Take to the skies in Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, a new RPG by Octeto Studios. Taking a substantial amount of inspiration from the cult classic Dreamcast RPG Skies of Arcadia, the game certainly has its charms. Unfortunately, the experience is also weighed down by a significant number of technical issues and general mechanical clunkiness that will likely ward off all but the most tolerant of players.

In Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, the world has been shattered into a vast archipelago of floating islands in the sky, requiring humanity to travel via airship to move between settlements. You play as Glenn Windwalker, a young man in the town of Blossom, whose village is attacked by the authoritarian Alliance. Forced on the run after his mother is killed in the attack, Glenn and his friends find an airship dating back to before the planet was transformed into the Sky Ocean, sending him on a quest to learn more about the lost history and potentially save the world.

While the premise doesn’t start off the most original (with the surname “Windwalker” being close enough to “Skywalker” to give an idea of what film franchise was probably on the writers’ minds when they were drafting the narrative), it takes on a life of its own as it progresses. I became quite invested as more elements of the backstory were introduced and the stakes were raised, even if the characters don’t really rise beyond stock JRPG archetypes. The decision to give the player 8+ party members (when they can only have 4 in their party at once) was perhaps a questionable decision, as the campaign isn’t quite long enough to give all of them focus (and indeed, many of them practically drop out of the narrative entirely after their introductory mission unless you talk to them regularly on your airship).

Gameplay in Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is separated between Glenn walking around town to speak with NPCs and buying items and equipment, and flying through the air in your airjet or airship. Combat is exclusively vehicle-based; instead of equipping Glenn and Co. with weapons and armour, you upgrade your airjets and fight your foes in the skies. There are no real random encounters; enemies can be seen flying in the explorable areas, and if you touch or shoot at them, turn-based combat commences.

Combat is… a bit of a mixed bag. The player can attack their foes, as well as use items and special moves called Arts. You can see which ally will be targeted by enemies on their turn, giving a heads-up for who could do with taking a turn to evade.

It doesn’t help that, at least on the default difficulty, enemies have way too much health, with it often taking multiple turns of focusing on a single foe to take them down. AOE attacks that damage multiple foes are only unlocked fairly late in the game, which is a bit frustrating when they would have been more appreciated for being introduced much earlier. Keeping up with upgrading your airjets is also much more cumbersome than it needed to be, as airjet equipment is unable to be purchased in bulk. Considering each airjet has 5 different equipment slots, there are over 8 party members to manage, AND you need to buy and equip each part separately, you can imagine what a chore this becomes after a while.

Although most of the combat in Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is experienced in Glenn and his friends’ individual airjets, you can also take on enemies in your mighty airship, the Nimbus. While this was initially exciting, Nimbus combat is basically the same as Airjet combat, only with bigger numbers. Instead of playing as four separate airjets, you play as different areas of the Nimbus, which each have their own special attacks (as well as the ability to separately evade enemy attacks, somehow). Considering the potential in contrasting the experience by having the Nimbus combat feel meaningfully distinct to better embody the feeling of captaining a mighty airship instead of a tiny plane, the fact that it feels basically the same (only you are unable to flee fights for some reason) felt like a disappointingly missed opportunity.

Worst of all was a game-breaking bug that I experienced, requiring me to replay half the game to get past it. The issue occurred when I left a dungeon early to manually save, which somehow caused a character who was supposed to join my party at the end of my dungeon to suddenly already be in my party, and eventually breaking future mandatory quest flags and halting my progress. Hopefully, such an issue has been or will be patched, but this review would be incomplete if I didn’t note that it occurred to me during my playthrough.

It’s a shame that Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is a mess on a technical front, as it can be quite gorgeous when it is working properly. I was a big fan of the soundtrack, from the catchy combat theme to the majestic score which plays as you soar through the Sky Ocean in the Nimbus. The game’s art style is vibrant and detailed, if one doesn’t mind the static character models causing Glenn to keep his default smiling facial expression even during intense cutscenes. The towns are colourful and distinct, and each player character’s airjet is nicely varied and intricately designed. There is also an appreciable sense of freedom when you first venture out into the Sky Ocean in the Nimbus, even if the game’s poor draw distance somewhat breaks the experience when floating landmasses simply materialise closely in front of you rather than being visible from afar.