Despite a few (major) flaws, SkyGunner proves that it can soar with the best of 'em.
SkyGunner takes place in a city known as Rive (actually, that's a real place in Italy, I believe). The city is gearing up for an expo that will showcase the world's most powerful engine, the Eternal Engine. Unfortunately, there's an evil genius named Ventre that intends to steal the engine and use it for his own (cliche) take-over-the-world schemes. Now it's up to three unlikely heroes, "Gunners", to stop Ventre and reclaim the Eternal Engine before any harm is done.
Gameplay is both one of the game's biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses. At its best, SkyGunner is a mirror image of Star Fox. The game consists of several different aircrafts and pilots, each with their own stats (firepower, maneuverability, and durability). In addition, each craft has its own specialized array of special weapons (ranging from detonating/exploding crosses to homing bat missiles to pumpkin bombs) as well as special maneuvers (i.e. Copain creates a spinning vortex for both offensive and defensive purposes while Ciel can air brake and then fire a barrage of devastating shots). This determines the various strategies that you'll have to employ while playing as well as the difficulty of your missions.
Unfortunately, when the aerial battles heat up, the game tends to suffer from a severe case slowdown. Also, since the various characters' stories only run about 5 chapters (at the most), you'll need to master the gameplay mechanics quickly or else suffer the consequences of having a very frustrating time by the time you get to the halfway-mark of your respective character's story.
The graphics? Meh, it's an early PS2 game. But, its not like the game looks like crap or anything...
The music is quite good. The selection is quite varied and ranges from epic to upbeat to calm and relaxed. There's really nothing that you'll find wrong with the music, unless of course, you just hate music in general.
The voice acting is fairly good as well. My only complaint is that Rival's voice is too deep and very doesn't fill the part of such a rad character.
Sure, SkyGunner has its flaws, but its still a very good game once you get around the somewhat-steep learning curves and difficult end-of-game scenarios. It happens to have a good amount of replayability as well as a solid story with a good sense of humor. It might not be Star Fox (64, not its mediocre or average sequels), be SkyGunner is a worthy replacement if you don't own a Nintendo console/handheld.