The game follows an Indiana Jones-style storyline in which the player character flies through several areas of a fictional world, collecting artifacts as well as pieces of a map.

These range from real world aircraft (such as the Fairey Swordfish), to prototypes that never saw actual flight (e.g. the Kyūshū J7W), to completely fictional ones.

Instead players are given the task of flying complex missions to search for the map pieces needed to find the Tower of Maximus.

The missions often follow a path that requires flight through extreme terrain such as canyons, caves, and mountain peaks.

To further complicate things, rogue weather patterns, rock slides, and other natural phenomena will constantly impede on progress into these areas and will often threaten to destroy the player's aircraft.

Examples of these include mid air refueling with a moving train, or attempting a fuel dump in order to cross a high mountain pass.

Sky Canvas Mode requires players to Skywrite different words and symbols before the smoke can be blown away by the wind.

[9] GamePro said in a negative review, "The controls are the game's saving grace, but the other features ground Sky Odyssey indefinitely.