Buy Sioux Falls Skyforce tickets to watch the team play home games at Sanford Pentagon. View the seating chart to find great vantage points for the game.
A decade ago, Sky Force took the early mobile shooter scene by storm. This 10th-anniversary edition delivers a legitimately interesting experience, minus a few faults owed to its free-to-play roots.
How long is a Sky Force game?
Back in 2004, Sky Force took the featurephone gaming scene by storm. Its enjoyable mix of 1942 enemy patterns with Raiden-style visuals made it a hit. This 10th-anniversary version takes the series to a whole new level.
As in the past, your futuristic plane is sent zooming through stages full of enemies that need to be destroyed. Each stage climaxes with a fight against a large boss enemy, whose destruction will provide additional stars that add to your tally.
In between levels you can use the earned stars to power up your weapons and defenses, including adding side cannons, homing missiles, smart bombs, shields, and more. Boosting your final score can also be accomplished through weekly tournaments against other players and rescuing other fallen pilots.
While the gameplay is slower-paced than many of the core bullet hell shooters that the genre is known for, Sky Force’s reliance on incremental weapon upgrades and goals like completing stages and downing a certain number of enemies in a single session keeps things from feeling gritty or repetitive.
What are the controls like?
The Sky Force series of games, developed by Infinite Dreams, are classic-styled top-down scrolling arcade shooters. On smartphones and tablets, the control scheme is touchscreen-based (iOS/Android) while on PCs, it’s keypad or mouse-based. In either case, the weaponry fires automatically and it’s up to you to move the plane around in general.
Flashy explosions, incinerating lasers, and colossal bosses make this a solid choice for anyone looking to play a classic scrolling shooter. There’s also a good progression system that means defeat is never too punishing and every attempt gets you a little bit further.
Other features include a wide range of weapons to deploy, including a long-range laser, an energy shield that opposes all vulnerabilities and enemy damage for a brief period, and a m,ega bomb that wipes out inferior enemies in one massive blast. The game also has several different modes to suit your playing style, and it can be played alone or with a friend.
What can I do in Sky Force?
Sky Force is a fast-paced scrolling shooter that takes cues from Capcom’s 19XX series and Seibu Kaihatsu’s Raiden games. Players will face off against enemy ships, planes, and helicopters in a variety of stages. Each level will have multiple waves of enemies and large end-of-stage bosses to defeat.
Each destroyed enemy will leave behind stars which are the game’s currency used to upgrade your ship. The more stars you collect, the faster your ship will upgrade.
To quickly accumulate stars, you can use the shield to block bullets or attack the cannons mounted on each green plane. You can also use the magnet upgrade to attract all power-ups and stars to your ship’s position.
Sky Force is a well-crafted iOS title that will keep fans of the genre coming back for more. It features a fun and intuitive upgrade system that will require patience to unlock the full potential of your ship.
Is Sky Force free to play?
Sky Force 2014 is a classic top-down shooter that perfectly adapts this genre to the demands of touchscreen devices. It features a wide range of upgrades and new levels to keep players glued to their devices, whether on the train to work or in the waiting room for an appointment.
The way that you upgrade your ship is intuitive and the game offers a good reward system for doing so. You can also get a variety of perk cards to boost your ship and weapons post-match. These rewards aren’t necessarily easy to earn, though, with some cards requiring hundreds of games to unlock.
There’s a lot to love about Sky Force, from the smooth gameplay to the high-octane dogfighting. With a weekly tournament level, a new Stage 8, and plenty of achievements to collect, it’s a SHMUP that’s hard to put down. Even better, it walks the free-to-play line with grace, allowing players to choose how much they want to invest in the experience.