Project Sylpheed
Encyclopedia
, also known as Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception in North America, is a space simulation
game for the Xbox 360
console. It was developed by SETA and published by Square Enix
and Microsoft
. The game is acknowledged as the spiritual successor to the Silpheed
video game series, which comprised scrolling shooters: players pilot a starfighter
, shooting incoming enemies on a vertically scrolling playing field. Project Sylpheed uses 3D computer graphics
and allows the player to instead pilot his or her spacecraft in any direction.
Project Sylpheeds plot is set in a fictional 27th century where an interstellar human empire is about to erupt in a civil war. The game pits the protagonist and his spacecraft, configured with a variety of weapons and augmentations, against masses of small enemy fighters and large capital warships. Typical of a Square Enix product, the game is interjected at various points with cutscenes that reveal the story. The game is flushed with the characteristics of typical contemporary Japanese animation
: androgynous
males, buxom ladies, and an angst-driven plot. Critical opinions on Project Sylpheed were mixed; reviews varied from considering it an exciting cinematic shooter to calling it a clichéd and complicated simulator. Microsoft considered the game a commercial success, branding it one of Xbox 360's Platinum Collection
.
in a campaign that comprises 16 missions. Typical mission objectives are to destroy specific enemy targets and to protect allied ships. There are also optional secondary goals, such as completing certain tasks within a time limit or without taking damage. Completing the primary objectives within a time limit successfully completes a mission; failure to do so ends the game. If the player fails a mission several times in a row, the game offers an option to skip to the next stage.
Players control the Delta Saber from a view as if they were in the cockpit, or a slight distance away from and outside the craft. The controller's thumbstick
are used to fly the starfighter in any direction. By pressing the maneuver button and pushing the thumbstick in a direction, the player makes his or her fighter perform aileron roll
s and 180-degrees turns
(half-loops). Various button combinations control the Delta Saber's speed, allowing the craft to boost to great speeds with afterburner
s, coast on inertia without power, or match speed with a target. Certain maneuvers require the expenditure of shield energy, which protects starships from damage; an unshielded vessel under attack suffers damage to its armor. A ship is destroyed when its armor is depleted.
On starting a new campaign, the player receives a small selection of missiles, guns, beams
, and bombs to mount on his or her ship. By accomplishing certain goals in the game, the player obtains advanced weaponry—possessing greater damage, range, and targeting abilities—for his or her spacecraft. He or she can also purchase more powerful equipment with the points gained by completing missions. These points are determined by factors such as the number of enemies destroyed, the time the mission is completed in, and the number of secondary objectives completed. Aside from functioning as a form of currency to purchase equipment, the points act as a score of the players' performance.
After completing a campaign, the player can replay it in a New Game Plus
mode, restarting the new campaign with weapons and equipment gathered in the previous run. Besides the campaign, Project Sylpheed offers six standalone missions that are downloaded over Xbox Live
. These missions, with goals such as killing as many enemies as possible within a time limit, provide online leaderboards for players to compare their scores against each other.
sequences during the game, is a fictional 27th century in which human civilization has expanded beyond Earth for 500 years, colonizing several worlds and forming the Terra Central Government (TCG). Seated on Earth, the government uses military force to suppress colonial uprisings. The ADAN Alliance, formed by colonists of four star-systems
, initially engaged in politics to seek independence for their worlds. The central government's responded by destroying the terraforming
facilities of an alliance planet, Acheron, killing many colonists and turning the world inhospitable. ADAN does not believe TCG's cover-up
of its involvement in the planet's devastation and launches a war on what they see as a tyrant government.
Reviewers noted that Project Sylpheeds character designs were very similar to those in Square Enix's Final Fantasy
line of games: sporting hair of various colors, generously-endowed females and androgynous
men make up the cast. Exhibiting many outbursts of emotions, the characters are heavily modeled after personalities commonly found in typical Japanese animation
(anime). Characters are given voice in the animated cutscenes that exposits the game's story, and in the missions, they radio the player character with vocal comments and updates.
The player assumes the role of Katana Faraway, a young talented pilot in the Terra Central Armed Forces (TCAF). Faraway possesses a strong sense of loyalty to his friends and affiliation. As the game progresses, he gradually falls in love with Ellen Bernstein, a close friend and fellow pilot. Pitted against them are the forces of ADAN. The most prominent among them is Margras Mason, who is modeled after the typical anime antagonist. A close friend of Faraway and Bernstein, Mason was evicted from Earth as tensions escalated between TCG and ADAN. During his return to his homeworld (Acheron), he witnesses its devastation by the TCAF. He joins ADAN to exact vengeance on the TCAF. Commanding ADAN is Doris Egan, daughter of a prominent anti-government activist who was killed in the attack on Acheron. Like Mason, she is also pursuing vengeance, but with an extremist attitude.
is ambushed by ADAN forces. Losing a pilot, the squadron fights its way out, along with its mother ship
—the Acropolis. As Faraway and his team retreat, Mason warns him to leave the TCAF on the account of their friendship. Acropolis withdraws to the planet Hargenteen where the TCAF is massing against ADAN's onslaught.
After repairs, the carrier joins a task force on a mission, attacking deep into the enemy's territory to draw away part of ADAN's fleet. The task force commander, however, fell for an ambush. Panicking, he orders a retreat, abandoning the Acropolis, which was investigating nearby Acheron. While defending the carrier, Faraway shoots down Mason's fighter. Landing where Mason crashed, Faraway engages him in a fistfight and learns the story behind Acheron's devastation. After Mason's rescue by ADAN, Faraway returns to Acropolis. The mothership retreats to Hargateen and rejoins its defenders, holding off several waves of ADAN attacks. However, Egan arrives with her superweapon
, the Promethus Driver, and destroys most of the TCAF defenders and several ADAN ships with a single shot that also devastates the planet's surface. Too few to mount an effective assault against ADAN, the remaining TCAF ships, including Acropolis, retreat to Earth. Bent on revenge, Egan announces Earth as ADAN's next target despite Mason's heavy disapproval.
Scouting ahead of ADAN's main force, Mason's squadron is challenged and destroyed by Faraway's fighters. Mason is captured and Faraway persuades him to defect; the TCAF learns the weakness of the Promethus Driver from Mason. In the final battle, Mason flies alongside Faraway, destroying many of ADAN's ships and sacrificing himself to clear a way for his friend to reach the Promethus Driver's firing mechanism. Faraway destroys the mechanism, causing the superweapon to implode and form a gravity well. His ship fails to escape the well's pull and loses power; however, Mason's spirit
appears and restarts the Delta Saber, helping Faraway to escape. The post-credits scene
shows Faraway and Bernstein, as they stand together on a revitalized Acheron.
conference in Tokyo, Japan, that the game was the company's first exclusive title for the Microsoft
game console. This was part of Enix's strategy to diversify its market
, spreading its interests among the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
, and Wii
. Initially titled Project Sylph, the game was renamed Project Sylpheed for a more obvious connection with its predecessor, Silpheed
. The original game, first released in 1986, was a rail shooter rendered with 2D computer graphics
; dodging and shooting at incoming enemies, the player's starship moved around a playing field that scrolled vertically. Enix also credited Game Arts
, the company that had created Silpheed, as the developers of Project Sylpheed.
Game Arts's presence on the project, however, was more of a supervisory role. Project Sylpheed was conceived and developed by SETA's Ikusabune team, which comprised former Game Arts employees who had worked on the Silpheed series. The team intended to use the latest technology at the time to produce a sequel to Silpheed. The new game would allow player characters to move anywhere in a three-dimensional playing arena, instead of restricting them to fixed paths as in standard rail shooters. Computer graphics studio, Anima, was brought in to develop the game's story and characters, creating the animated cut scenes that are interspersed among the missions. The product of this collaboration was showcased at Tokyo Game Show 2006
; journalists had fun with the space shooter, commenting that its controls and learning curve
were simpler than those of space flight simulators
.
Project Sylpheed was first released in Japan on September 28, 2006; Square Enix published the game with only Japanese text and audio. Microsoft Game Studios
handled the releases for Europe and North America, localizing Project Sylpheed for the English-speaking market. Voice actors of the Western anime industry were brought in; Vic Mignogna
—whose credits included Fullmetal Alchemist
and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross
—voiced Faraway, and Kari Wahlgren
—who voiced characters in Blood+
and Final Fantasy XII
—provided Bernstein's voice. A demo
of the game, providing a single mission and a small selection of the weapons in the retail version, was available for downloading over Xbox Live on June 14, 2007, and the game went on sale outside of Japan two weeks later. On July 25, the game's downloadable content was made available for free on Xbox Live.
and Radiant Silvergun
, revolutionized the genre by introducing new elements to the gameplay. Although not as innovative, Silpheed won critical acclaim and attracted a following by allowing players to customize their ships' weapons. The popularity of shooters began to wane in the 1990s as gamers turned their attention to video games that featured the latest technology—3D computer graphics. Members of the industry believed the genre was about to fade into obscurity or already in the throes of its demise. Project Sylpheeds announcement gave them pause and led them to wonder if the new game would rejuvenate the genre.
Project Sylpheed lets players fly starfighters and dogfight many enemies in the vastness of space; however, G4tv
s reviewer, David Francis Smith, said that the game's designers had "no idea how to create structured, intelligible action in such a big area." Several of his colleagues agreed, finding the game flawed in the design of its missions. They were disappointed that most missions, in the words of Xbox Worlds Michael Gapper, tasked them to "fly, shoot, rearm, [and] shoot more" endlessly. Reviewers were also irked that they were not informed about the secondary objectives in a mission; the goals were only revealed after the reviewers had completed them unawares. Further frustration arose from the fact that certain time limits were only displayed on nearing expiration. Other reviewers had no qualms with these flaws, stating that the intense dogfights more than compensate such shortcomings; Game Informer
s Andrew Reiner wrote that the "rewarding quick-trigger combat and thrill of overcoming the worst of odds makes Project Sylpheed a memorable play for gamers who daydream of galaxies far, far away."
In Project Sylpheed, starfighters and missiles leave colorful contrails in their wake as they move through the void of space, and explode into fireballs when destroyed. The graphics impressed several critics; in his article for Play
magazine, Dave Halverson called the game "by far the prettiest free-roaming shooter ever created". Other reviewers felt the effects were not outstanding; IGN
s Erik Brudvig said the explosions looked like "bloody snot". Finding the maelstrom of color contrails distracting, Justin Hoeger wrote in his article for The Sacramento Bee
that he was dogfighting "garish, neon-colored contrails" instead of enemy fighters, a sentiment shared by several others. Will Freeman of Videogamer.com, however, appreciated the contrails for filling the emptiness of space with "tangled webs of gently shimmering blue and red" and found them useful as "a way of tracking [his] enemies".
Certain reviewers had negative experiences with the game caused by other factors. They had difficulty picking out enemies, which were small or fleeting targets because of their distance or speed, among a "haze of microscopic heads-up labels." Chris Dahlen of The A. V. Club criticized the game for forcing the player to constantly focus on the instruments to locate targets, thus breaking the illusion of dogfighting in a spacefighter. Other reviewers had a hard time with the game's controls, finding them too complex; however, those who mastered the controls could perform deft maneuvers with their starfighters. Another disappointment for reviewers was Project Sylpheeds failure to provide a game mode that they and their friends could play together online.
The weaving of a storyline with its missions made Project Sylpheed unique; shooters rarely did so. TeamXbox
s Andy Eddy called the story "absolutely the best part of the game", and several of his colleagues agreed. The focus on relationships made it more complex and easier to relate to than those found in other shooters, and Halverson praised the game for lacing a "mission-based space opera" with "real emotion". Again, differing opinions are not uncommon; Hardcore Gamers Thomas Wilde was disappointed to find the game akin to an exaggerated science-fiction soap opera
. Others found the story clichéd and uninteresting, especially for those who have watched plenty of "Japanese video game drama". According to Dahlen, it is a "story of warring fleets of strippers and Muppet-boys determined to wipe each other out of the galaxy." Gapper wished that the story's cutscenes stop interrupting his enjoyment of shooting the enemies.
Overall, critical reactions of the game were varied; its features did not have universal appeal. Wilde argued that only rabid fans of the themes incorporated in Project Sylpheed would be interested in the game. His colleague, Geson Hatchett, felt the game would have been better as a rail shooter with 3D graphics. The general sentiment among reviewers was that Project Sylpheed could not spark a revival of interest in a long-dying genre regardless of whatever qualities it may have. Despite receiving such reactions, Project Sylpheed sold enough copies (as judged by Microsoft) in Japan within the first nine months of its release to become part of Xbox 360's Platinum Collection
on November 1, 2007.
Space flight simulator game
A space flight simulator game is a genre of simulation video games that lets players experience space flight. Highly realistic examples lacking any sort of combat include Orbiter and Microsoft Space Simulator...
game for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
console. It was developed by SETA and published by Square Enix
Square Enix
is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...
and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. The game is acknowledged as the spiritual successor to the Silpheed
Silpheed
is a video game series developed by Game Arts and designed by the late Takeshi Miyaji. It made its debut on the Japanese PC-8801 in 1986, and was ported to the Fujitsu FM-7 and MS-DOS formats soon after. It was later remade for the Mega-CD and has a sequel called Silpheed: The Lost Planet for the...
video game series, which comprised scrolling shooters: players pilot a starfighter
Starfighter
"Starfighter" is a science fiction term used to describe small, fast, usually one-manned craft designed for armed combat .The appearance and use of fictional starfighters is often modeled on fighter aircraft, with little regard for the actual physics of spaceflight...
, shooting incoming enemies on a vertically scrolling playing field. Project Sylpheed uses 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
and allows the player to instead pilot his or her spacecraft in any direction.
Project Sylpheeds plot is set in a fictional 27th century where an interstellar human empire is about to erupt in a civil war. The game pits the protagonist and his spacecraft, configured with a variety of weapons and augmentations, against masses of small enemy fighters and large capital warships. Typical of a Square Enix product, the game is interjected at various points with cutscenes that reveal the story. The game is flushed with the characteristics of typical contemporary Japanese animation
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
: androgynous
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
males, buxom ladies, and an angst-driven plot. Critical opinions on Project Sylpheed were mixed; reviews varied from considering it an exciting cinematic shooter to calling it a clichéd and complicated simulator. Microsoft considered the game a commercial success, branding it one of Xbox 360's Platinum Collection
Platinum Hits
Platinum Hits is a term used to refer to a line of select Xbox games that were considered by Microsoft to have sold considerable units on the platform in the nine months after release, and have dropped in price from their original MSRP to a newer, lower price, generally that of US$19.99, although...
.
Gameplay
In Project Sylpheed, players take on the role of a rookie pilot and fly the Delta Saber starfighterStarfighter
"Starfighter" is a science fiction term used to describe small, fast, usually one-manned craft designed for armed combat .The appearance and use of fictional starfighters is often modeled on fighter aircraft, with little regard for the actual physics of spaceflight...
in a campaign that comprises 16 missions. Typical mission objectives are to destroy specific enemy targets and to protect allied ships. There are also optional secondary goals, such as completing certain tasks within a time limit or without taking damage. Completing the primary objectives within a time limit successfully completes a mission; failure to do so ends the game. If the player fails a mission several times in a row, the game offers an option to skip to the next stage.
Analog stick
An analog stick, sometimes called a control stick or thumbstick, is an input device for a controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller; input is based on the position of this protrusion in relation...
are used to fly the starfighter in any direction. By pressing the maneuver button and pushing the thumbstick in a direction, the player makes his or her fighter perform aileron roll
Aileron roll
The Aileron Roll is an aerobatic maneuver in which the aircraft does a full 360° revolution about its longitudinal axis. When executed properly, there is no appreciable change in altitude and the aircraft exits the maneuver on the same heading as it entered...
s and 180-degrees turns
Aerobatic maneuver
Aerobatic maneuvers are flight paths putting aircraft in unusual attitudes, in air shows, dog fights or competition aerobatics. Aerobatics can be performed by a single aircraft or in formation with several others...
(half-loops). Various button combinations control the Delta Saber's speed, allowing the craft to boost to great speeds with afterburner
AfterBurner
The AfterBurner is a lighting solution for the Game Boy Advance system that was created by Triton-Labs.Originally, portablemonopoly.net was a website created to petition Nintendo to put some kind of light in their Game Boy Advance system...
s, coast on inertia without power, or match speed with a target. Certain maneuvers require the expenditure of shield energy, which protects starships from damage; an unshielded vessel under attack suffers damage to its armor. A ship is destroyed when its armor is depleted.
On starting a new campaign, the player receives a small selection of missiles, guns, beams
Raygun
Rayguns are a type of fictional directed-energy weapon. They have various alternate names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, phaser, etc. They are a well-known feature of science fiction; for such stories they typically have the general function of guns...
, and bombs to mount on his or her ship. By accomplishing certain goals in the game, the player obtains advanced weaponry—possessing greater damage, range, and targeting abilities—for his or her spacecraft. He or she can also purchase more powerful equipment with the points gained by completing missions. These points are determined by factors such as the number of enemies destroyed, the time the mission is completed in, and the number of secondary objectives completed. Aside from functioning as a form of currency to purchase equipment, the points act as a score of the players' performance.
After completing a campaign, the player can replay it in a New Game Plus
New Game Plus
A New Game Plus is an unlockable video game mode that allows the player to start a new game after they finish the game at least once, where certain aspects of the finished game, such as experience or items, affect the newly started game...
mode, restarting the new campaign with weapons and equipment gathered in the previous run. Besides the campaign, Project Sylpheed offers six standalone missions that are downloaded over Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
. These missions, with goals such as killing as many enemies as possible within a time limit, provide online leaderboards for players to compare their scores against each other.
Plot and setting
Project Sylpheeds setting, exposited through flashbackFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
sequences during the game, is a fictional 27th century in which human civilization has expanded beyond Earth for 500 years, colonizing several worlds and forming the Terra Central Government (TCG). Seated on Earth, the government uses military force to suppress colonial uprisings. The ADAN Alliance, formed by colonists of four star-systems
Star system
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars which orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large number of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a star cluster or galaxy, although, broadly speaking, they are also star systems.-Binary star systems:A stellar...
, initially engaged in politics to seek independence for their worlds. The central government's responded by destroying the terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
facilities of an alliance planet, Acheron, killing many colonists and turning the world inhospitable. ADAN does not believe TCG's cover-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
of its involvement in the planet's devastation and launches a war on what they see as a tyrant government.
Characters
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...
line of games: sporting hair of various colors, generously-endowed females and androgynous
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
men make up the cast. Exhibiting many outbursts of emotions, the characters are heavily modeled after personalities commonly found in typical Japanese animation
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
(anime). Characters are given voice in the animated cutscenes that exposits the game's story, and in the missions, they radio the player character with vocal comments and updates.
The player assumes the role of Katana Faraway, a young talented pilot in the Terra Central Armed Forces (TCAF). Faraway possesses a strong sense of loyalty to his friends and affiliation. As the game progresses, he gradually falls in love with Ellen Bernstein, a close friend and fellow pilot. Pitted against them are the forces of ADAN. The most prominent among them is Margras Mason, who is modeled after the typical anime antagonist. A close friend of Faraway and Bernstein, Mason was evicted from Earth as tensions escalated between TCG and ADAN. During his return to his homeworld (Acheron), he witnesses its devastation by the TCAF. He joins ADAN to exact vengeance on the TCAF. Commanding ADAN is Doris Egan, daughter of a prominent anti-government activist who was killed in the attack on Acheron. Like Mason, she is also pursuing vengeance, but with an extremist attitude.
Story
Project Sylpheeds plot has the style and substance of typical anime, depicting characters as the focal points of events rather than individual pawns in the grand scheme of things. Told through an hour's worth of animated cutscenes, the story starts in the Lebendorf star system where Faraway's squadronSquadron (aviation)
A squadron in air force, army aviation or naval aviation is mainly a unit comprising a number of military aircraft, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or four flights, depending on aircraft type and air force...
is ambushed by ADAN forces. Losing a pilot, the squadron fights its way out, along with its mother ship
Mother ship
A mother ship is a vessel or aircraft that carries a smaller vessel or aircraft that operates independently from it. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research , or ships that carry small submarines to an area of ocean to be...
—the Acropolis. As Faraway and his team retreat, Mason warns him to leave the TCAF on the account of their friendship. Acropolis withdraws to the planet Hargenteen where the TCAF is massing against ADAN's onslaught.
After repairs, the carrier joins a task force on a mission, attacking deep into the enemy's territory to draw away part of ADAN's fleet. The task force commander, however, fell for an ambush. Panicking, he orders a retreat, abandoning the Acropolis, which was investigating nearby Acheron. While defending the carrier, Faraway shoots down Mason's fighter. Landing where Mason crashed, Faraway engages him in a fistfight and learns the story behind Acheron's devastation. After Mason's rescue by ADAN, Faraway returns to Acropolis. The mothership retreats to Hargateen and rejoins its defenders, holding off several waves of ADAN attacks. However, Egan arrives with her superweapon
Superweapon
A superweapon is an extremely powerful weapon by the standards of its time and its scale. Examples include the Tsar Bomba , various superguns and other various weapons employed to give a decisive advantage over opposing countries or forces. The given advantage is usually based on intimidation and...
, the Promethus Driver, and destroys most of the TCAF defenders and several ADAN ships with a single shot that also devastates the planet's surface. Too few to mount an effective assault against ADAN, the remaining TCAF ships, including Acropolis, retreat to Earth. Bent on revenge, Egan announces Earth as ADAN's next target despite Mason's heavy disapproval.
Scouting ahead of ADAN's main force, Mason's squadron is challenged and destroyed by Faraway's fighters. Mason is captured and Faraway persuades him to defect; the TCAF learns the weakness of the Promethus Driver from Mason. In the final battle, Mason flies alongside Faraway, destroying many of ADAN's ships and sacrificing himself to clear a way for his friend to reach the Promethus Driver's firing mechanism. Faraway destroys the mechanism, causing the superweapon to implode and form a gravity well. His ship fails to escape the well's pull and loses power; however, Mason's spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
appears and restarts the Delta Saber, helping Faraway to escape. The post-credits scene
Post-credits scene
A post-credits scene is a short clip that appears after some or all of the closing credits of a film have run...
shows Faraway and Bernstein, as they stand together on a revitalized Acheron.
Development
Project Sylpheed was first announced by Square Enix to be in development on April 5, 2006. The video games publisher proclaimed at an Xbox 360Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
conference in Tokyo, Japan, that the game was the company's first exclusive title for the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
game console. This was part of Enix's strategy to diversify its market
Diversification (marketing strategy)
Diversification is a form of corporate strategy for a company. It seeks to increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from new products and new markets. Diversification can occur either at the business unit level or at the corporate level. At the business unit level, it is most...
, spreading its interests among the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, and Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
. Initially titled Project Sylph, the game was renamed Project Sylpheed for a more obvious connection with its predecessor, Silpheed
Silpheed
is a video game series developed by Game Arts and designed by the late Takeshi Miyaji. It made its debut on the Japanese PC-8801 in 1986, and was ported to the Fujitsu FM-7 and MS-DOS formats soon after. It was later remade for the Mega-CD and has a sequel called Silpheed: The Lost Planet for the...
. The original game, first released in 1986, was a rail shooter rendered with 2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
; dodging and shooting at incoming enemies, the player's starship moved around a playing field that scrolled vertically. Enix also credited Game Arts
Game Arts
is a Japanese video game software developer located in Tokyo, Japan. Originally established in 1985 as a computer software company, they have since expanded their enterprise to produce for a number of game console and handheld systems...
, the company that had created Silpheed, as the developers of Project Sylpheed.
Game Arts's presence on the project, however, was more of a supervisory role. Project Sylpheed was conceived and developed by SETA's Ikusabune team, which comprised former Game Arts employees who had worked on the Silpheed series. The team intended to use the latest technology at the time to produce a sequel to Silpheed. The new game would allow player characters to move anywhere in a three-dimensional playing arena, instead of restricting them to fixed paths as in standard rail shooters. Computer graphics studio, Anima, was brought in to develop the game's story and characters, creating the animated cut scenes that are interspersed among the missions. The product of this collaboration was showcased at Tokyo Game Show 2006
Tokyo Game Show
The , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association and the Nikkei Business Publications, Inc...
; journalists had fun with the space shooter, commenting that its controls and learning curve
Learning curve
A learning curve is a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool. Typically, the increase in retention of information is sharpest after the initial attempts, and then gradually evens out, meaning that less and less new information is retained after each...
were simpler than those of space flight simulators
Space flight simulator game
A space flight simulator game is a genre of simulation video games that lets players experience space flight. Highly realistic examples lacking any sort of combat include Orbiter and Microsoft Space Simulator...
.
Project Sylpheed was first released in Japan on September 28, 2006; Square Enix published the game with only Japanese text and audio. Microsoft Game Studios
Microsoft Game Studios
Microsoft Studios is the video game production wing for Microsoft, responsible for the development and publishing of games for the Xbox, Xbox 360, Games for Windows and Windows Phone platforms. They were established in 2002 as Microsoft Game Studios to coincide with the release of the Xbox, before...
handled the releases for Europe and North America, localizing Project Sylpheed for the English-speaking market. Voice actors of the Western anime industry were brought in; Vic Mignogna
Vic Mignogna
Victor Joseph "Vic" Mignogna is an American Anime Award winning voice actor and musician who has done voice work for many anime series, movies, and video games...
—whose credits included Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist
, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution...
and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross
is an anime television series. According to story creator Shoji Kawamori, it depicts "a love triangle against the backdrop of great battles" during the first Human-alien war....
—voiced Faraway, and Kari Wahlgren
Kari Wahlgren
Kari K. Wahlgren is an American voice actress who has provided English language voices for dozens of anime titles and video games. Her debut role was as one of the main characters of FLCL, Haruko Haruhara. She had a live-action role as Tinker Bell in the 2003 Damion Dietz film Neverland...
—who voiced characters in Blood+
Blood+
Blood+, pronounced as "Blood Plus", is an anime series produced by Production I.G and Aniplex and directed by Junichi Fujisaku. The series premiered in Japan on Sony's anime satellite channel, Animax, as well as on terrestrial networks such as MBS, TBS, and RKB on October 8, 2005. The final episode...
and Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XII
is a console role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. Released in 2006, it is the twelfth title in the Final Fantasy series and the last in the series to be released exclusively on the PlayStation platform...
—provided Bernstein's voice. A demo
Game demo
A game demo is a freely distributed demonstration or preview of an upcoming or recently released video game. Demos are typically released by the game's publisher to help consumers get a feel of the game before deciding whether to buy the full version....
of the game, providing a single mission and a small selection of the weapons in the retail version, was available for downloading over Xbox Live on June 14, 2007, and the game went on sale outside of Japan two weeks later. On July 25, the game's downloadable content was made available for free on Xbox Live.
Reception
The 1980s was a period of fast growth for the video game industry. The shooter genre was enjoyed by gamers, who loved its fast paced action and high score boards that allowed them to compete with each other. Influential shooters, such as R-TypeR-Type
is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game produced by Irem in 1987. The player controls a space fighter named R-9a "Arrowhead" to defend humanity against a mysterious but powerful alien life-form known as "Bydo", which was later discovered to be not entirely alien in origin...
and Radiant Silvergun
Radiant Silvergun
is a vertically scrolling shooter video game, developed by Treasure. It was released in arcades on the ST-V platform in 1998 and subsequently ported to the Sega Saturn, with added cutscenes by noted animation studio Gonzo...
, revolutionized the genre by introducing new elements to the gameplay. Although not as innovative, Silpheed won critical acclaim and attracted a following by allowing players to customize their ships' weapons. The popularity of shooters began to wane in the 1990s as gamers turned their attention to video games that featured the latest technology—3D computer graphics. Members of the industry believed the genre was about to fade into obscurity or already in the throes of its demise. Project Sylpheeds announcement gave them pause and led them to wonder if the new game would rejuvenate the genre.
Project Sylpheed lets players fly starfighters and dogfight many enemies in the vastness of space; however, G4tv
G4tv.com
G4tv.com, also known as G4tv: The Show or simply G4tv, is a weekly video game talk show that aired on G4 and was produced by Laura Foy. The questions and polls used on the show were from the G4tv.com discussion forums live chatroom and were on any topic concerning games or the technology of gaming...
s reviewer, David Francis Smith, said that the game's designers had "no idea how to create structured, intelligible action in such a big area." Several of his colleagues agreed, finding the game flawed in the design of its missions. They were disappointed that most missions, in the words of Xbox Worlds Michael Gapper, tasked them to "fly, shoot, rearm, [and] shoot more" endlessly. Reviewers were also irked that they were not informed about the secondary objectives in a mission; the goals were only revealed after the reviewers had completed them unawares. Further frustration arose from the fact that certain time limits were only displayed on nearing expiration. Other reviewers had no qualms with these flaws, stating that the intense dogfights more than compensate such shortcomings; Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
s Andrew Reiner wrote that the "rewarding quick-trigger combat and thrill of overcoming the worst of odds makes Project Sylpheed a memorable play for gamers who daydream of galaxies far, far away."
In Project Sylpheed, starfighters and missiles leave colorful contrails in their wake as they move through the void of space, and explode into fireballs when destroyed. The graphics impressed several critics; in his article for Play
Play (US magazine)
Play was a U.S.-based magazine focused on video games, anime, manga, film, DVD, television, comics, music and media. Published by Fusion Publishing, Inc. since 2001, Play magazine also had a separate Internet presence on its website, Play Online...
magazine, Dave Halverson called the game "by far the prettiest free-roaming shooter ever created". Other reviewers felt the effects were not outstanding; IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
s Erik Brudvig said the explosions looked like "bloody snot". Finding the maelstrom of color contrails distracting, Justin Hoeger wrote in his article for The Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its creation in 1857, the Bee has become Sacramento's largest newspaper, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 25th largest paper in the U.S...
that he was dogfighting "garish, neon-colored contrails" instead of enemy fighters, a sentiment shared by several others. Will Freeman of Videogamer.com, however, appreciated the contrails for filling the emptiness of space with "tangled webs of gently shimmering blue and red" and found them useful as "a way of tracking [his] enemies".
Certain reviewers had negative experiences with the game caused by other factors. They had difficulty picking out enemies, which were small or fleeting targets because of their distance or speed, among a "haze of microscopic heads-up labels." Chris Dahlen of The A. V. Club criticized the game for forcing the player to constantly focus on the instruments to locate targets, thus breaking the illusion of dogfighting in a spacefighter. Other reviewers had a hard time with the game's controls, finding them too complex; however, those who mastered the controls could perform deft maneuvers with their starfighters. Another disappointment for reviewers was Project Sylpheeds failure to provide a game mode that they and their friends could play together online.
The weaving of a storyline with its missions made Project Sylpheed unique; shooters rarely did so. TeamXbox
TeamXbox
TeamXbox is a gaming media web site dedicated to Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms. While the majority of content is Xbox and Xbox 360 related, the site occasionally covers general technology and other video game news....
s Andy Eddy called the story "absolutely the best part of the game", and several of his colleagues agreed. The focus on relationships made it more complex and easier to relate to than those found in other shooters, and Halverson praised the game for lacing a "mission-based space opera" with "real emotion". Again, differing opinions are not uncommon; Hardcore Gamers Thomas Wilde was disappointed to find the game akin to an exaggerated science-fiction soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
. Others found the story clichéd and uninteresting, especially for those who have watched plenty of "Japanese video game drama". According to Dahlen, it is a "story of warring fleets of strippers and Muppet-boys determined to wipe each other out of the galaxy." Gapper wished that the story's cutscenes stop interrupting his enjoyment of shooting the enemies.
Overall, critical reactions of the game were varied; its features did not have universal appeal. Wilde argued that only rabid fans of the themes incorporated in Project Sylpheed would be interested in the game. His colleague, Geson Hatchett, felt the game would have been better as a rail shooter with 3D graphics. The general sentiment among reviewers was that Project Sylpheed could not spark a revival of interest in a long-dying genre regardless of whatever qualities it may have. Despite receiving such reactions, Project Sylpheed sold enough copies (as judged by Microsoft) in Japan within the first nine months of its release to become part of Xbox 360's Platinum Collection
Platinum Hits
Platinum Hits is a term used to refer to a line of select Xbox games that were considered by Microsoft to have sold considerable units on the platform in the nine months after release, and have dropped in price from their original MSRP to a newer, lower price, generally that of US$19.99, although...
on November 1, 2007.