Sky Crawlers - Innocent Aces is a pretty game. And parts of the music make me wish I had a better sound system at home to play it on. But some clunky design choices outside of the actual gameplay prevent me from giving it an enthusiastic recommendation.

Sky Crawlers is based on an anime movie that I saw last year, which is in turn based on a series of books which did pretty well in Japan, despite their being released in reverse chronological order. Confused? Don't worry about it. Yes, the world is at peace. Except for the staged wars put on by corporations apparently so that people can have something to talk about in the newspaper. Your job as a pilot is to shoot down the enemy in this ongoing conflict. And their job is to shoot you down. See? Classic plot. Oh, and there may or may not be clones.

Now that the plot is out of the way (? Y'know, every now and then a particularly incomprehensible property comes out of the anime industry, and I've found that it's much easier just to go with it), let's talk about gameplay. The normal controls have you holding the nunchuck in your right hand, and the Wiimote in your left. The nunchuck is then handled like the stick in an airplane, and the Wiimote becomes your throttle. Tilt the nunchuck to turn, climb and dive. Tilt the Wiimote up to go faster, down to go slower. It actually works pretty well once you're used to having a Wiimote in your left hand. Combat is interesting. You fly around shooting the other guys, and that's pretty straightforward in a WWII Prop-planes No Missiles game, as this has been so far. But the game also rewards you for style. If you can fly your plane close to your intended target, a meter starts rising. Once you've got it to level 1, you can hit a button, and the game takes over, performs a bunch of fancy maneuvers, and deposits you directly behind the target. Pull trigger. Boom. Next target. There are occasional bombing missions, I had a recon mission that became an escort mission (flying something that handled like an ice cream truck), so there's an interesting mix of mission types. Even if you have no idea what the heck is going on outside the cockpit. You also have the option of playing with the Wii Classic Controller or a Nintendo GameCube controller. (Oh, my beloved Wavebird. Come fly with me!) On second thought... I like the normal control structure better. Which is odd, because usually with this sort of thing I am All About The Wavebird.

I've enjoyed the gameplay. However, the menu system is clunky. Whenever you select that you want to continue the campaign, you're presented with an option to go back to the tutorial. This is after having been through the tutorial already. And after having flown missions. Lots of missions. It's a minor annoyance, but it's one that irked me, so it's worth mentioning.

Also, some plot elements take place in conversation while you're dogfighting, and it can be a little distracting to try picking up on what everyone's talking about (Kildren? Wha?) while you're in the middle of making sure you don't get your plane perforated.

Now, some people might play this game, and have their curiosity piqued about the anime film. I've seen it, and the film was pretty, but slow, and sort of depressing. But the game is not the movie, despite the fully animated cutscenes. The game is a halfway decent combat flight sim, aside from the clunky and annoying menu structure. I think it also suffers from a lack of true multiplayer. The box indicates that 2 Wiimotes can be used, but it's basically like the multiplayer in Super Mario Galaxy - You can point your Wiimote at the screen and fire at things as though you were a secondary gunner aboard the fighter plane.

So, who would enjoy this? WWII sim lovers who don't mind an impenetrable plot. Anime fans who don't mind a clunky menu system. And flight sim players in general. If you don't mind the issues I've mentioned above, and the lack of multiplayer, maybe this game could find its way Sky Crawling into your collection.

Buy The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces from Amazon!