Captain Skyhawk is a fast-paced, arcade-style shooter that offers a short, solid challenge with only a few frustrating bits dragging it down from top speed. The majority of the game is made up of generally standard vertical shoot-em-up levels usually ending in a "boss fight" against a base. You have a significant amount of horizontal movement available, which makes for much wider levels than typically found in the genre, and you'll need the space to dodge enemy gunfire while avoiding slamming into the environment.

There are a number of frustrating moments in these sections: levels that require you to drop supplies to allies by aiming for a relatively small hole in the ground force you to fly through the entire level again before getting another chance, enemy fire is sometimes invisible (possibly due to the NES sprite limit) and leaves you questioning what even hit you, one level features a blinding bright pink background, and a later level features exploding mines that seem to hit you completely arbitrarily.

Fortunately, these segments are broken up by After Burner-style levels where shooting down fighters awards credits that can be used to upgrade your weapons. Each series of levels ends with docking with your space station (which is just cool), and deciding where to spend your cash. The only upgrade that really matters, though, is your standard cannon which when fully upgraded becomes an endless stream of bullets. From there, it's back down to another set of vertical levels.

At only 9 "missions," the game ends juuuuuust before it overstays its welcome (and your reward is a misspelled congrats screen). Exploding for seemingly no reason gets frustrating at times, but overall Captain Skyhawk is a fun shoot-em-up that can be beaten in a single sitting with a little patience and a side of white-knuckled panic.