A Flight Sim That Has No Idea What It Wants To Be
EpiXR Games love to fly. Across their many, many games, they have soared with parrots, paper aeroplanes, owls, bees and fireflies. If there’s something that can be flown, they will grab it by the ears and swing a leg over its back.
Rarely, though, have they given you opponents to fly against. Sora – Winds of the Jungle gives you an entire flock to compete with. EpiXR have stepped out of their comfort zone and are delivering something that veers upon racing.
Is It A Bird? Is It A Racing Game?
There are ten levels in Sora – Winds of the Jungle, and they all start the same way: Sora is at the back of a parroty peloton, and she needs to catch up. Luckily, someone has lined the route with speed-up circles, and flying through them gives Sora a boost. With some tight flying and canny use of these circles, she can reach the front of the flock before the final, larger circle signals the end.
That’s the pitch, anyway. On paper, it sounds like a flying race from Diddy Kong Racing. A frantic race in three-dimensions with a flock of bird opponents. There’s not been a good flight-based racing game for ages. It’s certainly a game I would want to play.
The Return Of Diddy Kong Racing?
It is not the game you get to play. Sora – Winds of the Jungle is an oddball. I have absolutely no idea what game EpiXR were trying to make, but I can say with confidence that they didn’t achieve it.
Sora – Winds of the Jungle is not really a racing game. It certainly presents as a racing game, with speed boosts, opponents and a finish line, but Sora doesn’t actually want you to race nor win. What it wants you to do, as is stated in the intro, is ‘keep up’ with the flock: you’ve got to stay in the vague vicinity of the parrots that you are flying with.
Now, that’s an odd old objective. As gamers we’ve been conditioned to be the best, to race to first place, not hang back and mingle with the other racers. I don’t get my feelings of satisfaction by keeping to other people’s pace; I get them from outpacing them.
You can, of course, play to win. But Sora – Winds of the Jungle does something strange to that player. It cheats. Suddenly, a number of parrots will leapfrog Sora at speeds that aren’t possible in the game. Even if you are zooming through speed boost after boost, three or four parrots will fire out of a cannon, creating a far-flung pack for you to chase. If you want to achieve the objective of sticking with the flock, then you’d better reach them quick-smart.
A Game Of Mixed Messages
If you’re anything like us, ‘staying at the same speed as everyone else’ is as fun as a wet towel to the arse. So you look for other ways to make things fun. But it’s slim pickings. There are no weapons, kart-style, so you can’t enjoy a spot of mid-air battling. Ramming other birds causes various oddnesses: the best-case scenario is that the bird deletes itself; the worst-case scenario is that you crash out and are forced to respawn ages away.
Most bizarrely of all, the speed circles don’t actually speed you up. Or, at least, they speed you up so imperceptibly that they may as well not be there. We’ve tested it – we’ve hit boosts and watched the flight-paths of other birds. They don’t fall back any faster than if we avoided the boost entirely. Sure, some fancy VFX plays when you hit a circle, turning the whole screen orange, but they don’t actually do anything.
Which is a problem, because the speed circles are outside of the racing line. You have to sacrifice seconds to reach them, only for them to give you nothing in return. The moment we realised this, Sora – Winds of the Jungle became an Aery game. All we were doing was pointing from one goal to another and waiting for the parrot to get there.
But Aery is a meditative game. It’s intended to be calm, relaxing. I don’t think that’s the game Sora – Winds of the Jungle wants to be. If it did, it would be called Aery and there wouldn’t be a flock of other parrots as wingmen.
It’s All A Bit Aery Fairy
So, what on earth is Sora – Winds of the Jungle trying to be? As a racing game, it actively punishes you for being first, and makes it very clear that you need to follow the pack. The speed boosts don’t work and only the racing line makes any sense to follow.
Is it a kind of Red Arrows game, where you have to keep in formation? There’s no challenge in that. Aside from avoiding the odd kamikaze parrot, you’re not actually doing anything. And the game doesn’t support that way of playing anyway: there are no points for consistent flying and matching the flock’s speed.
Is it, then, a calm, Aery-like game where you’re meant to relax? If so, the other parrots shouldn’t be there, and there certainly shouldn’t be a ticking clock when another parrot reaches the finish line before you. Both of these undermine the calm, serene feelings.
A Flying Conundrum Searching For A Purpose
I’m at a loss. There’s no good way of playing Sora – Winds of the Jungle, and I’m not convinced EpiXR Games know how they want you to play it, either. It’s a flying conundrum, and we reached the game’s end wondering why anyone bothered.
EpiXR Games have a habit of churning out sequels to their games, so perhaps there’s hope for little Sora. In game two or three, someone might work out what the point of the game is. At the moment, it’s desperately sweeping the landscape in search of one.
Important Links
Need To Switch Off? Sora – Winds of the Jungle Takes You To The Skies – https://www.thexboxhub.com/need-to-switch-off-sora-winds-of-the-jungle-takes-you-to-the-skies/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/sora-winds-of-the-jungle/9PDMXZRRKQGK/0010
