Rodea the Sky Soldier (3DS/Wii U)

Rodea the Sky Soldier (天空の機士ロデア / ロデア・ザ・スカイソルジャー, Tenkuu no Kishi Rodea / Rodea Za Sukaisorujā) is an action-adventure video game developed by Prope for the mh:awesomegames:Wii. The mh:awesomegames:Nintendo 3DS and Wii U versions of the game were developed by Kadokawa Games.

Background
Rodea the Sky Soldier was a Nintendo Wii game developed by Prope which was planned to release around 2011, but the publisher Kadokawa mandated that a Nintendo 3DS port had to be developed for a dual release. The 3DS version took so long to develop that by the time the game was ready for release the Wii had already been discontinued for years.

Kadokawa then mandated to port the 3DS version of the game to the Wii U and bundled the original Wii game as a bonus disc in the first print of the game. Prope was not involved in the development of either the 3DS or the Wii U version.

Why It Falls From The Sky

 * 1) Poor and unresponsive controls that make flying a chore.
 * 2) Stiff camera. You have to constantly fight it to even get to where you want to go.
 * 3) Rodea is nerfed immensely from the original game to shoe-horn in an upgrade system. The levels were not rebalanced from the original to compensate, forcing you to grind extensively.
 * 4) Graphics in the Wii U version are rather washed out and do little to hide that they were recycled from the 3DS version.
 * 5) *Both the Wii U and 3DS ports also lack the bright and colorful environments the Wii version had, making them look bland.
 * 6) The game will assume you are fully upgraded to fight several enemies, since none of them are changed from the Wii version, making the game much harder than it needs to be.
 * 7) *Rodea's base flight speed is drastically reduced from the original game. Most of the game's enemies will outrun you until you've acquired extensive upgrades- making it extremely difficult to land hits and breaking the combat system.
 * 8) The machine gun is useless, it does nearly no damage and it takes a full magazine to kill one enemy.
 * 9) It is very difficult to earn extra lives. You can maybe get one per level if you're persistent in your exploration.
 * 10) Lots of recurring glitches, such as you taking damage even if you attack an enemy or the game crashing.
 * 11) Unlike the original game you have extremely limited flight fuel, causing you to either run out of fuel in mid flight and die or to constantly land to refuel after every jump. This makes the game's central mechanic- flying around floating levels- extremely tedious and frustrating.
 * 12) Bonus 2D stages from the Wii version are absent in the 3DS/Wii U ports.
 * 13) Multiplayer was also removed from said ports.
 * 14) Slow paced gameplay that is extremely boring and it becomes a grind-fest because of the upgrade system.
 * 15) Ion now talks during gameplay, and she never shuts up. This is so bad to the point where there's a verbosity setting in the options menu.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Your ability to chain Gravitrons and destroying enemies in a row are now ranked, which adds replay value and rewards the player for skillful play.
 * 2) The game's backstory is filled in much earlier than in the original, making the story more clear and easy to follow.
 * 3) The frustrating Wind mechanic from the original has been removed.
 * 4) You can now fly up and down at the press of a button.

Videos
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