While genre fans would likely always argue there could be more total games, or at least more variety, in the Switch’s RPG lineup, overall there are a fair number of great games in a number of styles out there. With that in mind, I was a bit excited to see the art and some information on Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire since it looked like it would be a change from the norm. There’s definitely a Skies of Arcadia sort of vibe to it, and that’s refreshing, I just wish that the gameplay experience wasn’t quite so underwhelming.

Starting with simply getting around town to get the story and fun started, the game really struggles just to get off the runway. Worse, the overall look and feel to everything being a generation or two behind doesn’t do the early game any favors. While the anime-style cutscenes and art are distinctive and fine, their polygon-based versions lose a little too much in translation. I was hopeful when I at least jumped into my plane for the first time, hoping that the flight sections would help redeem the experience but those didn’t prove to be much better. The controls to fly are cumbersome at best, and the strange stepping feel as you adjust your altitude was absolutely odd. While flying into highlighted spots is possible, there’s a lack of feeling of depth as well quite often, and that can exacerbate these sequences especially when you stack on the generally poor controls.

Unfortunately, combat also fails to inspire much excitement as over the course of a few hours it proves to be quite slow, in particular because its attack animations simply take too long and honestly don’t often warrant the few extra seconds they add to every battle each time they run. I can appreciate the desire to try to liven things up with a variety of visual flourishes from elemental and other special attacks, but after a while you can really feel the collective time you’re losing a little too much by their inclusion. The aerial battles do conceptually seem like they’d make for some excitement, but in execution it just doesn’t get there.

It’s a pity that it’s pretty obvious that the developers had some grand ideas for the game but they just haven’t come together very well in the end. You can see periodic flashes of what could be a better overall experience, but even from the early moments the pacing of everything feels slow, plodding, and not terribly interesting. If you really dig the game’s visual look, and can be patient, it may work out, but for the average Switch gamer there are simply far too many better options out there in the eShop to have to settle for this.