NES "Now Playing": Air Fortress (NES #154)

On 07/01/2013 at 11:15 PM by Elkovsky

Since the original purpose of this blog was to write about my quest to beat every US-released NES game, I figured it might actually be good to write about that for once! On the review front, the big hold involves my need to go back and replay Castlevania III again; I made it through once and got the Sypha ending, but I don't remember enough about the specifics to intelligently comment on the gameplay. I should've written down more at the time, I suppose... although that won't be an issue for certain reviews down the line (Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road, for example, is practically ready to post once I get to it on the list).

At the moment, though, I'm working my way through Air Fortress, a lesser-known title by HAL, the company behind the Kirby series. When you first pop it in, it looks a lot like a horizontal shooter, but it soon transitions into these exploration bits that are one part Metroid and two parts Section Z. It's a bit of a weird game, since it doesn't feature much of anything in the way of power-ups (aside from extra health and ammo for your "bomb" shots) or any of the bells and whistles that most shooters tend to offer. Rather, most of the emphasis is on the mazes in the second part of each stage, which start getting fairly complicated in the later levels. I've finished 6 of the 8 stages at this point, and after beating the last two I'll be asked to loop back through them, Ghosts 'n' Goblins style, to obtain the "true ending." I've been taking my sweet time, though, because other concerns have been taking up more of my time...

Actually, there's a guy on the nintendoage.com forums who's beaten over twice as many games as I have in about half the time, so I'm way behind in that regard. But hey, it's not a race, so, you know, whatever.

I also picked up a Vaus controller off of eBay for a reasonable price; I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, though. For those who haven't heard of it, the Vaus was a special controller packaged with copies of Arkanoid and behaved similarly to those old paddle controllers that came with the Atari 2600. Arkanoid is considered to be one of the most difficult NES games of all time and is nearly impossible to beat with a standard controller, and even with the Vaus it's supposed to be pretty tough - assuming, of course, that you're not using the continue code. NintendoAge's NES completion thread bans the use of any cheat code that isn't mentioned in the manual or the game itself, so I imagine I've got my work cut out for me.

Of course, this also means I'll have to go back and face After Burner again someday. Freakin' After Burner. I think it was stage 20 or so that I couldn't beat without continues...

Anyway, that's it for now. Cheers!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

07/01/2013 at 11:19 PM

did you play through Top Gun yet? Man, my uncle bought that game for me when i was a kid and it was terrible!

I've heard about Air Fortress. I wish I had an air fortress. All the best villains do.

Elkovsky

07/02/2013 at 05:24 PM

I haven't played through it all the way, but I tested it out a long time ago and managed to land the plane on the first try in level 1. It can't possibly be worse than some of the other 3D flight combat games I've played - particularly Infiltrator (which I reviewed awhile back) and F-117A Stealth Fighter (which is in the queue of beaten games yet to be reviewed).

Super Step Contributing Writer

07/02/2013 at 12:04 AM

Mazes as opposed to power-ups? Interesting.

Cary Woodham

07/02/2013 at 05:18 AM

I rented Air Fortress once as a kid and thought it was a surprisingly good game. HAL is an awesome game company.

As a kid, one of the first NES games I got was Arkanoid because my dad loved playing the arcade version at Pizza Inn, and I thought the paddle controller was cool.

If you want to play an awesome version of Arkanoid, try Arkanoid DS for Nintendo DS (of course).

daftman

07/02/2013 at 01:19 PM

I first heard about Air Fortress a couple of years ago but I've wanted to play it ever since. Sounds like a pretty good game.

Temperance

07/14/2013 at 11:36 AM

It's been a very long time since I last saw that Arkanoid controller. I had it for a while when the game was new, but that controller just couldn't survive the test of time (and the abuse that game dished out). As for completing Arkanoid without the continue code, that's entirely dependent on your reflexes (and if you're a Jedi). The funny thing is that the game is deceptively short. There's not that many stages to work though, yet the difficulty of some of the later stages is maddening. The speed at which the ball travels can become quite obscene (especially around the gold bricks), so I'd say you have your work cut out for you. I guess the only advice I can give you is to carefully plan out your moves on each stage. Figure out what the best opening shot is and do your best to maintain control over your striking angle.

PixlBit