Ko Otani - Sky Odyssey (2000)

 

Composer: Ko Otani
Console: PS2
Game Release Date: 2000-11-15
Bootleg Release Date: 2021-10-25
Ripper: Someone on KHInsider
Runtime: 46:01, 27 Tracks

Sky Odyssey is a airplane flight-sim for the PS2. And it is one of the best flight-sims ever created! Written by someone who barely plays these kinds of games but this one really drew me in. I found this game by a complete fluke. I was watching some random YouTube video when I saw this in the recomended section and clicked it based on the title. The game name sounded cool. I watched like 10 seconds of the video and figured, ehn, might as well try it. If I saw this in stores, unless it was free I would never had tried it. This was a just a right-place/right-time moment. At the time I was playing a lot of "realistic" games anyways. Cake Mania was another one. 

The game has a few different game modes. Adventure and Target the ones I primarily played. Adventure is the story mode. You play as a trained pilot who has traveled to these 4 islands in an attempt to find some lost ruins. No other pilots have successfully explored the ruins or assembled the pieces of the map that lead one to it. The story is branching and by completing levels it opens other paths you can take to get to the treasure. The missions are varied. Since you're in the area you may as well help the research scientists there. The missions have you do all sorts of tasks from refueling on a train, delivering packages, braving mountains and more. I am not aware of any other flight sims like this. The terrain you have to manouver is almost mythical. Huge rock formations, gigantic ruins of lost civilizations, a forest the spans kilomtres with trees taller than office buildings and more. The game could seriously be construed as a fantasy flight sim. The levels range in difficulty with the refueling in the air being hard to maintain the hose. 

The hardest levels by far were the final boss level where you have to fly through 10+ minutes of winding terrain and this water tunnel as it falls apart and the mountain level. The mountain level was especially difficult because I could not see how to do it properly. You have to get air by dipping then use the upstream to get over the mountain. As you ascend you need to dump half your fuel to stay light. I could not, for the life of me get it to work. After a certain point the plane would just stop going up then I would crash. I eventaully found a secret path you could go through to beat the level which I guess counted because it unlocked the next level. While I did complete the story mode I do feel I missed maybe 1 or 2 levels because I didn't follow the exact win conditions. I think a reason I failed the mountain climb was also because of the plane I was using. 

Throughout the entire game you get different models of planes and parts. However I just kept the base game plane while just occasionally upgrading its parts. It's likely the plane I was using wasn't even suited for the mountain level. Regardless, I beat the entire game using that plane. I even customized the colours on it and used nearly all the upgrades on it. 

Aside from story mode there was also a target mode. This mode has you fly around a map and hit targets while following a time limit. You have to map out the area yourself but as you fly around you'll start to remember where the targets are. Next is making up the most efficient route to hit them in. 
All said and done the game was excellent. I find it a bit sad there isn't many games like this out there. Sure there's the hyper realistic Microsoft Flight Simulator and the combat-heavy Ace Combat series but neither really has what I want. A fantasy-based flight sim that isn't super complex. This game satisfied that itch enough that I'm not going around scouting for more stuff like this. This game I also associate a lot with Cake Mania and Deathly Lands #5 - Intricate World. At the time I was doing my Sky Odyssey run I was also doing runs of those games. September 2020, never forget. 

The music was composed by Ko Otoni (sometimes called Kow Otani). If I had to guess what kind of music a flight simulator would have it would not have been something like what he makes. Otoni is a well known video game composer who has scored for Shadow of the Colossus, Wild Arms and Vampire Hunter/Darkstalkers. He has also composed for anime and movies scoring such films as Gamera and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah. His anime credits and numerous too and include such shows as Future GPX Cyber Formula and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. He is still active to this day, releasing an new age album last year called 月の人魚. He really gets around and specializes in epic and intense compositions. 

He also composed for this flight sim but did a damn good job. The music's intensity matches the epic and vast areas of the game. The game is mostly classical and orchestral music with a small cinematic influence. This could have very well been a score to some epic fantasy RPG. Even the mission selection screen is fast and intense. The simulation songs are strange. They are often acapella with minimal instrumentation featuring a chorus. It's out of character for the game but still works really well. It helps boost the whole fantastical aspect of the game. 

The MP3 quality is v0. I am using the KHInsider rip but with proper tagging on my part. The songs are long enough that I don't have to do any extending here. 

Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvWEFvbWdhaGIjbEp6eG1URXZ4Sk5fZHBVWENJazl5Mk10SmZ4U0lBbE5kU2JSbGFhVTNlVQ==
p@ss: flyskyhigh