Now this is a turnaround. Six years after the PS2 release and we have another installment, where everything apart from the name has changed. Actually, even the name has changed, to Project Sylpheed, which could technically mean this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the series (the name change is only noticeable in English lettering; in Japanese Katakana it's still シルフィード, implying a Romanization mistake somewhere). In fairness though, Sylpheed is described as a spiritual successor, and it did (tenuously) feature the involvement of GameArts. Maybe. The whole development web is a mess.
Hilariously, the back of the box says it's from Square-Enix, "the makers of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts," despite them only being the publisher of Sylpheed and having little to do with development. The actual developer was SETA Corporation, which according to MobyGames hadn't made anything notable since 1997. The company closed in 2009, as reported by Gamasutra, so contacting them for inside information is impossible (as for Square-Enix, their PR almost never responds to queries). Apparently SETA was a subsidiary of Aruze, former owners of SNK. Another site with information is IGN, which stated: "GameArts is listed as the game's developer, but it's really just the owners of the Silpheed name, and is providing 'full backup' for the actual developer, Seta. Within Seta, the team that's working on Sylpheed is Ikusabune, a team consisting of former GameArts employees. The Ikusabune name can be seen in the credits of previous Silpheed titles."
Whatever the true connection (or lack thereof) between series creator Takeshi Miyaji, GameArts and SETA, the 2006 rebirth is an entirely different game. Rather than a 2D shmup with oblique view, it's now a full 3D space-combat simulation for consoles. Think of Colony Wars on the original PlayStation, except much, much grander in scope. The world of PC based space-sims is its own constantly evolving sphere, but for consoles, even despite its age, Sylpheed has yet to be matched for enormity. The play area for each mission has limits, obviously, but is as convincing a representation of the infinity of outer space as is practical. Not only will you need to use your afterburners to move at reasonable speeds between skirmishes in a vast, cold vacuum, but don't be surprised to find hundreds upon hundreds of spacecraft all independently flying around. This isn't an exaggeration, since your personal kill count alone, at a mission's end, will start to top triple figures. In fact, the intergalactic action is so titanic, you're given two separate radars. One scans your surrounding sphere of space for targets, allowing you to aim and align yourself in 3D, while the second covers the entire mission area from a pseudo bird's eye view, displaying it as a 2D field minus vertical depth. It's a great dual system which helps to keep you oriented at all times. Ignore critics who complained about the instrument panels - they do their job perfectly.
Every yellow bar represents a ship! (We count 22 here - most missions have 100+ spread around)
The weapon system is different to previous games as well. Instead of one for each wing, you have to choose a nose-gun, and three secondary weapons - one for different parts of the ship. The secondary weapons are categorized by where they can be placed, meaning there are certain weapons which can't be mixed and matched. It's quite a good system in theory, requiring careful strategy to maximize effectiveness. Credits earned at the end of a successful mission are used to research (buy) additional weapons under a variety of categories. Some weapons can only be unlocked by completing specific missions or sub-objectives, such as shooting down an ace pilot.
Apart from throwing out absolutely everything mechanical from previous games, the story has also been overhauled, or retconned, if you prefer. Sylpheed takes place in 2632, compared to the Sega CD release which was 3076, and the PS2 version in 3107. It can't really be a prequel though, because the PC-88 original said that mankind only colonized the stars after cannibalizing the technology of an alien craft discovered in 3032. According to Sylpheed, mankind colonized the galaxy precisely 400 years prior to the alleged discovery of alien technology in Silpheed. According to the Sylpheed manual, mankind left the boundaries of the solar system in 2132! Though this does sort-of-almost-kinda match up with the PS2 back-story, which mentions mankind going into space 500 years earlier... Even so, in absolutely no way, shape or form is it possible for the Sylpheed and Silpheed stories to co-exist.
In the subsequent 500 years, Earth's imperial government colonizes 11 separate solar systems, and then uses the Terra Central Armed Forces to keep everyone in line. When planets show signs of wanting independence, the Terran forces obliterate their orbital platforms from space and commit planet-wide genocide. As a result of atrocities committed in the name of Terran peace, four rebel systems join forces to form the ADAN Freedom Alliance. You play a young pilot fresh from the TCAF academy, while your fellow student and close friend Margras joins ADAN. The story, unfortunately, is atrociously written. While it's quite obvious that Earth is pre-emptively targeting those who question its authority, killing trillions in the process, you never actually switch sides to ADAN, who are only ever portrayed as the enemy. The whole thing is disturbing, because when ADAN launches a retaliatory attack which does only a fraction of the damage that Earth did previously, they're held up as villains. The side of "good" is always the oppressive Earth regime, and the thematic message or subtext is that you shouldn't question authority, and if authority needs to kill innocent people to maintain its authority, that's just fine. Perverse and insidious doesn't even begin to cover it. According to the credits, a man named Takumi Sakura drafted the story, with five others writing the screenplay.
There's a fairly wide cast of characters, for both the ADAN and Terran forces, with plenty of interplay between them, but these are the main characters as featured on the cover art and several cinemas.
Character Profiles
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Katana Faraway
The player character. A fresh recruit drafted out of the TCAF academy, described as sensitive and straight-laced to a fault. Which is true enough, since he follows orders unquestioningly. His incredible skill as a pilot soon sees him rise to the head of the White Griffon squadron. Close friends of Ellen and Margas, despite the latter joining ADAN.
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Ellen Bernstein
A prissy heir to a well respected family, she apparently gave up the chance to be groomed for leadership, to instead live the life of a carefree pilot. Katana's wingman in the White Griffons, though she ranks up there with Slippy Toad for sheer whiny ineptitude. Fiercely loyal, she harbors secret affections for Katana.
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Raymond Logan
Starts out as the Commanding Officer for Katana in the Rhino Squadron. Also acts as the squad's tutor. He's big and tough, as shown by the tribal tattoos on his face, and fierce in combat. After being injured in a dogfight, he hands command of the squadron over to Katana.
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May Chrichton
Commander of the ACROPOLIS ship, which the White Griffons are assigned to. During missions she radios orders and information to the squads. As subordinate to several cowardly generals, it's her squadrons which are sent into the thick of battle.
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Margras Mason
Went to the same academy as Katana and Ellen, both of whom he was close friends with. His home planet was Acheron, which was wiped out by Earth's forces for wanting independence. Afterwards, he swore vengeance against the Terra Central Government and joined ADAN, becoming their ace pilot in the elite Night Ravens squadron. He secretly has affections for Ellen.
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Doris Egan
Her father was ADAN's former chairman, who was killed during the Acheron Nightmare. Now driven by revenge, she declares all out war on Earth. Filling the role of a stereotypically insane antagonist, she seems to have affections for Margras, inviting him to her private quarters after a shower. He spurns her though, too obsessed with his own thirst for revenge.
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Given the description of how the game functions, you can be forgiven for thinking it sounds like the best space-sim experience available on a console. It is, unfortunately, horribly broken almost to the point of being unplayable. As you can imagine from the size of the combat areas, plus the number of squadrons and enemies, missions are long, sometimes taking 30 minutes to complete. Also, some enemies, such as the super battleships, are obscenely tough. To start with, your weapons are terrible, so all enemies are tough, even the small ones, and are able to absorb massive amounts of ordinance. You need better guns, but these cost money, and the only way to get money is to shoot down lots of enemies, especially big ones. At the end of a mission your score is tallied on the number and types of enemies shot down. But you can't take on many enemies, and certainly not the big ones, until you've bought better guns. You also can't grind for credits, they are earned only through story mission completion.
An extra way to earn credits in missions is to complete mission sub-objectives. Unfortunately, these are not listed prior to the mission, are not listed during the mission, and are not listed at the end of the mission, except to give you a numerical count stating you've completed 0/9 sub-objectives. They are all entirely hidden, which has to rank in the top ten most stupid design decisions this generation; sub-objectives are never mentioned apart from when you accidentally complete one. You could print out a list from GameFAQs, but some objectives are so obtuse even the online community hasn't found all of them yet - several years after the game's release! Not that it matters, since many of them involve something ridiculous like taking out all the super battleships, or downing a small squadron in super fast time. This kind of higher level play, however, requires weapons you can't afford.
The most hilarious aspect of this cluster-fiasco, though, is that all missions are tightly timed. While the overall mission may take 30 minutes or more, each is divided into multiple segments, with a time limit of around ten minutes. At three minutes prior to your limit you'll get a radio message stating that you're running out of time - it doesn't matter how much ammo or shield energy you have, or how many enemies are still flying free, if you haven't killed everything still alive by then it's game over. This is ridiculous, since while many missions highlight key targets in red, just as many have no clear goals at all. You're sent out and told to just shoot stuff, or "defend the carrier." Escort missions are always the worst kind of missions in any game, and the majority of Sylpheed is made up of them. But it gets better, because in missions with key targets, wiping them all out often causes further waves to spawn. If this happens when you're in the dead zone for time, you might as well just hit reset right there, because it's not possible to take down multiple squadrons or warships in a minute with anything other than the best weapons.
You can see the Catch 22, can't you readers?
This isn't simply a case of the game being difficult and players needing to practise. No amount of skill can overcome this problem, because the in-game numbers are unbalanced and screwed beyond description. The weapons provided during early missions physically cannot damage most warships - they might as well be spewing warm ice cream for all the damage they do. Larger craft have shield modules which can be disabled, but again, your weapons are weak, your ship fragile, and the screen so filled with detail and things flashing past, that actually aligning yourself is almost impossible. While you can get by ignoring the warships at first, after half a dozen or so missions they become mandatory targets. It's an inescapable quagmire where failure is rewarded with a guarantee of further failure and game over.
Halverson's Play - Aug 2007 |
Hardcore Gamer Magazine - Oct 2007
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Of course, this makes the entire game impossible, which the designers 100% realized, since failing a mission three times allows you to skip it and continue the story. But if you couldn't afford the weapons needed for earlier missions, then skipping stages, which results in ZERO credits, is going to absolutely cripple you in later levels. Which of course maintains the cycle, until you've skipped your way to the ending, credits and NewGame+, which keeps all previously earned credits and weapon unlocks. Sylpheed is built around the idea of multiple playthroughs to unlock the weapons needed to play proficiently. It's similar to Dead Rising, in that you shouldn't expect to complete it on your first playthrough. Except it's worse than the Dead Rising system, since you'll clock a few missions, but get to see all the cinemas, forcing a restart if you actually plan to finish anything legitimately. Except you've already seen all it has to offer. If that's your reason for playing, you might as well just watch the cinemas on YouTube. The whole system is stupid.
Everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, who intends to play Project Sylpheed should do this: Download the patch and free DLC missions from XBL before even playing the game. Start a new save file on 'easy' and go through it, skipping missions whenever you die (and you WILL die). Consider your first waltz through on easy as an extended training mode. Attempt the missions if you want, but if it seems beyond your grasp then just skip it and move on, with the intention of tackling it the second time around. Skip all the cinemas too, so you can enjoy them later. After skipping past the final stage, save and start a NewGame+ on 'medium' difficulty. After the game is completed, you're given access to the free DLC missions. Weapons available in these are those previously bought during the main campaign, so in NewGame+ blow all your money researching expensive weapons, but don't save, instead load your game and do it again with other weapons to unlock most of them. The game auto-saves bought weapons to your profile for use in DLC missions. Now attempt the DLC missions, which are tough anyway - try to use weapons with good homing abilities. After completing the fuzzy green mission, you'll be rewarded with the unfortunately-named Thrush missiles, which actually makes the game playable and elevates it from broken to enjoyable.
You have no idea how much better Thrush makes this game.
It cannot be overstated how different Thrush missiles make playing Sylpheed. This should have been the default weapon you start with, not something which needed to be unlocked with DLC after skipping to the end. It provides you with 1000 units of long-range miniature homing-missiles, with reasonable damage, and the option to activate 40 simultaneous lock-ons. But it doesn't make the game easy, it simply makes missions winnable. Just about. A frigate requires ten lock-ons, which is fine, but something like a super battleship will still need all 40 lock-ons, on at least three separate approaches (120 missiles roughly), and only with a full complement of super torpedoes unloaded into them at the same time (the red missile torpedoes, which you should also have unlocked). Now you know why it's impossible with regular weapons. Importantly though, Thrush missiles will allow you to take down those pesky squadrons of multiple fighters, so no more idiotic time-limit game overs.
For those who appreciate the mentality of having to play through a game multiple times to complete it, such with Dead Rising, Sylpheed is going to get some mileage, but for everyone else it is a catastrophic failure of bad design - at least until you've acquired the Thrush missiles. Which is tragic, because Sylpheed should have been a success story about Japanese developers transitioning to high-definition gaming. The graphics are exquisitely beautiful, featuring stunning vistas and the neon trails of hundreds of craft for easy navigation. The sheer number of ships is staggering and terrifying. Colossal ship designs are also impressive, requiring careful pilotage around and between as you hunt smaller prey. It is a technical marvel of a game, which even years later still impresses. It showcases the fact that, without any doubt, Japanese developers on a technical level are capable of delivering an extremely high quality game. Too bad the gameplay is so hopelessly and utterly broken.
BONUS
Japanese magazine scans
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