Sky Force Reloaded
Review

Sky Force Reloaded (2004) is a fast arcade-style shooting game where you defeat enemies, earn money and upgrade your ship. As you shoot down huge opponents and dodge barrages of attacks, you save civilians and upgrade your ship with unique upgrades that make you strong enough to take on the next stage. It stands out for its unique combination of frantic shoot-em-up levels with role-playing elements as you personalise your plane.

You play a lone pilot who ventures into enemy territory to take on the vast armies of ships that await you and rescue the civilians left stranded below. In each of the fifteen levels, you move about the screen as it continually moves forward and must shoot the enemy planes and dodge their attacks as they come into view. You collect stars by destroying enemies, rescuing civilians, and taking on specific level challenges. These can be used to upgrade the different systems on your ship, .

While it's a simple concept, you can quickly find yourself swamped by the sheer number of simultaneous attacks and enemies facing you. Repeated runs at each level enable you to gather enough stars to upgrade your ship to improve your chances. This adds an unusual role-play aspect to the quick action shooting and offers more strategic complexity than is common in these shoot-em-up games.

The result is a unique challenge that pits you against seemingly insurmountable adversity, forcing you to experiment and hone your skill as you play in a unique gameplay loop of replaying the levels, upgrading your ship, and texting your strength against the next threat.

There have been a number of games in the Sky Force series, all offering a similar gameplay experience:

• Sky Force (2004) Android, iOS, Symbian, Pocket PC.
• Sky Force Reloaded (2006) Android, iOS, Symbian, Pocket PC, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 Mini (called Sky Force on PlayStation systems).
• Sky Force 2014 (2014) Android, iOS.
• Sky Force Anniversary (2015) PC, Mac, Apple TV, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U.
• Sky Force Reloaded (2017) - Different to the earlier game with the same name. PC, Mac, Apple TV, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, Tesla cars.

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Sky Force Reloaded a year ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated a year ago.