A remaster of Balloon Kid
Take to the skies in a balloon to save your younger brother. In the little town of Pencilvania, there lived a brother and sister who loved to play with balloons. Alice and her younger brother Jim would spend countless days filling the skies with their balloons. One day, Jim filled all of his balloons and tied them together to make a beautiful balloon rainbow across the sky. But suddenly, a strong wind came and carried Jim away. As Alice, you must save your brother from peril. Float through eight different stages as you follow Jim's trail of balloons. Collect as many balloons as possible to earn bonuses. Test your piloting skills to avoid enemies, or let go of your balloons to face enemies on the ground. In "Balloon Trip" mode, compete for the highest score and move up the ranks. Take a big gulp of courage and give Alice a hand as she searches for her missing brother.
Reviews View More
Balloon Fight GB is a rather interesting title. Before I start the review. Here's some backstory. This is a color version of a GB game called Balloon Kid which didn't get a Japanese release. Instead they ported the game to the Famicom and gave it of all things, a Hello Kitty reskin. What?
So you may be wondering, then how does this version exist? Well Nintendo had this thing called Nintendo Power (not related to the magazine) where you get these blank carts to add data of a game to them. They did these with the Super Famicom with options like Kirby no Kirakira Kids, the only Japan release of Super Punch Out, a lot of Picross games, A Fire Emblem game, and even a Director's Cut of the Famicom text adventure game Metal Slader Glory. The GB also got some love with some games that already exist but one of those games that was available was Balloon Fight GB. This was the only way to play the game.
So enough of that boring history, how's the game? Well it's quite fun! You play as a girl named Alice saving your brother named Jim who has floated away. You travel through 8 stages avoiding anything that will pop your balloons and fight bosses at the even number stages. You can also collect balloons to get points and lives, get 20 in a row and now you'll be grabbing two balloons for each collected.
If you have played the NES game Balloon Fight, you'll feel right at home with the controls. This game is basically a more adventurous take on the Balloon Trip mode. One cool feature is you can pump your balloons by mashing down on the control pad. Get hit by an enemy? No problem! You even sometimes have to get off to get into tight spaces or do some simple platforming.
The game's difficulty is on the sloppy side. It starts off pretty easy where even a child could do it but by stage 5 it will get some challenge. There's a lot of things especially in the environment that are out to get you. Don't worry though as this version adds a save feature and you'll get lots of lives.
You can go through bonus stages by entering a Game Boy of all things (Now I wonder what it was in the Famicom Hello Kitty game...) where you play the exact same bonus game from Balloon Fight. I stopped going to them about halfway through the game as you don't really need lives. You can get them through other means and you can also sometimes get invincibility too that randomly spawn in levels.
The bosses in this game are not very special. It's kind of neat they exist but they are as simple as they come. If you can get through these stages, you aren't going to struggle on these. Even the final boss is a cakewalk.
There's also a balloon trip mode where it's just the same mode from Balloon Fight even with the same tune. There's also a VS mode but I sadly could not play that mode, I'm sorry. I'm sure it's cool though.
The game does look a bit dated compared to it's original release back in 1990. But I gotta say I like the added color, it reminds me of those DX hacks people make for GB games nowadays. I guess it's also similar to something like Link's Awakening though hopefully I don't have to learn it also looks worse in color by people smarter then me. Though I'm not one of them cause I'm dumb and me see color = better. The music is pretty good, I especially love the new take on the Balloon Trip theme.
Well that's Balloon Fight GB, it's a very fun game and one that's probably been mostly forgotten. The character Alice really didn't go anywhere after this though she does oddly remind me of that one girl in later Warioware games. I don't think she's even represented in Smash or Captain Rainbow though maybe that second one is for the best considering what they did to Lip. The game is fun and this is the definitive version of the game even if not much has changed. This game is on 3DS virtual console but sadly that's about to die soon so once again, it remains as thoughts of the past. Maybe one day a new adventure will happ-oh who am I kidding, I'm just gonna end the review now.
So you may be wondering, then how does this version exist? Well Nintendo had this thing called Nintendo Power (not related to the magazine) where you get these blank carts to add data of a game to them. They did these with the Super Famicom with options like Kirby no Kirakira Kids, the only Japan release of Super Punch Out, a lot of Picross games, A Fire Emblem game, and even a Director's Cut of the Famicom text adventure game Metal Slader Glory. The GB also got some love with some games that already exist but one of those games that was available was Balloon Fight GB. This was the only way to play the game.
So enough of that boring history, how's the game? Well it's quite fun! You play as a girl named Alice saving your brother named Jim who has floated away. You travel through 8 stages avoiding anything that will pop your balloons and fight bosses at the even number stages. You can also collect balloons to get points and lives, get 20 in a row and now you'll be grabbing two balloons for each collected.
If you have played the NES game Balloon Fight, you'll feel right at home with the controls. This game is basically a more adventurous take on the Balloon Trip mode. One cool feature is you can pump your balloons by mashing down on the control pad. Get hit by an enemy? No problem! You even sometimes have to get off to get into tight spaces or do some simple platforming.
The game's difficulty is on the sloppy side. It starts off pretty easy where even a child could do it but by stage 5 it will get some challenge. There's a lot of things especially in the environment that are out to get you. Don't worry though as this version adds a save feature and you'll get lots of lives.
You can go through bonus stages by entering a Game Boy of all things (Now I wonder what it was in the Famicom Hello Kitty game...) where you play the exact same bonus game from Balloon Fight. I stopped going to them about halfway through the game as you don't really need lives. You can get them through other means and you can also sometimes get invincibility too that randomly spawn in levels.
The bosses in this game are not very special. It's kind of neat they exist but they are as simple as they come. If you can get through these stages, you aren't going to struggle on these. Even the final boss is a cakewalk.
There's also a balloon trip mode where it's just the same mode from Balloon Fight even with the same tune. There's also a VS mode but I sadly could not play that mode, I'm sorry. I'm sure it's cool though.
The game does look a bit dated compared to it's original release back in 1990. But I gotta say I like the added color, it reminds me of those DX hacks people make for GB games nowadays. I guess it's also similar to something like Link's Awakening though hopefully I don't have to learn it also looks worse in color by people smarter then me. Though I'm not one of them cause I'm dumb and me see color = better. The music is pretty good, I especially love the new take on the Balloon Trip theme.
Well that's Balloon Fight GB, it's a very fun game and one that's probably been mostly forgotten. The character Alice really didn't go anywhere after this though she does oddly remind me of that one girl in later Warioware games. I don't think she's even represented in Smash or Captain Rainbow though maybe that second one is for the best considering what they did to Lip. The game is fun and this is the definitive version of the game even if not much has changed. This game is on 3DS virtual console but sadly that's about to die soon so once again, it remains as thoughts of the past. Maybe one day a new adventure will happ-oh who am I kidding, I'm just gonna end the review now.
i cant believe they made it run worse than the original nes game