Wing of Darkness

I really don't want to bash this game, especially since Yasuno Kiyono does the main voice for the game. In 2.8 hours, I've already finished the game (and this was with fooling around). I haven't tried playing it again so maybe there is a NG+ once I start again. The game was too short. 6 missions, and most of your time is watching the story (which albeitly were great). I noticed after several missions in, the flying enemies don't fight back. The game became extremely trivial once I noticed this. Worse is the enemies in mission 5 and 6 are bullet sponges that regenerate. Combined with their passiveness, it just became a test of your patience until you killed them. All in all, I was quite disappointed. I would be happy to change the review if more content was added and that bug was fixed, as I really want this to be good but in its current state, it's really lackluster.

I might change the review in the future if some fixes come, overall it's a good game, the gameplay is really fun but I hit a gamebreaking bug so for now, it's a no. In mission 4 the AI mechs that spawn at the end never fired back, it was kind of sad. There is a game breaking bug in mission 5 where the enemy mech just stays at 100%, I don't get it. Also, same problem of AI not firing back as in mission 4. The text could use a bolder font and maybe a text box, I just can't see it well enough. A ranking system would help, I see points but they don't seem to mean much. All weapons are unlocked so you don't need to buy any. No way to see keys or bind them. There's a few things that could be improved in the future if a 2nd game is made : Multiple frames, At least skins. Ability to modify frame for extra friends, ammo, mobility, firepower etc. Unlockable weapons through bonus objectives/income. If the story flow was kind of like Ace Combat, that would be awesome. Like briefing could use a bit more detail. A world map to show progress of the fighting and where they get moved to. A hover function would be great, land command would be nice as well over solid ground and seige for extra dmg. A bit more details on the mechs and the war would be great, no real explanation to the world it takes place in, why you are fighting or for what, you can just pilot a mech and off you get sent to war. I know the story isn't terribly important here to the gameplay, but I do enjoy a well written one. Would love to see it fleshed out in the future. Would be nice to land and take off from the base or some where the deployment is. This could use some sort of a base mechanic to walk around it, upgrade and interact with, talk to characters and stuff. Some extra squad interaction would be great like some minor dialogue choices. A way to change squad mech loadout not just yours. A variety of missions like something you have to do on foot because of a narrow passage or something. The ability to choose missions, maybe have territory conflicts, places where you have to attack or defend or do some other objective type. I honestly do want more of this though, so I hope the developers keep trying to improve this and maybe make more. The concept isn't bad at all.

It’s not worth buying it at full price. The gameplay is fun, but a bit mind numbing. It’s like Ace Combat except you’re controlling something way more powerful and easier to control. You go around blowing stuff up with a small variety of guns as you zip around dodging the occasional missile. It’s easily the best part of the game for me. The gameplay has something going for it and I would love to see more variety in the enemies. Because on normal all the enemies seem the same. It just feels like some are spongier than the rest. And what’s with the ground enemies? Those turrets and tanks? They aren’t part of the objective, and they don’t really pose a threat either. There’s really no need to add them. However, the story is why I don’t recommend this game. It’s a short game, whatever. If I have a good time with the story along with the gameplay, I don’t mind it being short. But, I didn’t like the story and I’ll explain why. The way it’s presented is in a monologue format, where either our lead or the other lead is talking to themselves. I don’t like it. It takes away any possible dialogue between the only 2 characters in the game. However, I must say the banter between them during the missions is good. If we had more of that in the story cutscenes, they wouldn’t be so painful to sit through. There’s really only 2 characters in this game. Everyone else has no lines, or even a face. They are definitely there, but they might as well not be for how much they added to the story. However, the biggest problem is the lack of any development with the enemy or outside world. We can have a personal story, but I implore you developers / writers to also take some time to go through what’s happening in the world. We don’t know what happens between missions, a lot of things seem to happen off screen. The missions feel very disjointed because of this, I’m not even mentioning the length. It’s the missions themselves, we barely feel like we’re doing anything worthwhile since we don’t know the results of our victory. We just get back to base and completely ignore the situation outside. And at the end of it all, what did we really achieve? Nothing. The game feels incomplete, the short length, the story abruptly ending before it even really gets going. We had a setup for a dark twist, the held system was a plotline that could’ve went somewhere, but it didn’t. They just dropped the whole thing after blowing up a ship, nothing is revealed. What’s going to happen next? Who is the enemy? Aliens? Corrupted Pilots? We never find out and that’s just disappointing. I don’t want to hate the game, but at it’s current price and content? The story can’t be changed or added unless you bring the voice actresses back. You could add a couple of missions as a free update or something. But even then, it still wouldn’t be worth it at full price. Do better next time, there’s something good here, expand on the story better, maybe more variety in the stages and enemies?

[h1]A game that's so short even the game doesn't let you skip the cutscenes.[/h1] Wing of Darkness has been a game I remember seeing a trailer all the way back in 2019. I forgot that it was in development until it sort of just released in 2021 two years after that initial trailer. The game isn't Ace Combat, not as in depth as Daemon Ex Machina, but it is a very arcadey mech shooter that almost had a sort of Strike Suit Zero feeling. Why do I only have 2 hours in this game? Because that is actually how long the game is. Yes at $30 that is pretty much unacceptable nowadays, but I have my own biases of wanting to scratch that anime air combat arcadey shooter. Kiyono Yasuno's voice for the main character is another big one (Megumi Kato's VA from Saekano). [b][u]Story:[/u][/b] The story is told through static cutscenes Visual Novel style. Klara is a country side girl who is suddenly taken in to pilot the Frauleins (the mech suits) due to a war that suddenly starts. There she will work together with Erika. As they work together they soon find out that the mech suits aren't just ordinary mech suits. That's honestly as far as I can go to avoid spoilers. Right as it gets into that deeper part of the plot the game just sort of ends. [b][u]Piloting the "Frauleins"[/u][/b] Gameplay wise you'll be using Frauleins, picking 3 weapons, and basically going to town. The game is actually rather easy once you realize most of the enemies never shoot back. Your weapons and health regenerate very quickly. The game is at least very snappy and very responsive. It's not trying to simulate the heavy weight of a mech suit. The combat loop is fun as you'll be zipping across the levels doing front rolls and just shooting away at enemies. The HUD is clean enough that things don't get to hectic. Another thing was the Electronic Music in this game which includes your Electronica with some Drum and Bass and some futuristic "trance". Reminds me pretty much of mech anime soundtracks years back. [b][u]So should you get Wing of Darkness?[/u][/b] For most people probably not as you could actually finish the game within the refund time. If you are just like me and had original excitement when this game was announced or you just really want to scratch that low budget mech anime shooter itch, go for it.

Gave this an hour, here's my impression: Gameplay is fun but shallow (so far). Combat is quick and your character is responsive, which is good. You move fast and shoot fast, and particularly of note is how well the camera movement, the lock-on, and the dodge all come together. There's a tiny variety of weapons and it doesn't look like there's any upgrading elements, so combined with the enemy types you run into so far, it feels more like an issue of taste rather than having some sort of rock-paper-scissors to it. What's not so fun is how enemies either feel like they don't have enough, or too much health. Quick enemies that take advantage of the fun dodge system do not survive long enough AND they tend to come in droves so it turns into a quick scope fest (which to be fair, has its fun factor; it just doesn't last very long). On the other hand, large enemies are basically bullet sponges that just take up your time (unless you're into optimizing damage) as you drift up and around them chipping their health away. Conceptually I think you're supposed to juggle both of these types of enemies (along with later types) but functionally they don't really mesh together. It's not bad, you just exhaust the fun really quickly, and I didn't feel any changes within the first 3-4 missions. I wish they took into account the fun combat mechanics and made enemies that were more fitting. Aesthetics are fine, story writing is a bit iffy. The game looks nice, but depending on what you compare it to it can look a bit outdated when you put things under a microscope. The art and design is okay, and the voice acting seems fine. Music is fitting where they should be, if not a bit unmemorable so far. The story (narrated heavily by the aforementioned voice acting) however is a bit too long-winded despite not really establishing its characters very well. It feels like it's right in the valley between a good story that told less and a good story that told more. There's no sense of world-building besides the cut-scenes which have no setup, and I guess maybe the briefing screens right before a mission. You can skip it with F key if you don't care about those things, but personally I wanted something more refined there. The game doesn't let you rebind keys, and you only get one instance of learning the controls (there's no explanation of what other keys might do, including the aforementioned F key to skip in cutscenes, and having to hold down mouse wheel to use the tertiary weapon). The UI feels appropriate and you figure out what's what quickly, which is nice. There's an okay amount of options for a game like this, but I was finding it hard to tell the difference between high and medium graphics when enemies are either too big or too small, and you don't really get a chance to look at your own character model until the end of a mission. Borderless window is always nice to have, though. I think I might refund this for now and see if they update or adjust it in the future. It's not bad, and I don't want to say it's not worth the price, but I don't think I'm too interested in it in its current state.

Enjoyable game if you like dog fighting mech action, but definitely too short. Plays like a kinetic novel with cutscenes in between missions, of which there's only six and sadly don't do the game justice in terms of gameplay. The action is there, the mechanics are good, the missions are just too short, not very complex and the enemy variety is lacking. I really hope the developers plan more for this IP, whether through updates, dlc, a sequel, really just anything because this is a pretty decent starting point for something bigger.

[list] [*]❌unreal engine 4 with forced 60fps lock. [*]❌can't rebind controls. [*]❌no fov options. [*]❌no real challenge to play due to the auto lock. [*]❌more visual novel content than actual gameplay. [*]❌very short game. [/list] [list] [*]✔️decent graphics. [*]✔️fast paced gameplay. [*]✔️good character design. [*]✔️nice soundtrack and voice acting. [/list] Not a complete garbage game but far from being good either. That's unfortunate because I followed this game for many years and even backed their project by buying the early demo they had years ago on booth. Just for the framerate lock and not giving options to players to rebind keys this game deserve a negative review. I tried everyhting I could on my side to remove the framerate lock to no avail, old demo from years ago I could play with unlimited framerate just fine. I would say the game might still be worth a playthrough if that's your jam and can grab it for dirt cheap in a deep sale and can cope with the framerate lock. [h1]Rating 4/10.[/h1]

I guess I'll start by saying I'm a speedrunner. Now as a speedrunner I can honestly say the game is fun and as a speed run it is quite interesting and fun. Although not the best game the story is solid. The voice acting is where the game shines and gameplay is fun despite the game being short. From a speedrun perspective it's actually a game I tend to recommend if it can be gotten on sale as it's great for helping people work on getting better at movement in a 3D space. Now whether or not you think that a good or bad thing is up to you. But personally I think the game has its charms and is quite a good way to brush up on a skill set or improve when looked at in that regard.

I'd only recommend this if you want a quick Shoot 'Em Up game that doesn't really need you to think of anything. I would honestly not recommend this in any other way, but I really want these kinds of games (mech, high-speed/action combat, etc.) to boom again. There's a lack of them these days. With that out of the way... [h1]TLDR[/h1] (too long, didn't read) - The game lacks substance in its story, it only gets a bit juicy near the end and even then the game is really short. As others have said, it can be done in 2 hours or less if you don't care for the story. The gameplay is OK but know that midway through the game, the AI makes the missions easy to clear. - You can check the VLDR section of this review if you want to know more, and at the end of it is my RECOMMENDATION for the developers if they decide to remake this game into something better than it is now (and possibly with more budget). - All in all, the game's a quick and mindless time burner that you could enjoy if you just like shooting things and blowing them up. If you want to try the game, wait for a sale. If not, then you could probably just watch a playthrough of the game on YouTube. [h1]VLDR[/h1] (very long, did read) [b]Story[/b] - There's a bit of plot holes in the story that I barely think any of it was memorable or important to the actual game. It was always Daily Life Talk > Some Personal Words > then onto them saying "they were called for another mission". - The only thing that I could say was memorable was Erika finding someone to have her back against rather than being a loner and Klara... finding a family outside of her own??? Idk. - The only "important" thing from the story was [spoiler]the revelation of the Held System and its use, and Klara fighting another Fraulein that fell to the effects of it.[/spoiler] [b]Mechs/Suits[/b] - Its basically Strike Witches or Alice Gear Aegis. - The weapon variety is nice but I found that there are certain weapons that can make it easy to clear enemies, and most of the time you don't really have to take into account what enemies will be in the stage... - There's no customization besides the weapons so... yeah. - I don't even know what the suits are called. They use the "Held System" and the pilots are called "Fraulein", but never did the game say what they're called. I'm calling them Fraulein Suits. [b]Gameplay/Combat[/b] - If you've played Project Nimbus, its like that (its also made in the same engine). - The "focus lock" needs to be refreshed every time you destroy an enemy rather than automatically switching to another. - The enemies do fire at you at the first 3 missions but after that their AI seems to be a bit jumbled in the following missions (eg. Mission 4 has hostile Frauleins firing at you, but then the non-target/essential enemies don't really do anything. Mission 6 has the non-essential targets firing at you while the hostile frauleins don't do anything). - The hitboxes are MASSIVE, you do need to aim a bit near the circle but it doesn't have to be inside it and it will still hit your target. - Cutscenes are skippable if you hold X(XBox Controller layout, im not sure what button it is on MK setup). But you CANT skip dialogue in-game/combat. There are some missions that you just have to wait out to finish the dialogue because the boss enemy can't be damaged/destroyed. - Some enemies are invulnerable, the game doesn't tell you if its an indestructible boss with a dialogue later on or you might just need to clear out the other enemies before damaging it. - The points don't really do anything. You don't have to clear the map of all enemies unless you're trying to do an achievement. - There are no endgame content, there are no special endings that you can get by beating the game in harder difficulties. [b]Cut scenes and Characters[/b] - There are no animated cutscenes. Good luck waiting out the dialogue and looking at a slowly moving static picture. - The characters aren't memorable and their background and as to how they "came to be" are not told. - There are only 3 characters in this game. Everyone else is just a voice that you hear. (one of those 3 don't even talk in-game). [b]Recommendations for the Studio/Developer[/b] - I'd gladly buy another game that polishes the story and the gameplay of this one. - For the story, even as simple as making the two persons talk directly together in a dialogue (not a monologue saying what they "said" to the other) would be good enough, but small animated cutscenes using the game's engine would be good too. - Polish up the story-writing, establish enough character building before throwing them into a combat mission. You can even make a mission that will help build it, like insert missions that doesn't even need to involve any combat at all. - Add more depth to the main characters and a just a little bit to the side characters, I feel like the new recruits could have been additional pillars to build the main character's background, so they could also be added as a "named" character too. - For the gameplay, fix the AI, not only from Mission 4 and onwards but also the AI from harder difficulties. They don't seem to do much in harder difficulties, just that a few of them fire more frequently than lower difficulties. - Make the points mean anything, even just skins on the MC's Fraulein Suits would be neat. But it'd be nice if we can buy custom parts for the MC's suit. (and add a equipment stats system to the game, but that might be too much) - Also rebalance the weapons, one weapon can dominate any scenario without thinking too much of how you use it. (Drachen/Javelin, Striker, Gestober are my setup, it'll decimate any enemy you encounter)

Imagine combining Ace Combat with Armored Core. WoD is a very short but pleasant experience. Way too easy, but a nice distraction. The gameplay has some nice features that are sadly not taken full advantage of. For instance, the final battle [spoiler]is not a true duel as you would hope but a test of endurance.[/spoiler] You are never tested in a 1-on-1 battle to see your true potential. I did enjoy many of the early missions, especially the [spoiler]night mission which was more dynamic in its proceedings.[/spoiler] Weapons are all useful and functional, providing different options for those who want to customize their experience. Issue though comes with no backup after running out of ammo; would have liked a melee option (similar to Armored Core). Story is lacking. The happenings in missions seem far too removed from the between-mission cutscenes. The missions don't feel like they have much impact save for the last 2 missions. I am not a fan of 3D renders, but that's my subjective opinion. 2D art is much more expensive so I understand why they chose 3D. Enemy diversity is low, but tolerable. You have standard infantry, enhanced infantry (which do not feel noticeably different), flying bombers, larger flying bombers, and heavy units. Heavy units which only appear twice did not seem to do much, mostly hovering in place and glaring at you. Difficulty is EXTREMELY low. I had to push the difficulty to max to even create the illusion of challenge, and even then, the challenge came from resource management rather than active enemy threats... but being too easy is still much better than being too hard. It's a solid experience if you want something a bit frenetic and a nice change of pace, but not something I would rush to. I WOULD certainly like to see this style of game built upon with more speed, a greater focus on mission diversity, morale ambiguity, and 1-on-1 dueling.

This game is 30 dollars for less than an hour of actual gameplay in the form of 6 missions. It took me 2.8 hours my first playthrough and that was just goofing around no less. There's even a few fights with certain enemies that just flat out don't take damage and you have to just "survive". I afked through these parts and came back to a victory screen. You literally don't need to be present at your computer for these fights. And they take upwards to 6 minutes on their own. The final boss fight isn't even a fight. You can't hurt her. You have to just afk. I'm not joking either. I've done this on 3 missions with this one boss. It's just timed progression. Nothing you do speeds up the fight. You have to actually wait it out. I walked away from my computer each and every time this fight happened. She doesn't attack you the first 2 times and the final fight she attacks you sometimes but if you don't lock onto her, you can still afk and not die until the fight is over because you're always moving forward even when you neutral your movement controls. The story is mindnumbingly boring mainly due to the narration of the storytelling, but as a whole (without the narration), is pretty interesting. Best way to describe this game is that it is a more serious version of the Sky Girls anime. An actual waste of money and should be a crime. The only reason why I have 10.5 hours is because I spent the better of my hours trying to get the last achievement (Destroyer) that is bugged on the PC version here. Shooting down 90% of enemy aircraft in every mission. I've done this countless times. I made sure of it. I counted my kills. compared with the only other person on the discussion board who had the same concern, but no response from anybody. That guy posted 2 years ago. The board doesn't even have a full page of topics. I took it a step further and made sure to destroy all of the turrets before attacking the engines on the non-Fraulein enemies. The actual aircraft enemies. Then, I went ahead and as the health of the aircraft was 0, I tried getting a few more shots in on the remaining engines to destroy them as well before the aircraft finishes exploding. This didn't help either. At all. In fact, it didn't actually do anything period for me. I have no idea how people even managed to get the achievement. It couldn't be by normal means. I even tried using cheat engine to change the kills of each mission to 500 at the start and every single mission STILL did not pop the achievement. The devs haven't acknowledged this bug at all. In fact, they pretty much just threw the game up on Steam and abandoned it. The Playstation version of the game has 55% players getting this achievement while the Steam version has only 1%. If that alone doesn't scream bugged achievements, I don't know what does. The fact this hasn't even been addressed 2 years later is pathetic. I wouldn't buy another game from these devs again because they clearly don't care about fixing something as simple as an achievement. This game is pure theft. Don't even buy it if it's on sale for 5 dollars or more.

Very short game that should not worth the full price, brought it with 80% should be fine. This game do not have replay value as no new game plus or challenge mode sort of stuff, It's 1 time experience unless you just want hardcore and replay with highest difficulty.

Overall I liked the game, The issues I have with it is that it is short and it took a bit to get the settings for the Steam controller to where the game was playable. I had no issues with the game other than these. The story was typical but done well. I did not have any game play issue, it worked fine start to end with all the settings on maximum. I like that you can customize your weapon load to suit the mission and your play style, I ended up with several weapons I preferred for different enemy types. I will definitely be playing through this more to see if I can beat it on the more difficult levels.

I enjoyed the game but it is short it is a shooter some of them are short Story was interesting! Mix feeling i want more story.

i was trying to close the game but it wouldnt close so now i just have fake hours and just the gameplay wasnt fun.

Even though it is short and brief it will make you feel unique emotions like no one has felt

I just played this sight unseen. Saw it in upcoming, wishlisted it, then purchased it. I thought it would be the typical janky indie game, but it worked well enough (maybe it was patched before I played?). It's polished and has a lot of production value, and it's not frustrating to play. But it's very short. I feel like they could have easily doubled the number of missions, I wouldn't mind reused enemies and environments -- it's like they spent so much time on this enemy mech design only for it to be done in 3 minutes.

Good game-play matters more than graphics.

Yasuno Kiyono san is in it What else reason do you need to buy it

A quasi-mech game about two little lesbians

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