Pilotwings was a blast from the past! It's a flight sim where you take on missions in planes, hang gliders, even a jetpack. The Mode-7 graphics look charmingly dated now, but the gameplay is surprisingly addictive. It's tough mastering the different events, and some are way harder than others. A great novelty if you love retro gaming or flight sims, but it won't keep you hooked for long.
Pilotwings usually falls into the demo category of Nintendo titles. This showcases Mode 7 scaler technology that gives the impression of 3D gameplay with technical wizardry.
Broken into missions using the jet pack, glider, parachuting and piloting both an airplane. Missions are marked on accuracy when running through rings, landing and speed.
You’re given a mark out of 100 with a score to aim for to progress through piloting ranks. On original hardware I’m sure it’s a massive pain, score poorly in a mission means failure of a rank and will require repeated tries to pass. I tended to cheese it by playing individual missions and replaying if I screwed up, instead of restarting the ranks clean.
I’m sitting at a 3 or 3.5 on this. I thought for a early SNES title it’s a great showcase of Mode 7 technology with a charming mission mode it does well - I think the Helicopter missions could be its own game or elements of this could have been made into a full game with more cohesion. Repetitive missions hinder the capacity of the game.
Broken into missions using the jet pack, glider, parachuting and piloting both an airplane. Missions are marked on accuracy when running through rings, landing and speed.
You’re given a mark out of 100 with a score to aim for to progress through piloting ranks. On original hardware I’m sure it’s a massive pain, score poorly in a mission means failure of a rank and will require repeated tries to pass. I tended to cheese it by playing individual missions and replaying if I screwed up, instead of restarting the ranks clean.
I’m sitting at a 3 or 3.5 on this. I thought for a early SNES title it’s a great showcase of Mode 7 technology with a charming mission mode it does well - I think the Helicopter missions could be its own game or elements of this could have been made into a full game with more cohesion. Repetitive missions hinder the capacity of the game.