Sky Dancer (Android) Review

In Sky Dancer, the player is only in charge of two major decisions: Should they jump, or should they steer right or left? These basic decisions have a surprising amount of depth. Tapping the screen to jump just before landing allows the player to bound off the ground as they land. This gains more points, as does any real skilful feat of acrobatics.

This includes just landing. Part of Sky Dancer's appeal is that you won't just auto-run, you'll also auto-fall. Okay, so that's pretty much how falling works. Gravity is designed to work automatically without much thought being put into it. However, the player is tasked with also navigating their descent from the heavens. Platforms don't just appear under the player, like welcome mats beckoning a soft landing. No, they are scattered under them, forcing them to drift in multiple directions. Here is where the troubles begin.

Drifting through the air, or across a platform to avoid a rock, is entirely too easy to do. So easy, in fact, that you may find yourself sliding past the platform, flying into the abyss. There's some collision detection issues as well, because even if the player manages to land on the edge of a platform, they may fly through it anyways. It doesn't happen all too often, but enough where it's clear not every death isn't the player's fault.

Like many games of its brood, Sky Dancer has missions that must be completed. For the first eight levels or so, these manage to be too easy. Run through five sand falls - boring. Land two perfect landings in one run - please. Then, out of nowhere, the missions start getting rather difficult. It doesn't last too long, as they bounce between bizarrely simple and just plain rough. Some of them are very imaginative (collect three trophies in the next 60 seconds comes to mind), but for the most part, they range wildly in terms of difficulty.

What doesn't vary is how stunning this game is. It's hard to think of a prettier mobile game, even if the world does feel rather empty. It feels like you're actually descending from the heavens, and while there's not much detail in the universe, what is there is absolutely transcendental.

All in all, Sky Dancer would be something to suggest, despite its flaws. As many critics have pointed out, microtransactions are just an inevitability of mobile games. It's a shame than that so much of the game is spent advising it you don't want to pay anything right now. There's in-game currency, but all it appears to be good for is skipping certain missions. For a game about descending from the heavens with extreme parkour skills, the main menu manages to look like something out of Minority Report. There's daily bonuses, a shop to buy coins with real money, and everything just completely destroys the overall vibe. Coupled with this, the game features ads that pop up entirely too often, further breaking the level of immersion.