i've played quite a lot of the game. i haven't explored every single level to their fullest, and the 3ds/wii u games do encourage you to do that.
so i actually like this game a bit. it was hard to really form an opinion because i sort of marathoned it over the weekend and as a result, kind of got tired of it after several hours of playing. but then i would go somewhere and think about it some more and feel the itch to pick it up and give it another go. that's always a sign that a game's done something right.
my very first impression of rodea (this is the 3ds version by the way) was 'oh my god sweet jesus no.' i don't understand more than a few words of japanese and so being put into a prologue tutorial level, i thought the controls were immediately restrictive and the level design was poor. the prologue gently gives the player more abilities until they are able to do everything they can in the game except for the powerups. after that is a very tame and easy first level. this is there to really let the player get used to moving around with the controls. considering that by the second level i was zooming around, chaining attacks, and killing enemies like a pro, i would say my final verdict on the controls are that it's actually pretty easy to control, but there's a learning curve of about 5-10 minutes. there really isn't another game out there with flying mechanics, so there's no point of reference. for example, if you picked up rayman legends, you can kind of understand that it's very similar to mario if you'd played that before. if you never played a platformer, then it might take a few minutes to get going. that's sort of what rodea feels like to me.
so the way it works is, you can move around with the slide pad, or the left analog stick (for the wii u), and rodea will walk around on the ground. here, you can also dodge by pressing b, i think. this is something that really only comes in handy in boss fights. in fact, a lot of ground stuff is rarely used and flight is largely encouraged. you press the a button to jump in the air and press it again to have rodea start spinning in place. when he is like this, you can move a reticle around the screen until you find something you want to fly towards. the neat thing about this is that it can be anything with mass - enemies, gravitons (those yellow bits), the ground, and even the geometry of the level. from here, you will slowly coast towards that goal. if you hit the first graviton, you will collect all of them in a chain, similar to sonic in sonic adventure after getting that one upgrade. it's just flashy and neat looking. you can also chain together how many gravitons you collect in a row, which only affects the score at the end of a level. while you are in coasting mode, you are free to move the reticle around the screen and select a different target. you can also reselect the same target, which is something that comes in handy when attacking enemies.
the easiest way to kill enemies is by boosting. if you hold down the b button while not moving, rodea will start zooming straight ahead. this happens even while standing still or not moving towards a particular target, and i've seen gameplay where some people do this and get frustrated. really, it's there to accelerate towards your goal, and it feels pretty good. boosting into most enemies will also damage them. some enemies will need to be hit more than once, and this is where b -> a -> b moves so that you are constantly reselecting and boosting into them helps. it also started to get me into a rhythm of constantly boosting towards my next goal, which really felt like 'flying' and was a lot of fun.
in the 3ds/wii u version, there's a flight meter around rodea. over time this depletes to nothing, and rodea will fall to the ground. if there is no ground beneath him, rodea will fall into nothing and you will lose a life. the flight meter can be replenished by collecting gravitons while in flight, landing on the ground, or even kicking off a wall or some part of geometry. your graviton collection also serves as a reserve flight meter. once yours is through, you will start burning through gravitons for a few extra seconds of flight. it's a spare tire of sorts.
one move i really grew to like was pushing the x button, which gave rodea a super high jump. this lets you survey the level and figure out where to go more easily. it also cuts out the middle man of having to press the a button twice to figure out where to go, even though it eats into your flight meter slightly more. you can also hold down and push b to have rodea slam into the ground. this is a nice move for when you know you're running low on flight juice and need to replenish without the game have you slowly fall to the ground.
other equipment comes in the way of a gun, which i honestly rarely ever used and is mostly good against specific enemies who need you to use it, some speed shoes which kind of force you along a predetermined path in some levels (one had enemies in the way so i didn't get the point of them), and the last is the most useful, and allows you to select multiple targets and have rodea fly into them all in the order they were selected.
rodea's broken into five worlds with five levels in each world, each ending in a shadow of the colossus style boss fight. each world has rodea face off against another robot like himself eventually, so the game does try to mix things up a bit. overall, i enjoyed the level design. it never wowed me, but i was rarely bored. the worst parts of the game are when you have to kill a certain amount of enemies to proceed. i don't like that in any game though, so i guess your mileage may vary. each level is fairly long- about 10-15 minutes (and sometimes more), but it keeps the player engaged with new objectives and different architecture. unlike say, sonic lost world, which had different objectives and different architecture, it feels like there's a sense of progression. being able to look back on where you were and how far you've come, or how much you've climbed up a level is really great. it's really hard to pin this game down to a specific genre, but i think it plays similar to an action adventure game with some platforming sensibilities. other objectives are 'find the five plane parts!' or 'set these 3 bombs!' but thankfully, they aren't that annoying, mostly since the game will guide you to where you need to go, and throws in some obstacles along the way to keep things interesting.
there are only two elements of the game i feel are simply not good, and one is a specific moment from late in the game - a wind will blow, pushing rodea around, and there's very little to do against it, unfortunately. this might be due to me not understanding japanese, so there might actually be something i was supposed to do but couldn't figure out. this only occurs at the end of one level, but it kind of sucks because that level also has a really neat little puzzle around the same area, and constantly having to redo it lessened its impact. the other thing is the camera. i played the 3ds version of the game and you are given the ability to control the camera with the l and r buttons. for the most part, the camera will follow behind rodea. it's more of a problem in enclosed spaces where you might want to see behind you and have to walk rodea around the space a little until the camera's in the place you want it to be. it also tends to freak out if you're attacking a moving object with the homing attack. because the b boost will always go towards the target, it doesn't matter if the target is in midair and zooming around too. unfortunately, this makes the camera really go crazy as it has a hard time finding where 'behind rodea' is. from what i played, this is 80% a presentation issue, and only 20% a gameplay issue. most of the time, rodea will actually attack the thing you wanted him to attack. if he doesn't, you're left with a low flight meter and you might find yourself disoriented and where your target went. this is especially annoying in boss fights with the four robot masters, who are the fastest enemies of the game and usually fight in enclosed spaces.
while those issues, especially the latter, are fairly significant, they're not game-ruining. most of the time, the camera does stay behind rodea since most of the time, the player is flying through some neat wide open spaces. plus, i found myself interested in finding more things around the level to try and unlock secrets. in the 3ds/wii u version, there are bronze, silver, and gold coins hidden around each level (except for ones with boss fights). collect enough, and you can do things like unlock different skins for rodea (to look like other characters), and other things i don't know because i can't read japanese. there are a lot of little bonuses though, so i'm interested in seeing what shakes out when i find everything. the fun thing here is that the coins are hidden generally pretty well, so what you might think of as background texture to a level design is actually a far-off hiding place for a coin. i've found them hidden in alcoves the game would otherwise have you fly on by, behind you at the start of a level, and even below the landmass somewhere. some also require the completion of optional challenges within the level. other upgrades have more practical uses. when you defeat enemies, you get cards that can be used to upgrade rodea, i know that it makes him stronger with his boost attack, and that you can upgrade his gun, but i also think it affects his health meter and his flight time, making it easier to take down harder enemies and reach places that seem far away (i haven't tested the flight thing yet because again, language barrier).
finally, one of the things that surprised me was just the amount of voiced text in this game, which is essentially everything outside of menus. yeah, there's the cgi cutscenes, but there are also bust-up cutscenes before and after each level. ion, who i thought was the most fun and interesting character in the game, is fortunately with rodea the entire way. what i haven't figured out is how annoying she'll be in english, because she does have banter with rodea in the levels too, and seems to occasionally help point out where there's a goal or reacts to him getting hurt or doing something cool. i know that she can be toned down in the wii u version, but i didn't actually look for it in the 3ds version because i didn't mind the interaction. the story itself is harmless and a little silly, but also tries to be serious and i'm not sure it does so successfully. however i did find the characters endearing, but i'll wait for the english version before making a final judgment.
there's also a streetpass function to this game which apparently lets the player unlock different islands, but i haven't actually done this, so i have nothing to say about it. however, this feature seems exclusive to the 3ds version of the game, so there's that.
overall, i enjoyed my time with it. considering i could actually play through to the end of the game (i haven't beat the final boss yet because it's really hard), even though i don't understand the language says some good things about the level design and presentation of the objectives, and even how the game controls that i could not only pick it up and get used to it, but also get good at it. while using an unimpressive amount of polygons, i found myself really enjoying the scale of the world and how cool flying felt through something that felt deliberately made. the music was mostly upbeat and ambient in a sort of platformer way. there was nothing that really stood out to me as incredible, but nothing that made me mute the game either. if anything, it enhanced this 2000-era feeling of the game. and actually, that might be the best thing i can say about it. it feels like a dreamcast game in really all the right ways, warts and all.
