Thorium Wars: Attack of the Skyfighter

Genre: Combat Flight Simulator

Players: 1

.

Review:

Thorium Wars: Attack of the Skyfighter, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014 is a futuristic Combat Flight Simulator and the follow-up to 2009’s Thorium Wars on the DSiWare service. While that earlier title had players playing futuristic tanks, hovercrafts, and jet fighters, this sequel places the focus squarely on the jets, with gameplay that’s closer to something like the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games or the more free-roaming parts of the Star Fox series. Given how terrible the land-based gameplay in the prior game was, this was probably a wise decision.

The presentation in Attack of the Skyfighter is somewhat underwhelming. While it is naturally more advanced than its DSiWare predecessor, Attack of the Skyfighter doesn’t seem like it’s making as good a use of the Nintendo 3DS’s added power as it could be doing. The 3D landscapes are decent in size, but both they and the various vehicles are relatively low-poly. Even worse is the sound, with forgettable music, and sound design so poor that the game doesn’t even bother to change the sound when you speed up or slow down, and weapons fire is thoroughly unimpressive as well. And despite the huge amount of banal sci-fi story this game wants to throw at you throughout the game, it is all conveyed via text, with no voice acting.

Still, despite the lackluster presentation, the core gameplay here is good. Flying your ship feels natural, the speeds feel about right, and in some levels it can actually be a joy to dart around buildings while blasting enemies, or navigate caves.

However, there are some downsides here as well. The gameplay is a bit on the repetitive side, enemy AI is pretty dumb, and the decision to make your guns overheat with continued use is frustrating. Another issue is how this game is completely lacking in extra content, including an absence of a multiplayer mode that would have really been great to have here. However, perhaps more than any of this, what Thorium Wars truly suffers the most from is how bland and forgettable it is, and its complete lack of originality. Very little of this game seemed truly inspired, and some of its best qualities are largely so good because they reminded me of other, better games.

Despite these flaws, Attack of the Skyfighter is still an enjoyable futuristic Combat Flight Simulator. It’s not even remotely close to supplanting games like Star Fox 64 3D, but at a price tag of $5, it delivers some fun gameplay that, uninspired, unimpressive and bland as it is, is still well-constructed enough that it’s worth the low price.

tl;dr – Thorium Wars: Attack of the Skyfighter is a futuristic Combat Flight Simulator that’s bland, unimpressive, and unoriginal, but its core gameplay is decent, and for $5 it’s reasonably enjoyable. Don’t expect anything even remotely as good as Star Fox 64 3D, but for the low price, this is a fun additional entry within the genre.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}