Now my Metroid and Fire Emblem collection is complete! Now announce an international release of that new 3DS Fire Emblem...
Of course, earlier this week my PS3 decided to die on me right as I was finishing the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo (which I was thoroughly enjoying), so I'm without a convenient entertainment hub for Hulu Plus, Netflix and my first -technically second- Final Fantasy IX playthrough. I had put my first time off back in '10 around the end of disc 3 when other new game had arrived and I'd forgotten how much fun and charming IX is and was quite eager to finish it before getting to XIII (lost track of time when Christmas rolled around - came and went far too quickly this year, methinks).
But now my PS3 has my disc 3 hostage, dammit!! Looks like I'll only have time to go through XIII again when my system gets back for "internal damage repairs" and I assume I'm one of the few 1% (semi-toopical!) who're lucky enough to essentially get screwed by YLOD'd (Yellow Light of Death-ed). I had wanted to get through Final Fantasy X, X-2, XII and XIII before my Collector's Edition of XIII-2 arrives in early February, but now I know I'll only get time for one game before that arrives. One gets fixed, another decides to break it seems...
Enough of my personal misery! Now, on to another cultish Nintendo game:
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| A lotta NES Nintendo games that didn't quite became popular franchises are harder to find simple logos for. |
Balloon Fight, like many early NES games, is oft-referenced in crossover Nintendo titles, as most younger gamers would recognize the music and title from WarioWare and Super Smash Bros. It's very arcade-minded, with no story to speak of. It might as well be a hobby or fantastical extreme sport, your call.
Controls are as simple as they come: + Pad moves the Balloon Fighter left and right, while A and B makes him flap his arms to gain altitude, as doing nothing will cause him to descend. The goal of the main game: to pop the balloons of rival Balloon Fighters and clear them from the screen. If any fall into or linger near the water, a giant fish will promptly eat the careless Fighter. As the enemies will attempt to refill their balloons for further flight, a quick kick to a grounded Fighter will defeat him. Defeated rivals cause point-boosting bubbles to appear.
Naturally, it is not as simple a task: the Balloon Fighter must avoid lightning bolts from malevolent storm clouds and rotating Flippers of Super Smash Bros. Melee fame along with the airborn enemies. With only two balloons and three lives, games can be quite short, as losing a balloon will make ascending more difficult and unweildy. After every two stages, a bonus stage occurs where the goal is to collect all balloons to further the high score, followed by more difficult battle arenas.
An NES-exclusive mode, Balloon Trip, is simply a single-player endurance mode: in an auto-scrolling screen, collect balloons and avoid lightning bolts for the highest score.
A game like Balloon Fight is hard to recommend nowadays. For a Nintendo fan like myself, who realizes its flaws yet still finds it entertaining and somewhat addictive, it's a simple $5 purchase. I can even see old-school arcade junkies understanding the appeal, but it can be harder to sell for those who might think the game repetitive (which it is, to their credit) and dull (which I disagree with - I've spent five bucks on much worse). Since it's technically a franchise (of two), it shall be ranked:
Balloon Series
1. Balloon Fight
I call it the Balloon Series but there's no official name for it. Plus, I'm being generous in calling it a series. I enjoy it well enough to appreciate when Nintendo reminds us that it exists and strongly recommend a friend to laugh with when playing it, but there's a reason a series with such limited appeal and gameplay possibilities never became one of their main franchises and instead pops up in the occasional minigame collection for experimentation purposes (WarioWare) and cameos (Smash Bros.).
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On a side note, as I've recently explained to a friend, I currently suck at drawing. Again. None of my sketches are remotely good enough to post on my deviantArt, let alone take up space on my laptop, so they've been constantly scrapped. I used to be getting decent when I first got a tablet back in.. crap, was it '07? Dang, I haven't improved a bit.
I should get into the habit of sketching random things suggested by friends for a month like many whom I admire on dA do occasionally to get back into the groove. This marathon run through games I feel I can review made me realize that for the most part I haven't done nearly enough fanart of my favorite things. I mean sure, I've done a couple sketches and rough works of girls I think are pretty within the past few years, but not that much fanart in general. I admit, girls are more fun and easier to draw than guys. I think cuz they're.. how do I put this. Softer? Smoother and more round? The fairer sex is easier for me to depict than guys, who're more rough, being more blocky and straight. Man, I need to stop explaining how my mind works...
In fact, my presentable deviation count has significantly dwindled for the past two years. No more! I will make my Wacom and Flash CS4 proud, mark my words!
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