Wild Blue Skies

Wild Blue Skies is a decent rail shooter when it finds the courage to be itself, but too often it’s simply Star Fox 64 But Worse – worse flying, worse story, worse difficulty tuning.

Wild Blue Skies showed a lot of promise, and I was super excited to get my hands on it, especially with all the recent fervor over Star Fox. Rail shooters are a great time, and this particular brand of rail shooter really lends itself well to having fun at different levels of play, across many runs. But after one run, I was ready to be done with this game forever.

Overall, Wild Blue Skies is a charming, budget-friendly tribute to classic Star Fox that delivers plenty of arcade replayability, colorful locales, and stellar voice work for a modest $15 price point. Sadly, uninspired boss fights, frame-rate hitches, and a heavy reliance on its SNES inspirations keep it from carving out a truly unique identity. Chuhai Labs has crafted a fun, nostalgic alternative for rail-shooter fans. If you’re looking to scratch that Fox McCloud itch without breaking the bank, this flight is well worth taking.

I’m someone that has no real nostalgia or love for Star Fox 64, but Wild Blue Skies is such a pale imitation of that game. This is especially true when a fully remade Star Fox just got released two months ago, it’s hard to find any reason to play this over that. There’s also other games that have done this better that doesn’t have enemy clipping through environments, abysmal enemy AI, lack of mobility, and underwhelming shooting mechanics. Wild Blue Skies is perfunctory and so bereft of originality, it never dares to be a maverick and exist as something wholly unique.

Games don't get much less innovative than Wild Blue Skies but there's no denying that it's a solidly-made game so that's cool, I guess. 🦊

Wild Blue Skies looks the part, but shallow design, its barebones story, and noticeable technical issues leave this on‑rails shooter struggling to stay airborne.

It’s a wonderful thing to see games made with such love and admiration for what came before them. Wild Blue Skies proudly wears its love for Star Fox 64, and for the most part, this is a charming homage to a legendary video game. Featuring a striking anime-inspired art style, likable characters, and fun gameplay, Wild Blue Skies has a stable flight that I can recommend to everyone eager to explore star-filled skies, even if the performance can be a bit rocky and controls for the All-Range sections aren’t perfect.

Wild Blue Skies is mechanically fine. It's as tepid as you could possibly get for an on-rails shooter. Unfortunately, everything else is a pastiche of something that came far before, and is far greater in the grand scheme. Inspiration is a magical thing, but Wild Blue Skies shows that inspiration is only the first step in creating something new.

Wild Blue Skies was a bittersweet experience for me. While I am a fan of shooters and enjoyed the adventure, its inspiration from Star Fox goes beyond mere homage; it features moments that replicate patterns so closely they stifle the game's potential originality, from the narrative to the level design. That said, if you have never played the Nintendo title, it is worth taking a chance on these blue skies.

Wild Blue Skies offers old-school entertainment at a reasonable price. It’s easy to draw a comparison with Nintendo’s Star Fox, but in all fairness, these are two games in completely different leagues.