Skyblazer
Super Nintendo
Nostalgia Factor:
I don't really have any nostalgic feelings about this game. I didn't know even it existed until just a few months ago, when someone posted about it in one of my retro gaming Facebook groups. I thought the screenshots for the game looked cool, so I made a mental note to check it out someday.
That someday is here.
Story:
This game's story is simple enough. There's a bad guy, who is being controlled by an even badder guy. He steals the princess. The good guy, Sky, embarks on a quest to get her back, while he slowly morphs into the hero of lore. As you make your way through the game, you learn the magical powers of the land, including the power to turn into a Phoenix. Using these powers, you defeat the bad guy. You defeat the badder guy. You rescue the princess. You turn into a Phoenix and fly away, never to be seen again.
The end.
Gameplay:
For the most part, this game handles fairly well. I found there to be some issues regarding inconsistent character momentum. The hit detection is also fairly questionable at times. You'll often find yourself just saying "huh???" when an enemy hits you and it was nowhere even close to touching you. There's a boss battle that involves swimming that is awful with this. It is a fairly common problem I found myself running into as I played this. And there is "knockback" which makes things even more annoying sometimes.
While the game does make it very easy to climb walls and grab ledges, you'll often find yourself accidentally grabbing onto a wall when you are just trying to make a simple jump. There's a stage where the ceiling is falling and it will crush you if you don't get through it quickly enough. My character often found himself latching onto the side of something, and then I wouldn't be quick enough to unlatch myself and get across, and I would be crushed. This happened a few other times, too, mainly with levels featuring things like moving platforms. This game is very quick to kill you with crushing deaths. I do love the boss battle with the spinning room, however.
All complaints aside, the game is actually quite fun to play. The visual style is what drew me in, but the gameplay is just as good. You start with a basic hacking melee attack, along with a simple projectile that you can fire ahead of you. The number of times you can use this special attack is shown by a red meter on the top of the screen. As you make your way through the game's levels, you learn new attacks. Use the select button to cycle through them. These attacks include: a dash attack, a projectile that fires in all directions, a lightning attack, and the ability to turn into a Phoenix and do damage to your enemy. You can also refill health using your magic meter once you learn the ability.
As you make your way through the 2D side scrolling stages, you battle your enemies using hack 'n slash melee attacks while mixing in some magic attacks as well. These enemies drop a lot of loot when they are killed. They are generous with giving you health potions, magic potions, and diamonds. These diamonds will give you an extra life when you collect 100 of them. They are all over the levels. All over the place, I say. Big ones give you ten diamonds, so as you can imagine getting 100 is quite easy to do. There are even stages where you can backtrack and farm items like health potions and diamonds by leaving and coming back over and over again.
Basic stage design consists of running through the stage, hacking enemies, jumping through some tough obstacles, hacking some more enemies, making it to the end of the stage, and sometimes fighting a boss character. While most stages are short and fairly easy, other stages involve some tough platforming challenges like jumping from falling rock to falling rock, riding fast moving elevators that race above hot lava, and the obligatory stage where your character is frantically climbing as the screen scrolls upwards. Touch the bottom of the screen and you die.
The boss battles are one of the best things about the game. They seem hard at first, but once you figure out their pattern, they are very easy to beat. Except for the underwater boss that shoots the eggs out. Screw that boss fight. Anyway, there is even a boss rush at the end of the game - and I actually enjoyed it for once. Usually I hate when games do this, but it is quite fun here. Plus the bosses are pretty easy, and the game is very generous filling your health and magic meters while keeping a giant flow of diamonds coming to constantly give you extra lives.
This game is fairly easy. That's not to say it is without some challenging segments. But I played through this game twice, and finished with over 20 extra lives in my inventory each time. In fact, that number was nearly 40 on my second playthrough. There are some challenging areas, like I said. They can eat into your extra life stockpile real quick if you aren't careful. The game can be a challenge the first time through it, but once you've seen everything and know what to expect, it really becomes quite easy.
But that's not to say it is not fun. It is a ton of fun. I think I would have loved this game if I grew up playing it as a kid. I couldn't put it down, and was completely pulled in by its classic 90s 16-bit charm.
Oh yeah, there are a couple bonus stages where you can fly around in Mode7 and collect diamonds in the sky. Another easy way to really rack up those extra lives.
Graphics:
This game looks fantastic. Its graphics are what drew me in to begin with. As soon as I saw these screenshots, I knew I had to play this game.
The characters are large and nicely detailed. The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous. The special effects are terrific. The animation is top of the line. It feels like you're playing through a cartoon sometimes. It reminds me of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts or Willow for the arcade in its graphical style. I just love how it looks.
Sound:
Unfortunately, the game's music is not terrific. Some of the game's tracks are nice, sure. Sound like they could be in a Final Fantasy game or something. But there are also some ugly sounding songs, like the theme that plays in between stages on the map screen. Seriously, WTF is that noise? All they had to do was make a cool, medieval sounding soundtrack. And while they succeeded on some fronts, they completely missed the mark on others.
The sound effects? Good, I suppose. They do not stand out.
Overall:
This was a very good game. As I said, I have no doubt I would have loved this if I'd have played it when I was a kid. It's kind of like an easier Castlevania, with some wall-climby, high jumping platform elements mixed in. It also reminds me a little of the Sega Genesis Batman game for some reason. The action is fun and fast moving. You constantly are collecting power ups and diamonds as you play, which gives you that fulfilling feeling of collecting stuff. The boss battles are a blast. If you grew up playing games in the 16-bit era, but missed out on Skyblazer, you need to run out there and get this game. In fact, if you are a fan of gaming in general, I feel this is a game you need to play.
I don't think it's quite good enough to crack my upper echelon of gaming - the A range. The controls are floaty, the character momentum is weird, the hit detection is jank, and the game is also not very long. Despite these things, it still manages to be really fun to play. So I think a B+ fits it well.
Skyblazer: play it.
THE GRADE:
B+
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