an extremely powerful boost to gain some distance. Then if you slam on the brakes with the left trigger, hold B (the manuever button), and hit up on the left stick you'll do an instant 180. With your ship facing the huge mass of enemies, you can hold the left bumper to start acquiring missile locks (up to 60 locks for certain missiles). For an extra touch of style, you can slam on the afterburners with the right-trigger (while still holding the left bumper to keep obtaining locks), and when you've flown back through the mass of enemies, double-tap the left trigger to cut all power to your engines, pull the nose of your fighter back around to the enemies so that you're floating backwards, and let loose with a ton of missiles from a perfectly safe distance. The super-boost and power cut moves are also extremely useful when battling the many huge battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and carriers you'll encounter too.

All in all, Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception is one of the best games to be released this summer. However, that's not saying very much considering how completely lackluster the last several months have been for gaming. If you loved games like Descent: Freespace and Colony Wars, then Project Sylpheed is right up your alley. Otherwise, it could just be a forty dollar diversion to hold you over til something bigger and better comes around.

GOOD:
-Epic battles
-Tight controls
-Gorgeous special effects

BAD:
-Obtrusive HUD
-Uninspired story

WEIRD:
-Not once is the term "Sylpheed" ever mentioned...

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The story line is creative. There are some things about the game that are very annoying (like the the lock-on feature, that seems to pick enemies at random). I have to admit that the game is addictive. Graphics are fantastic, and the missions are challaging, but not impossible. Try the demo on xbox live first, but although short, you will find yourself playing the game all the way through over and over.

Undeserved attention to a great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I also don't understand why this game has gone by without much attention. It's really fun and the graphics are amazing. About the controls you can always customize so that's not a big issue. When I play the game I recall the dog fighting scenes in space from the Robotech Macross Saga Series. Stunning!

Great space shooter

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is an excellent game, for several reasons:

1) The story. Unlike other space plots, there are no aliens here. Just human against human. I personally like the idea that we have enough evil in us to cause us each other grief forever, without the need for an alien race. Plus, you gotta love the over the top anime-esque characters. Also, the "overpowering central government" vs. "freedom-seeking rebel alliance" paradigm is always entertaining, even more so in today's world.

2) The gameplay. It just works. After learning the controls, you can dive in and start fighting right away. But for those who are really into it, there is alot of depth to the gameplay mechanics, such as sliding, gliding, using weapons layouts properly, using special attacks, etc. You could spend alot of time playing over and over again trying to improve your mission grade and using more advanced techniques.

3) Fun factor. The game is just fun to play, period. There's that intangible fun factor that some games have and others don't, which Project Sylpheed indeed has. It makes you want to keep coming back for more.

4) Awesome spaceships. One thing I loved about the old Silpheed for Sega CD was the ship design was so cool. Especially at the time as a teenage boy when I was into spaceships and jets. I find the same feeling comes back to me when playing this game. I love going to the hanger view and just looking at the Delta Saber. So if you are, or were as a kid, into cool spaceships, you'll like the spaceship designs in this game, both yours, as well as all the big battleships and cruisers.

Overall this is an excellent game, one of the funnest 360 games I've played in a while.

Warning to people without HD Widescreen televisions

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Although this was an amazing game that didn't get the exposure it needed to become a real blockbuster, the reason I am posting this is because of the people who complain about the cluttered HUD.

If you do not own an HD Widescreen television at least 1920x1080 resolution, MOST games on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 will be "smashed" to fit your screen, as they are both next-gen systems optimized for use on HD Widescreen displays (Sylpheed being one of many optimized games).

Why you would even buy a next-gen system without owning an HDTV is beyond me to begin with. I thought people learned their lesson when Dead Rising came out and you couldn't read the text on a SDTV.

In closing, I highly recommend against buying ANY HD videogames without an HD display, as you will most likely strain/damage your eyesight trying to play them. They should stick that in the manual warnings I think, not that anyone ever reads those...

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