In the battle of existence, Talent is the punch; Tact is the clever footwork.
I grew up during the golden age of shoot em ups. Raiden, R-Type, 1942 and Gradius were all the rage in my local arcade and you had to fight to keep your place in line to play them. These types of games always held a special fascination with me because I was useless at them but I couldn't stop playing them. Sky Force Anniversary tries to capture that feeling but does it succeed?
Sky Force Anniversary is a very traditional shoot ‘em up. If you've ever played any of the games I mentioned above you'll be right at home. When you start the game your ship is a fully powered up death dealing machine. Unfortunately for you this doesn't last very long and during the opening cinematic your ship is destroyed and all of its abilities are taken away. This leaves you with a ship that I can only describe as pathetically underpowered as you face off against enemy ground and air units whose sole goal in life is to destroy you. This is where things get interesting. Usually you would be shooting down enemies and collecting any upgrades they leave behind. Sky Force Anniversary does something a little different here and it allows you to purchase your upgrades which will stay with you from one game to the next. 
There are nine levels in total to play through which unlock after completing the level before it. Medals are earned by achieving four set goals for each stage, amount of enemies killed, civilians rescued and not taking any damage. Good luck with these because you have no chance with the underpowered ship you start with. Your route to upgrading your ship is by picking up stars that you collect from your vanquished enemies and to be blunt that's about all there is to it.
However switch to some local co-op and it's a whole different ball game. The game seems to spring to life when you have someone sitting next to you. Blasting through wave after wave of enemies to collect stars so you can upgrade your ship becomes a competition in its own rite. Sneaky elbows in the side to put the other player off just I could steal his stars became common practice. The difficulty level also increases and some of those hard to obtain gold medals seem even further away. It's a task made more difficult because both ships look eerily similar. Sure the colour schemes are different but when you're dodging around a bullet hell filled screen it's very easy to lose track of your ship in all the confusion. Making the ship's different couldn't have been such a hard thing to do surely.
Sky Force Anniversary does exactly what it sets out to do. It's a fun shoot ‘em up that looks nice but soon loses momentum during its single player campaign. But get a friend and indulge in some local co-op and the game plays like a dream. I still prefer the classic way of upgrading your ship instead of constant grinding but at least Sky Force Anniversary takes a chance and tries to mix things up a bit. If you're a fan of these type of shoot ‘em ups then you're going to find a lot to love Sky Force Anniversary but it really wasn't for me.
Developer: Infinite Dreams
Publisher: Infinite Dreams
Website: Sky Force Anniversary
Twitter: @idreamsgames
Sky Force Anniversary is available now for £7.99
Review code supplied by XCN.