Sky Rogue

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Sky Rogue is a rogue-lite action flight simulator where you can customize your aircraft with various weapons and engage in combat over procedurally-generated islands. The game offers a challenging experience with enemy aces and giant flying aircraft carriers, while its fun and accessible arcade-style gameplay makes it immediately welcoming. You can follow progress, share your experiences and find animated GIFs in the official subreddit, r/skyrogue.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Reviews

93%

Audience ScoreBased on 748 reviews

story18 positive mentions

grinding6 negative mentions

Sky Rogue offers a fun and addictive arcade-style flight experience reminiscent of classic games like Ace Combat and Star Fox.
The game features a variety of aircraft and weapons, allowing for extensive customization and replayability.
The procedurally generated missions keep gameplay fresh, providing a new challenge each time you play.

The difficulty spikes significantly after the early levels, which can lead to frustration for players.
The game lacks a comprehensive tutorial, making it challenging for new players to understand all mechanics.
There is currently no online multiplayer mode, limiting cooperative play to local split-screen only.

story
241 mentions
7 % positive mentions
88 % neutral mentions
5 % negative mentions
The game's story aspect is minimal, with no overarching narrative or character development; players engage in a series of procedurally generated missions primarily focused on combat objectives like "destroy X." While the missions are straightforward and can be repetitive, the lack of a deeper storyline is somewhat compensated by the game's roguelike mechanics and the ability to customize aircraft and loadouts. Overall, players express a desire for more mission variety and a richer narrative experience, as the current setup feels simplistic and lacks engaging plot elements.
- “You’ve been put on a series of missions to take down key opposition targets on your way to some nebulous secret weapon that could spell doom for your faction.”
- “The combination of perfect arcade flying controls and rogue-lite finishings is unique in itself, but just how easy it is to get lost in the game and spend hours just flying around, doing missions is noteworthy as well.”
- “The maps and missions are procedurally generated so each playthrough is unique.”
- “Sky Rogue has just 13 short levels with no story or plot (at least besides 'destroy x').”
- “Another thing I didn't expect from Sky Rogue is the absence of a story, or at least some form of story-centered series of objectives within each consecutive mission.”
- “Unfortunately, the missions get repetitive after a bit, as does the music.”
graphics
121 mentions
40 % positive mentions
58 % neutral mentions
2 % negative mentions
The graphics of "Sky Rogue" are characterized by a charming low-poly aesthetic that evokes nostalgia for classic arcade games, reminiscent of titles like Star Fox and early Ace Combat. While not photorealistic, the visuals are clean, colorful, and well-suited for the gameplay, allowing for smooth performance even on lower-end systems. Players appreciate the simplistic yet appealing art style, which enhances the overall fun and accessibility of the game, despite some wishing for more graphical variety and polish.
- “The graphics in the preview videos and pictures look cheesy, but once you're playing, you lose that sense of 'cheesy.' Once you get flying, you'll really get into it and not really pay attention to the fact that it's not Ace Combat-level graphics.”
- “With a clean art style reminiscent of the first Star Fox game for the SNES, Sky Rogue looks good, sounds good, and feels good.”
- “The graphics are low poly, but clean and satisfying; sharp notes of primary and secondary colors with a spicy napalm finish.”
- “The graphics feel like this would be right at home on something like a Dreamcast, and has a clean, retro look to them.”
- “The graphics are about on par with late 80s / early 90s.”
- “Perhaps I'm getting old, but Sky Rogue is just a sublime example of fancy graphics not making a game - this one is made to look like early arcade attempts at textureless 3D graphics, like Namco's Starblade and Sega's Wing War.”
gameplay
115 mentions
41 % positive mentions
55 % neutral mentions
4 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by a simple yet engaging loop of taking off, completing missions, and upgrading aircraft, with a mix of arcade-style controls and roguelite elements that encourage replayability. While the mechanics are generally praised for their depth and fun, some players express frustration with the lack of progression after death and the repetitive nature of missions. Overall, the game offers satisfying flight and combat mechanics, appealing visuals, and a rewarding experience, though it could benefit from more content and improved controls.
- “Very rewarding gameplay, simple to learn with its arcade style controls and difficulty feels like the best 'curve' I've ever seen, levels get harder but at a very smooth rate, with a final boss that is very balanced and gives a fair fight, mixing air to ground and air to air combat.”
- “The gameplay seems simple, but hides a lot of depth; you can fiddle with the loadouts for many different playstyles.”
- “The core gameplay is fun and the pseudo roguelike system works great.”
- “I'm just not wild about its pseudo RPG mechanics where you can upgrade equipment, but it only lasts for that playthrough.”
- “The checkpoint system is also meh with saving progress every five waves, but after a while, I just feel stuck because the RPG mechanics don't scale with enemies all that well.”
- “More or less, the issue I have is not that this game is in early access and that so many parts of what I didn't like would change, my issue is that the core gameplay mechanic was not fun, it was not satisfying and importantly wasn't rewarding enough.”
music
68 mentions
34 % positive mentions
60 % neutral mentions
6 % negative mentions
The music in the game is widely praised for its nostalgic 80's/90's synthwave style, which enhances the overall experience and keeps players engaged. While many find the soundtrack catchy and energizing, some users note that it can become repetitive over time, with limited variety in tracks. Overall, the music complements the game's visuals and gameplay, contributing significantly to its appeal.
- “The music is also a lot of fun and very energizing.”
- “A lot of games I just shut off the music during play, but I leave it on in Sky Rogue because it draws me into the game rather than being off-putting.”
- “The soundtrack is very good, and fits the overall tone of the game, with the same style.”
- “The credits music is incredibly loud; it doesn't seem to respect the in-game music volume slider and will be muted if it is set to zero.”
- “The music is too repetitive.”
- “The music and visuals become very repetitive after several hours of play.”
replayability
34 mentions
47 % positive mentions
44 % neutral mentions
9 % negative mentions
The game is widely praised for its high replayability, offering a variety of aircraft, customization options, and community-generated content that enhance the experience. While some players note that the core missions are relatively short, the procedural generation and diverse gameplay styles keep players engaged for extended periods. Overall, it is considered a great value, especially when on sale, with many recommending it for both solo and cooperative play.
- “Excellent game with tons of replayability, well worth its price.”
- “The customization and procedural generation makes this game infinitely replayable and fun.”
- “Great arcade shooter with great aircraft design, great workshop support, and endless replayability; would recommend to anyone.”
- “I'd get it on sale as there isn't a ton of replayability once you've finished the fairly short sequence of missions (i.e. more random levels but nothing new to see or do).”
- “Although it's limited to one set of play, the different types of 'aeros' and weaponry allow for a lot of replayability.”
- “-replayability.”
stability
8 mentions
63 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
38 % negative mentions
Overall, the game demonstrates strong stability, running well on various systems, including lower-end PCs and the Steam Deck. However, users have reported some bugs with the split-screen mode, which may require troubleshooting to function properly. Minor glitches are noted, but they do not significantly detract from the overall enjoyable experience.
- “Runs great on Steam Deck.”
- “There's clear objectives, it runs great, and remembers games are meant to be fun above all else.”
- “Runs great, even on my potato of a PC.”
- “Split-screen is very buggy.”
- “My only complaints were that the enemy variety is somewhat lacking as you progress through the days, and how split-screen was a tad buggy at first, though through trial and error, we got it working after about 20 minutes (with no problems since).”
optimization
8 mentions
63 % positive mentions
13 % neutral mentions
25 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization is commendable, allowing it to run smoothly at 60 fps even on lower-end hardware, despite some issues with Unity's physics tick causing stuttering at higher frame rates. Players have noted that the game performs well and is lightweight, with effective coding that minimizes resource strain, leading to a generally positive experience. However, initial launch issues were reported, which were resolved with developer support.
- “Regardless of the mod support, added content, increased challenge, and insane optimization that allows this game to run at a smooth 60 fps on a $60 hunk of scrap is astounding.”
- “It looks great and doesn't seem to impede performance too much.”
- “Normally, Unity games kick the fan on your machine quite hard, but this has been coded well to run smoothly.”
- “When you inevitably die, you gain XP based on your performance.”
- “Once you finally meet your fiery end, you gain tech points based on your progress and performance, which can then be used to unlock new weapons and planes.”
grinding
6 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
Overall, players find the grinding in the game to be somewhat tedious but manageable, with some expressing a desire for a slower progression to enhance the sense of achievement. While the game does require grinding to upgrade aircraft, the process is not excessively time-consuming, and players can learn to navigate challenges more efficiently. However, losing progress upon being shot down can be frustrating for some.
- “Also, if you don't like the idea of grinding to upgrade your aircraft, and then lose that progress when you are shot down, or in my case kamikaze into a blimp, then this game may be a little frustrating since that's a part of the game.”
- “This game is super fun, I wish there was some story for it but as it stands the combat is good and the progression is solid if not a little grindy.”
- “Last boss is a bit tedious.”
atmosphere
6 mentions
50 % positive mentions
17 % neutral mentions
33 % negative mentions
The atmosphere of the game is described as both immersive and nostalgic, effectively capturing the essence of 90s gaming with its retro graphics and fluid gameplay. Players appreciate the realistic flight mechanics and the intense, unforgiving nature of battles, which enhance the overall experience without detracting from the enjoyment. The combination of excellent controls and atmospheric audio further contributes to a compelling and engaging environment that invites repeated play.
- “The 16-bit throwback made me feel like a child again playing a SNES Ace Combat game that I never had... and boy... they hit every note right... it is atmospheric of a time where these kind of graphics using the Mode 7 chip were top of the line... it's like I am in the 90s again.”
- “The fluid framerate, excellent controls, and atmospheric audio all combine to make this a game that you will be coming back to again and again.”
- “The atmosphere is very unforgiving at times - if you've spent ten levels meticulously blowing up all kinds of stuff to get cash, upgrading like crazy, and then while you're going in for a bombing run against, say, a boat or something, and you simply fail to pull up fast enough... you're going to blow up, no questions asked.”
- “Battles are restricted to the atmosphere, and take place on islands, which allows enemies to defend in the land, sea, and air.”
humor
4 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by its lighthearted and whimsical approach, featuring amusing aircraft designs and playful gameplay that encourages chaotic fun. Players appreciate the creative modding community that adds a layer of absurdity and charm, enhancing the overall comedic experience.
- “Funny little arcade flight simulator for fights between bigger games :)”
- “Sky Rogue has a modding community that seems fairly talented and dedicated to making up some ridiculously cool or funny looking planes.”
- “That is, do you, the reader with the funny eyebrows and the tendency to rudely throw a writer off his train of thought, like to blow stuff up?”
emotional
3 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
Players find the game emotionally nostalgic, evoking feelings of childhood and reminiscent of classic 16-bit titles. The atmospheric graphics and gameplay transport them back to the 90s, creating a wholesome and enjoyable experience that many describe as fun and addictive. Despite some control issues, the overall sentiment is highly positive, with a strong recommendation from users.
- “Wholesome.”
- “The 16-bit throwback made me feel like a child again, playing a SNES Ace Combat game that I never had. They hit every note right; it is atmospheric of a time when these kinds of graphics using the Mode 7 chip were top of the line. It's like I am in the 90s again.”