Received: May 24th, 2012 | Written: June 30th-July 4th, 2020
Year: 1990, 1991 | Developed by: Nintendo EAD | Published by: Nintendo
The Super Famicom turns thirty this year, everyone! 😦 Holy crap in a stick, that's absolutely mental!
Click for full size
So in honor of this occasion, let's talk about one of the first nine games to be released for the system (all in 1990).But first, a little history: in 1988 Nintendo announced that they would be creating the follow-up to their Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be released to the Japanese public in 1990 (1991 for North American consumption and 1992 for both the European and Australian continents).
Image from The Cutting Room Floor
Fifteen months after the announcement three games were completed for the system by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (or Nintendo EAD for short), a team comprised of Nintendo's Research & Development division members led by producer Shigeru Miyamoto: Super Famicom launch titles Super Mario World and F-Zero as well as today's game. Initially it went under the name Dragonfly which was shown to the Japanese press as a showcase of the then new system's capabilities before its title eventually got revised to
Images from GameFAQs
Pilotwings, a flight simulator for beginners which was produced by Miyamoto, executive produced by Hiroshi Yamauchi, programmed by Shuhei Kato, Hajime Yajima, and Takumi Kawagoe, and directed by Tadashi Sugiyama. It saw a release for the Super Famicom one month after the console debuted in Japan on December 21st, 1990 which would be followed up by an American SNES release on August 13th, 1991 as a launch title Stateside with Europe finally receiving it on January 21st, 1993.
(Awkward word spacing in half the lines is awkward)
Left: Beginning by flying a biplane | Right: Dangling from the bottom rung of the ladder before proceeding to fall in the skydiving lesson
In the amateur flight simulator Pilotwings you play someone who aspires to take to the skies through a series of lessons taught at the flight club, each of which offer a variety of controls. In the biplane activity you can maneuver yourself with the direction buttons, speed up by holding down the A button until your gauge is at 99 (which is the only way to take off from the runway during certain lessons), and speed down slightly or all the way by briefly pressing the B button or holding it down all the way (preferably doing the latter as you land the plane) as you fly through rings or arches;
Left: Falling through a ring | Right: Flying through a ring
in the skydiving activity you are lifted up in the air for fourteen seconds until you let go and begin your descent (though you can bypass it on the outset by pressing the A button) as you try to fall through a series of rings by maneuvering yourself around by rotating to the side or flipping forward or backward (the former of which will speed up your descent) and once you reach a certain point of altitude you'll be prompted to pull your parachute via the A button which will have you slowly glide downward to your target below so maneuver yourself with full consideration (you can even hold down to slightly flare your chute upward);
Left: Hovering in the air with a rocket belt (which looks more like a jetpack, really, but never mind) | Right: Parachuting down 🪂
in the bizarrely named rocket belt activity you start on a moving water-bound platform as you must either go through rings or touch a beam where you can turn yourself around by holding the side buttons, hover yourself forward or backward by holding up or down to a point, hover yourself fast with the A button or slowly with the B button, and depending on whether it makes it easy for you or not you can press either shoulder button on the controller to toggle between third-person or top-down view where success in passing relies on careful maneuvering;
Left: Take off | Right: Soaring above the ocean
and finally there's the hang glidier activity which begins as you hang on to the baton extended by the biplane you flew in that lesson and then once you let go you hang glide on your own by moving left and right, holding down to nose up or holding up to descend quickly, and with the A button you can flare up or do a quick turn (necessary to land properly when it comes to touching the ground) plus the only way to propel yourself upward is to fly through a thermal updraft.
Left: Powered hovercraft | Right: Flying through the thermal updraft
The goal of each lesson is to score a requisite amount of points collectively from the two to four activities you partake in, and should you get as much as or exceed the required number of points you need then the flight instructor (Tony, Shirley, Lance, or Big Al) will grant you the current lesson's certificate which includes a six-digit password in order to pick up your progress should you take a break. If the chances of succeeding are against you because you don't have enough points to make it there's the "Retry" option to start the current (or prior) flight lesson from scratch, or "End" to forfeit and return to the title screen.
Left: Viewing your hovering from the bird's eye view | Right: Great landing
How much you score in each activity will be based on any one of these factors: the amount of time it takes for you to reach your goal, how quickly you took to finish or not, your sense of accuracy, and/or how many rings or beams or arches you flew or fell through (in the rocket belt activity you'll be docked two points each if you touch the ground). Failure to land on the target or crashing towards the ground or water means certain failure even if you went through the aforementioned rings, beams, or arches in one form or another, and if you ignore the rules and immediately go for the target then you'll be given an automatic zero.
Left: Ring passed | Right: Flying straight through
With each subsequent flight lesson you attend the more the difficulty will ramp up just slightly in terms of not just augmented amount of obstacles (later on the pavement might get slippery or you might get pushed a little by the wind, and certain targets and platforms will get smaller) but the amount of points you need total in order to pass as well. So after completing and passing the first four lessons, all your training has been leading up to
Left: Controlling a rescue chopper | Right: Dropping missiles onto enemy cannons
a rescue mission as you control a combat chopper in the secret command activity. This time it's serious business! You take off from the helipad and accelerate by holding down the A button until it reaches 99 which will result in you flying up as high as 630 feet in the air, decelerate your speed by holding down the B button if you wish to get lower (but be sure to regain speed so as to remain airborne so you do not crash below), you can maneuver around and control your position with the direction buttons,
Left: It could be the color palette, but I'm reminded of Namco's Xevious | Right: Liberating the hostages
and by pressing either shoulder you can rain down your missiles to destroy the Evil Syndicate's ground cannons (including the covert ones from below the trees). It takes a bit of practice to accustom to the controls and structure here, but the important thing is that you do not get hit by enemy fire thus causing you to plummet down fast otherwise you'll be sent back to the title screen and be forced to start this segment anew. Another thing you should be careful about is landing your chopper properly in the target zone as it must be straight and not be curved at an angle, so once you dispatched of the enemy cannons take your time.
Left: Snow better time than the present to parachute down | Right: Landing on the challenging platform is a must to attain a bonus opportunity
The majority of the music for Pilotwings was composed by Soyo Oka (whose audio credits prior to this game comprised of Pax Softnica's Ice Hockey and Vs. Excitebike, Nintendo's Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally and afterward would provide her music for Nintendo's Super Mario Kart and Super Mario Collection/Super Mario All-Stars as well as the NES version of Intelligent Systems' Wario's Woods) and it really suits the flight theme of the game especially as each activity has their own separate music dedicated to them. 😃
Left: Taking to the frigid skies | Right: Landing OK
When you begin the game proper and whenever you start a new flight lesson you're greeted to a pleasant background melody (short though it may be), the biplane theme has occasional urgent notes, the skydiving theme builds a gradual sense of heightened scale (especially as you fall down and pull the parachute), the rocket belt theme sounds very catchy as you hover around while listening to a jazzy tune which includes piano keys and lots of "bwah"s here and there (the "bwah"s are also present in the fun-sounding bonus theme), and the hang glider theme is very breezy and calming to listen to in spite of the fact that it's one of the harder air crafts to maneuver in (as an aside, I remember many years ago when the late FlyingOmelette website* featured two of Pilotwings' songs in the video game MP3 downloads page how the site runner Alys described this song in particular as "Peter Frampton on crack". 😕 I... that description was one where once you read it you'll always remember it).* 2/25/21 Update: It's worth pointing out for the sake of context that at the time I wrote this review the FlyingOmelette website was closed ("Indefinitely" as I recalled that website's disclaimer saying) hence the "late" before the name but it got revived again in October 2020 which I didn't find out until earlier this year
Each flight lesson grants you unlimited opportunities to retry, which is a good thing, but if you feel you need an additional bit of help getting those additional points there is one of three bonus chances (all appropriately bird-themed) should you land on a tiny or moving platform with the only guarantee being that you'll be given an automatic 100 (though it may take proper timing and practice to even achieve this):
to access the birdman bonus activity you must land on the moving target you started from in the rocket belt activity where you can maneuver around with the direction buttons and shift between viewpoints with either shoulder button for the goal is to bounce on a trampoline, land on the P icon for points, and then after being skyrocketed upward from the last trampoline you must land on any of the point markers set up in the water;
the bird fly bonus activity can be accessed by landing on the tiny platform in the hang glider sequence in lieu of the big one on land (good luck, you'll need it) where you depart from the beach and fly as far as you can by repeatedly tapping the A button (with the further you fly requiring you to tap it at a faster rate) until you inevitably fall in the water;
It wasn't until years after I was loaned my SNES console by my cousin that I procured my own copy of Pilotwings, but the story behind it bears context I feel to what led to me playing a physical Super Famicart for the first time so I'll try to keep it brief: it was May 2012 and my desire to import and play Super Famicarts was growing and growing so to start off simple I imported HAL Laboratory's Alcahest from eBay as my first Nintendo 16-bit cart from Japan (which arrived on the 22nd) but I also ordered an NTSC SNES Game Genie cart under the impression that it played these games because the seller said it did. No, it didn't, the cartridge design prevented it from fitting. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement because I felt I was deceived. I really wanted to play it. 😞
Two days later I went to the retro game store 3D Games where I bought three SNES carts: Natsume's Pocky & Rocky, Capcom's X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, and this game, the first of which I had the honor to try in the store via a Retro Duo console prior to buying it. It was then and there that I thought, "Wait, I remember looking up how it also played games from Japan. Could it be?" This excited me a bit and gave me hope after the Game Genie disappointment, so the following week on May 31st I bought a Retro Duo which was my initial way of playing Super Famicartridges, and when I plugged Alcahest in and it worked I was so happy and immersed as a new doorway had opened up for me (one that lasted two years and five months before asking for a Super Famiconsole for Christmas in 2015). 😄 I do feel sheepish for not having considered the notion that the Japanese Super Famicom had an outlet plug like American products do back in 2012, had I known I would've instantly went for that--but, you know, humble beginnings and all that. Anyway, back to Pilotwings.
The game had a very interesting and appealing premise which was visually made possible with the complete usage of Mode 7, and there is a steady learning curve even if the game does get more challenging the further you press on (especially the last flight lesson, when I was younger I didn't like the biplane portions because I kept crashing in that one), and to make things approachable there is a great deal of trial and error. And because the world around you is huge and open-ended there is always more than one way to approach a target or ring or arch or beam which in turn creates a lot of replay value (as well as the aforementioned bonus opportunities if you can manage to access them, as a child the only one I could access was the birdman one because of how immensely manageable the rocket belt activity is compared to everything else).
I also really liked the personable touch with the flight trainers Tony, Shirley, Lance, and Big Al and how they would have differing comments based on how you did (if you failed a course by landing in the water instead of the target Lance would say "Land on the land!" for one example), with the positive reaction upon doing really good or having their face of disappointment befall on you if you did poorly which is never fun. My favorite reaction from them is if you far exceed their expectations (no bonus required) as you'll come back to Shirley's bewildered eyes becoming stick lines, Lance's eyes shrinking and circling inside his eye sockets, or bringing Big Al to tears (though the last one is pretty sweet at the end of the game). 😆
I also appreciated the angled dynamics as you turned the biplane and hang glider to the left and right as well as the different landing and fumbled animations as you touch the ground; especially if you held down too long in skydiving where your character appears on his back flailing his arms and legs, getting on his back after falling at non-lethal speeds to the ground in rocket belt, or landing on his bum after holding down and A too long. I loved that once you reached the Expert second half the palettes of the aircraft in the four lessons have been altered (in my opinion for the better, I personally prefer the silver biplane and aqua green rocket belt equipment to the red and yellow of the first half) and how the area gets progressively darker in terms of color (showcasing the console's vast color library).
So after clearing the first four flight lessons in this seemingly innocuous and lighthearted flight club,
all of a sudden things take a turn when the flight instructors (and later Big Al's brother) get captured as hostages while you're the only one qualified to fly a missile-dropping helicopter to rescue them? 😮 What??? 😲 I remember when my cousins and I finally got to this point in my late teens for the first time, it was just insane. And coming from Nintendo, the company that gave us Super Mario Bros. among other lighthearted properties, this is pretty dark for them all things considered (for 1990, anyway). Way to pull the rug out from underneath your unsuspecting audience, guys, I had long been under the impression that it was exclusively a harmless flight club with fun aerial activities (when you're not crashing or falling in the water outside of bonus opportunities, that is). This was not hinted at or foreshadowed anywhere, which makes this twist simultaneously crazy and genius.
Generally speaking Pilotwings is a positively received game, but I know there's a small percentage of people who either don't like or are not fond of this game, and I respect that this game might not be for everyone or how some might comment on how the visuals have aged with time. But simply looking at screenshots of Mode 7 (from this or any game that incorporated it) alone doesn't give you the full sense and experience as to truly admire and appreciate it you'd have to watch it in motion (preferably firsthand, i.e. by playing it), and considering what Nintendo could accomplish back then Pilotwings is still impressive on a technological level three decades later. 😃
Left: Hovering around in muggy weather | Right: Almost there
Whenever you do good in an activity you're rewarded with a triumphant cue, but if you fail or do poorly then you'll instead be treated to a slower more piano-driven take to match the flight trainers' disappointment in your performance, and the secret command theme veers from the lighthearted tone the game offered you up to this point to something somber and filled with dread as you're relayed the bad news from Big Al. Once you rescued the hostages it's rewarding to hear this theme, even more so for the cue you hear upon being handed the Pilotwings Medal, and the staff roll theme is such a congratulatory reward for the ears for finishing the game.
Left: Aiming to fly under that arch | Right: Sky is getting darker (and windier)
I did say that Soyo Oka provided the majority of the music earlier, and that's because her superior and veteran Nintendo composer Koji Kondo of Super Mario Bros. and Zelda no Densetsu/The Legend of Zelda fame was the sound manager and composed the theme for when you fly the helicopter on your mission to save the hostages which is evident-sounding in how mission-oriented and serious it sounds. The music is good and perfectly suits the various activities, though it did feel weird to listen to some of it without the accompanied sound effects for the sake of this review as they do complete the experience for they are well-chosen: like the whirring of the engine as you fly the biplane and the skidding of the wheels as you land, the roaring wind as you skydive and hang glide, the photo camera-like shutter effect as you switch between viewpoints during the rocket belt activity, the alarm as your rate of descent becomes too great, the splash as you fall in the water, the crash as you hit the ground in the biplane and secret command portions, and the spinning of the rotary blades of the chopper you fly.
Left: Hang gliding during the sunset | Right: About to take off from the runway
Pilotwings' visuals were graphic designed by Naoki Mori (who would go on to do the graphic and shape design for Nintendo's Super Mario All-Stars and Argonaut Software's Super FX racer Wild Trax/Stunt Race FX respectively) and someone simply credited as "Susie", with each lessons' flight setting being differently laid out than the last (with one transpiring in the desert, another in a grassy field, one area being surrounded by nothing but water, another area will be shrouded in snow with some of the runway being affected, but the best one takes place at night with the runway and targets being lit up with a nice shot of the moon in the star-studded sky which can be seen when hang gliding).
Left: Landed... barely | Right: Bouncing ball beams (complete with springing sound effects)
But the real show stealer is, of course, the Nintendo 16-bit's trademark Mode 7 effects as it encompasses pretty much the whole area when you're playing it (and during the title it scales and rotates towards the screen until it remains straight as it zooms out to get in place, and when you choose which air craft to ride the vectored outline of it slightly zooms in to the center of the screen) by scaling and rotating the ground below you to such a degree that it creates an illusion of 3D. Like Nintendo's fellow 1990 Nintendo 16-bit game F-Zero this game utilizes Mode 7 to the fullest extent which is still effective to this day,
Left: Nighttime flight | Right: What a beautiful moon 🌝
even if the surface in which it's being affected is admittedly flat (sure, the buildings and trees appear painted on but the level of detail is incredible otherwise) and display high amounts of pixilation when close up; but just watching it unfold in motion (whether in fast or slow speed) is impressive for what they could accomplish at the time (in secret command, go as high up as you can without moving, the rippling water as it continually zooms out is incredibly mesmerizing) and set the stage for future Nintendo 16-bit games that experimented with Mode 7 (to some degree or in full force). 😃 During certain courses the rings and arches might rotate or spin around or compress and contract, and viewing the rocket belt activity from more than one perspective is a sweet touch.Each flight lesson grants you unlimited opportunities to retry, which is a good thing, but if you feel you need an additional bit of help getting those additional points there is one of three bonus chances (all appropriately bird-themed) should you land on a tiny or moving platform with the only guarantee being that you'll be given an automatic 100 (though it may take proper timing and practice to even achieve this):
Pentarō? 😀 What are you doing here, don't you have your own kind to fight off against in your non-sense fantasy or something? 😐
and finally there's the penguin dive bonus activity which you'll be able to access upon landing on a moving water bound platform in the skydiving sequence where a penguin jumps off on an incredibly high diving board and must absolutely land in the water for a set amount of points which you can maneuver or flip around with the direction buttons.
Images from GameFAQs
The success of Pilotwings would garner it two sequels, Paradigm Simulation's Pilotwings 64 for the Nintendo 64 in 1996 and Monster Games' Pilotwings Resort for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, both of which would serve as launch titles in America and neither of which I've played even though I own the respective systems; apparently there was supposed to be an iteration for the Nintendo GameCube but got cancelled. The original Pilotwings would see a digital rerelease on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console in 2009, the Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2016, and in 2019 would be among the roster of games available to play on the Nintendo Switch Online service.
Left: Gonna fly through that peculiarly positioned arch | Right: Secret command, this time with a full searchlight
Pilotwings is a game I'll always be fond of as I was introduced to it during the mid '90s when I visited my American relatives, my cousins and I enjoyed it a lot over the years (even though we had a hard time getting past the fourth lesson as children and early teenage years), and it was among many of my go to SNES games whenever I came and visited during the Summer (even after one of my older cousins loaned me his SNES console and games on December 29th, 2008, a day I'll always cherish, since he knew how much I loved the console). 😃 Of the first nine games ever created for the Nintendo 16-bit as a child I only played this game and Nintendo's Super Mario World, the other seven I would either catch up with in one form or another as a teenager or young adult or I have yet to play (Mirrorsoft's port of Imageworks' Bombuzal and Infinity's port of Bullfrog Productions' god game Populous).
The game had a very interesting and appealing premise which was visually made possible with the complete usage of Mode 7, and there is a steady learning curve even if the game does get more challenging the further you press on (especially the last flight lesson, when I was younger I didn't like the biplane portions because I kept crashing in that one), and to make things approachable there is a great deal of trial and error. And because the world around you is huge and open-ended there is always more than one way to approach a target or ring or arch or beam which in turn creates a lot of replay value (as well as the aforementioned bonus opportunities if you can manage to access them, as a child the only one I could access was the birdman one because of how immensely manageable the rocket belt activity is compared to everything else).
I also appreciated the angled dynamics as you turned the biplane and hang glider to the left and right as well as the different landing and fumbled animations as you touch the ground; especially if you held down too long in skydiving where your character appears on his back flailing his arms and legs, getting on his back after falling at non-lethal speeds to the ground in rocket belt, or landing on his bum after holding down and A too long. I loved that once you reached the Expert second half the palettes of the aircraft in the four lessons have been altered (in my opinion for the better, I personally prefer the silver biplane and aqua green rocket belt equipment to the red and yellow of the first half) and how the area gets progressively darker in terms of color (showcasing the console's vast color library).
So after clearing the first four flight lessons in this seemingly innocuous and lighthearted flight club,
Generally speaking Pilotwings is a positively received game, but I know there's a small percentage of people who either don't like or are not fond of this game, and I respect that this game might not be for everyone or how some might comment on how the visuals have aged with time. But simply looking at screenshots of Mode 7 (from this or any game that incorporated it) alone doesn't give you the full sense and experience as to truly admire and appreciate it you'd have to watch it in motion (preferably firsthand, i.e. by playing it), and considering what Nintendo could accomplish back then Pilotwings is still impressive on a technological level three decades later. 😃
Left: Attacking the ground cannons | Right: Rescue successful!
I really like this game a lot; I liked it as a child, I liked it as a teenager, and I still like playing it in my young adult years. Fortunately it is more fun than frustrating overall even as its difficulty ramps up, and there is a sense of thrill as you avoid getting blasted out of the sky in secret command (even if it is a bit annoying to have to start over after having gone so far only to careen downward after taking a hit). With a variety of activities and area locations combined with a high dosage of replay value the sky is the limit and I think it still holds up well to this day. 😃
My Personal Score: 8.5/10
d(^-^)bTO EACH THEIR OWNd(^-^)b
Happy 30th Anniversary, Pilotwings! 🥳
Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW allowed); hope you have a great day, keep yourself safe and protected during this pandemic, and take care! 😃
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