Super Dimensional Fortress Macross - Valkyrie Fighter Chronicles!

Описание: I'm really running out of titles for Macross videos... Well, I stumbled upon this game. Never heard of it before, somehow. This is an older PS2 game, but this is actually really good... A third person shooter as per usual of 3D Macross games. But the thing is it's almost more like a VF simulator.

Battroid is the basic third person shooter form that has lock on and can shoot down missiles. It doesn't shoot missiles itself, though. It's really cool because it can slide and glide around, and when locked on, you fly around enemies in a spherical axis. It's cool because of the way it controls and the mech actually moves its body around to fly around and keep facing the enemy. The toll of gravity and intertia feels more realistic, too. Fighter mode has an Easy and Normal setting... Easy is probably 'flat' controls where you just steer left and right without rolling, but I switched to Normal flight controls that rolls and yaws much like you'd expect of a plane, without ever using Easy. This form doesn't lock on, so you have to aim your plane manually. Now, gerwalk... This game pulled a one of a kind.

Gerwalk is, of course, the signature transformation of the Macross series, the half-breed of a plane and a mech. That's exactly how it feels here. By pressing nothing, your VF will simply hover in the air. X and Triangle start thrusting you forward or backwards, respectively. Shoulder buttons can thrust you to strafe to either side. The right analog stick up or down lets you freely control your altitude. Left and right, and the gerwalk rolls to the side like a plane does to turn. In short, the entire three axes are completely yours to control. There's so much freedom and it's amazing. Like fighter mode, you also have to aim manually to face your enemies. Gerwalk does have a drawback, though, it's actually very sluggish to reach max speed, and drifts like crazy, so you can't just zip around twitching anywhere.

This is just the first mission of the game... And yes, the launching sequence (and midway cutscene) doesn't match the mech in the game for some reason. Mission 1 already was really fun... It's not like some of the other games that just add rectangles randomly and call it a city, and everything takes place in the skies above anyway so it doesn't matter. Nah, this game actually has you weaving through a city under gravity restrictions and limited boost, so you better be a good pilot to not just shoot walls and crash into buildings. By the way, the buildings can actually be destroyed, too. I tried not to. And that missile camera, I kinda like that.

Here I was excited for my imported Macross 30 on Christmas, and I found this to ease my soul 'till then!