Long-time IGN editor and Game Scoop host Daemon Hatfield asked me last fall if I could contribute to a Top 10 video he was working on. The setup: “every gamer has at least one game they love, but it feels they’re the only one who’s ever played it.”
If you’ve been reading this Forgotten Gems column, you know that I raised my hand within seconds. Not only do I have a huge list of games that are obscure and nearly forgotten in my figurative backpocket, I immediately thought of "the One". Perhaps I talked about Live A Live so much in the years leading up to the remake that I had already trained those around me to go “oh, it’s that multi-scenario Square RPG; always wanted to play it” – but with this week’s pick, Sky Odyssey, the answer is usually, always: “never heard of it”.
That response, while not unexpected, is notable for a few reasons. For one, Sky Odyssey is unique. It’s an archetype of a sub-genre that never took off – and never will. It’s the Rogue of flying games – only that there’s no flight equivalent of Beneath Apple Manor that predates it. Secondly, while it arrived as an Activision game stateside, it was actually commissioned by Sony Computer Entertainment as a PlayStation 2 DualShock 2 controller showcase. We don’t know what ultimately led to Sony getting cold feet and not wanting to bring the game to America, but Activision's interest wasn’t a surprise: the publisher had already made a practice out of picking up the US distribution rights for Japanese games like Tenchu and Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram.
Sky Odyssey was made by some 40 people from multiple development studios – not all of them credited: Cross, CAProduction, Future Creates, and animation studio XAX
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After a strong showing at ECTS 2000 (European Computer Trade Show, defunct as of 2004), Activision President Ron Doornik proudly announced a publishing agreement with Sony, saying it would be one of just a few games available for the newly-launched PS2 that holiday. And before we knew it and with virtually no time to build up anticipation, Sky Odyssey hit shelves just two months later on November 17, 2000, bang in the prime holiday shopping season. And though Sony would bring the game to Europe and Japan a few months later, its intuition seemed proven right by the utter consumer apathy that followed: PS2 owners didn’t want to know about Sky Odyssey (our positive review saw little interest), didn’t buy Sky Odyssey, and didn’t play Sky Odyssey.
It Belongs in a Museum
Fast forward to today and I can count on one hand the amount of people I’ve encountered in the last 23 years that know of and have played Sky Odyssey. If you're somehow here on this article today, I'd like to say thank you for being part of my secret club! It’s a testament to its strong design and timeless gameplay that when I brought in my copy to capture footage for the above video, our Video Production Lead Dave Toole’s eyes lit up and we ended up taking turns to beat the brutally difficult missions – even after we had already captured everything we needed.
I know I’ve buried the lead a bit with my ramblings about why Sky Odyssey may have faded into obscurity, but the obvious reason is this: it’s a niche game that was seeking that rare PS2 owner sitting in the middle of the unlikely Venn diagram of mostly old airplanes, combatless flight simulation, brutally difficult object-based missions, and an almost roguelike quality of trying to teach you that frequent death is just part of the experience.
The flight genre can certainly look back on a rich history – from 2D hits like Blue Max and Capcom’s 194X series SHMUPs to Mode 7 and 3D graphics empowering more complex experiences like Pilotwings, Falcon, Red Baron, Crimson Skies, Ace Combat, and, of course, Microsoft Flight Simulator. But the genre has diminished in more recent years, and even valuable licenses like Top Gun are wasted on bad and boring games. The developers of Sky Odyssey were keenly aware of the need to branch out and create something that would invite the non-sim crowd.
“The most difficult segment of creating this game was to keep a clear vision of our objectives in "Sky Odyssey", i.e. creating a flight simulation game which has the playability of an action game” - Mitsunori Shoji, Director (2000)
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Sky Odyssey is as much an Indiana Jones adventure as a flying game. The early comparisons to the Pilotwings series quickly fade away when players discover that the missions go far beyond flying through rings and pulling off some Immelmanns. There is a story at the center of it all, a quest to find four pieces of a map that unlock the location of a mysterious tower. The challenges required to be completed to get to it are given an added sense of urgency and danger through Kow Otani’s spectacular soundtrack – the composer of Shadow of the Colossus – that’s always reminded me of Bruce Broughton’s underappreciated Young Sherlock Holmes score.
The missions themselves vary between fighting weather conditions and avoiding falling rocks to venting your fuel to make your plane light enough to barely clear a tall mountain range, or trying to catch up to a train and attach to it to refuel on the go. Dave and I captured some fresh footage of it here, if you want to see what that looks like:
The pacing may appear slow when you watch Sky Odyssey clips, but it’s a truly dramatic, nerve-racking experience when you actually play it. If you get too greedy and try to get a few stunt moves in or try to speed up to get a better mission rating, you’ll often pay the price of gritted teeth and, inevitably, a stall or collision and mission-ending crash. It’s that level of challenge and demand of unbroken focus and good judgment, coupled with discovery and puzzle solving, that makes Sky Odyssey so memorable.
Despite Sky Odyssey’s high difficulty level, Mitsunori Shoji, the game’s director, was a vocal, early proponent of accessibility. I'm sure he’s delighted to see the sheer variety of games and genres – and the explosion of games that truly are enjoyable by anyone. But I can’t help but be disappointed that this future currently doesn’t include another flight adventure game. The Cross team certainly was optimistic: when you beat Sky Odyssey, the ending presents you with a forward-looking message – “Maximus has been conquered, but the open sky calls again…”
With subscription services like Game Pass being able to get more than 10 million players to check out Microsoft Flight Simulator, there’s certainly hope that our future isn’t all extraction shooters and pixel-art roguelites. Cross never made another game after Sky Odyssey and Shoji hasn't been in the public eye since from what I can tell, but its staff went on to work on Dark Cloud, several Mario Parties, and what could’ve been a spiritual successor but just didn’t come together: Wing Island. While new flight combat and sim games are still being made, the closest thing today is probably Grand Theft Auto V, whose air trafficking missions recall an early quest in Sky Odyssey.
Obscure Games We Love
Here are 10 forgotten games we want to put back on your radar, as seen in our 2022 video.
Where Can You Play Sky Odyssey Today?
Sky Odyssey’s visuals aren’t exactly inviting to modern gamers, but the gameplay remains fresh and compelling even today. Unfortunately, it's not available digitally or via streaming at this time. But if you've got a PS2 or a PS3 sitting around, you can easily find used copies for a few bucks on eBay and discover the rare -- the only -- flight adventure game that more people slept on than a red-eye.
Peer Schneider (@PeerIGN on Twitter) is one of IGN Entertainment’s founders and still buys any game featuring airplanes in hopes of rekindling those Sky Odyssey memories.
