Ballon Fight
To mark the arrival of the Virtual Console on the Wii U, Nintendo has launched a very generous promotion to mark the 30th anniversary of the Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES, in case you were wondering). What this promotion entails is the release of seven classic Nintendo games on the Wii U over a period of seven months for the absurdly low price of $0.30/€0.30/£0.30 for 30 days after they drop. The first game to appear is the ever-popular Balloon Fight, an arcade title that has been released time and time again in several different iterations on various gaming platforms, most recently including Balloon Trip Breeze from the Nintendo Land suite of games. Suffice it to say, it’d be an impressive feat if you’ve managed to not play some form of Balloon Fight by now.
Before games like Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo's NES console relied on simple arcade titles to keep itself afloat. Balloon Fight used an already-successful gameplay mechanic similar to that of William's Joust arcade release, and while it offers up some simple arcade enjoyment, the repetitive gameplay keeps it from lasting, ultimately creating an experience that's far more redundant than fun.
In Balloon Fight, you take on the role of a bird who finds two balloons strapped to its back, and must flap around each area landing on enemies in order to pop their balloons and send them falling to the ground. Once on the ground, they become vulnerable and you can then run down and kick them off into the water below. Of course, you'll have to stay on your toes as they won't go down without a fight, and if the enemies pop both of your own balloons you'll be the one falling into the water.
Balloon Fight, which was developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986 and is now available for the Wii's Virtual Console, is hardly more than a rip-off of Midway's classic jousting game. However, the dragons and lances are replaced by men with helium balloons strapped to their backs. At least Nintendo picked a good game to copy. Like Joust, Balloon Fight can still dish out bursts of fun despite the fact that many aspects of the game are absolutely ancient by today's standards.
Balloon Fight is one of the original black box games for the NES and one of the few Co-op games in the original lineup. Essentially a clone of the arcade game Joust, Balloon Fight puts the player in a low altitude fight for survival, attempting to gain height over other fighters to pop their balloons and send them hurtling towards the ground. Various hazards exist, like man-eating piranhas and rogue lightning storms, all of which will result in a quick death for the player. In addition to the normal, Joust-like gameplay, Balloon Fight also offers a side-scrolling variant called Ballon Trip, where the player navigates through a level attempting to maximize their score by popping balloons and dodging ball lightning. It doesn’t get much simpler than this.
The whole idea driving this game is that you are a little guy floating around with a pair of balloons. You're not alone. Also populating the sky are a host of opponents, each of whom is gliding about on a single balloon. Your goal here is to pop their balloons without having the same done to yours. Each time you pop a balloon, the given opponent glides to the ground via parachute, where he will blow another balloon if given time. This means you have to not only rid him of his balloon, but then drop down and take him out before he finds the chance to generate a new one.
If this all sounds ridiculously simple, well, it is. And it isn't. For one thing, there's what in today's terms might be considered the arena, an open sky and a few platforms. There are also waters and clouds. These all affect your experience. A typical stage begins with you armed with your two balloons while your opponents stand on various hanging ledges, puffing up their balloons for the airborne assault. You (and a competing friend, if you go this two-player) get to make a mad leap forward and hopefully keep a few of your opponents from even getting off the ground. The rest obviously will take to the air, and then it's a delicate matter of defeating them while avoiding the natural hazards. A hit from a bolt of lightning and you're done for. Or if you hang over the low water too long--which isn't long enough at all to seem entirely fair--a huge fish will gobble you up. Instant death. On top of this, the game in later stages introduces spinning platforms you or your opponents can touch. These send you wild, the result being that you're likely to get a popped balloon as a result of the wild spinning. Your computer-driven opponents, meanwhile, are impervious to the lightning (though not the fish), so it's a matter of staying on your toes.
Balloon Fight was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System way back in 1984, proving to be an addictive, smash hit. Fast forward 30+ years later and this gem is released on the new Mini NES console. It still stands up to this day and is as fun as ever given its immense simplicity (on the surface anyway).
You can play on your own or with a friend, but the enticing missions you find yourself taking on consist of keeping your balloons intact while flying around the map. Popping the enemy's balloons while flying around the arena map is trickier than you might think. It doesn't stop there, however, as you'll soon find yourself dodging lightning strikes and a man (or bird) eating fish swimming below. Once the bad birds have landed you then need to knock them out once and for all or you'll find them refilling new balloons. As you advance, the difficulty increases and even though the levels start to repeat themselves after a certain time, the difficulty never wanes.
The goal of Balloon Fight is to flap your fighter into the sky and face off against some flying foes, attacking and popping their balloons before they can do the same to yours. Once you've knocked an enemy out of the air, he'll drift slowly to the ground below with a parachute &#Array; administering a second attack during his descent will eliminate him for good.
The core combat of the game is fun and simple, and has that added touch of Nintendo accessibility that Joust could not have claimed &#Array; and here on the Virtual Console, where Joust is not yet available as an alternative, Balloon Fight stands out as more unique than it otherwise would be. A welcome feature is Fight's support for two players simultaneously, as with other Nintendo co-op games of the same age you can choose to work together with your friend, or ruthlessly assault them and try to claim the high score yourself.
An extra mode called Balloon Trip is also available, and changes the focus from fight to flight &#Array; you're presented with a forced-scrolling screen full of electrified obstacles, and tasked to survive as long as possible while ducking, dodging and never descending. There's no land to land on down below, just an endless ocean that's home to hungry, human-eating fish. The Trip's a true challenge &#Array; it'll take practice, patience and skill on the flap trigger to wing your way through any significant portion of the course.
Before you play, there are two different game modes to choose from: the main game, and a secondary quest titled Balloon Trip. The main game, which actually fits the titular description of “balloon fight,” has you floating around the screen with balloons attached to your back while trying to pop the balloons attached to enemy characters, sending them plummeting to the ground. Knock out all of the on-screen enemies before they take you out and you get to move on to the next stage. This game mode can be surprisingly difficult, but it also allows for a second player to join in the fray, either helping or hindering your progress. It’s an incredibly simple concept that has been reproduced countless times, and like many of the early NES releases, Balloon Fight is reflective of arcade games in that your goal is focused on achieving the highest score possible rather than advancing through any sort of linear objective.
To make things a bit more interesting, each level tosses a different set of platform arrangements your way, not to mention a host of new hazards. Everything from fluffy clouds that will occasionally strike out a bolt of lightning, to the fish patiently waiting to gobble you up should you get too close to the water at the bottom of the screen.
To add a bit of variety to the experience, the developers have also included a second mode called Balloon Race. In this mode, you'll have to flap around a host of dangerous objects, collecting as many balloons as you can as the screen slowly scrolls along. While a nice change of pace, this mode is quite difficult and tends to bring out the control limitations as you try to maneuver through some extremely tight spots, with controls that don't exactly lend themselves to pinpoint navigation.
For anyone that's ever played any of the earlier NES efforts, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Balloon Fight. Simple enemies and platforms abound in each level, but with only a basic black backdrop there's not a lot of flash from a visual standpoint. The same can pretty much be said of the audio presentation as you'll get a small variety of quirky arcade-style sound effects and little more.
In Balloon Fight, you control a man that can hover and fly thanks to the two balloons that are strapped to his back. Tapping the button makes your balloon man gain altitude, while letting up on the button causes him to descend. Occupying each level are other balloon men, and the general object of the game is to defeat them by popping the balloons on their backs, which is accomplished by pouncing on them with your feet. After you pop their balloons, they'll fall into the water below or land safely on a treetop. If they land safely, they'll try to inflate new balloons to rejoin the fight, but you can send them away for good with a final kick before they take off again. Of course, they're trying to pop your balloons too. You also have to watch out for balls of lightning that occasionally shoot out from clouds, as well as a hungry fish that will sometimes jump out of the water below and try to eat you.
The simplistic jungle backgrounds, tiny characters, and barely-there audio were behind the times when the game was originally released for the NES back in 1986. Each level consists of one screen with a starry background, a few treetops, and a couple of clouds that occasionally spit out balls of lightning. Apart from the balloon men flapping their arms and the accompanying flapping sound effect, there's not much to see or hear except for those infrequent times when a cloud flashes yellow or a fish leaps out of the water. And yet, while the graphics and audio are certainly sparse, there's nothing especially bad about them. The balloon men are clearly recognizable against the black-sky backdrops, while the treetops and water are colorful, as well as sufficiently detailed. Those little balloon people also look so cute flapping their arms and bouncing off one another. You won't be impressed by Balloon Fight's presentation, but it may just charm a smile onto your face.
Gameplay is very simple, with the either A or B causing the player to flap their arms to gain altitude and speed. If the player collides with an enemy, whichever sprite is higher will emerge victorious while the other loses a balloon. The player starts with 2 balloons, allowing two hits before a life is lost. After every three stages, the player is presented with a bonus stage to increase their point score. This stage consists of nothing but popping balloons as they float up across the screen. Rinse, repeat. The levels get more complicated as play goes on, introducing more enemies, lightning storms, and spinning flippers.
While you can glide through the screen from the right and emerge on the left as was typical of games at this time, the top of the screen represents a solid barrier. Often it comes down to competing with an opponent for the high ground and hoping your higher than him when the two of you finally connect. Pretty tricky stuff, and it'll definitely put your timing to the test.
When first you play, you might be ready to call it quits fairly quickly. But one more game never seems too much a stretch, and soon you find yourself adjusting to the quirky controls. The 'a' button does a small paddle, while if you hold down the 'b' button, you can do extended bursts of speed. Get going too fast and you're done for. Flying is high-maintenance but quite fun. The better you get, too, the tougher the game treats you. Quickly, it becomes a matter of garnering the highest possible score. Then there are the bonus stages, where you can really add things up.
But wait, there's more! If you get tired of the standard mode, there's a third option, the balloon trip. Here, you're moving along a path, avoiding lightning bolts as you collect balloons. To be honest, it's simply not half the fun of the main mode, but Nintendo was definitely wise to include it. Too bad it doesn't retain its enjoyability like the other portions of the title.
Some things that oddly enough do retain their enjoyability are graphics and sound. The whole time, your television is piping out a merry little tune that somehow fits the game perfectly. And the simplistic graphics have a charm all their own, most similar to what you might get if Bubble Bobble and the original Mario Bros. title produced a love child. Nothing looks overwhelmingly good, but even now, you can look at what the game presents and see it must have been a killer in the visual department back in the day.
Though the game is simple and your goal never changes, the challenge stems from the number of enemies on screen and the obstacles that stand in your way. As you advance and continue moving towards increasingly difficult stages, more enemies will appear and more platforms will block your path of flight. There are also a number of different hazards that will vie to take your life, including clouds that project lightning your way and bodies of water full of very hungry fish that must be avoided.
Balloon Trip, the second game mode, has you floating from right to left on a continuous course dodging obstacles and collecting balloons for bonus points. Much like the main game, it’s all about earning a high score rather than working toward a tangible end goal. While this mode does add a bit of variety from trying to climb level after level, it still lacks the inherent diversity in gameplay that makes most games so engaging. The simple gameplay in both modes, while enticing for folks looking for a game with an arcade feel, is also the double-edged sword that will draw some players in while simultaneously pushing others away.
Popping opponents' balloons and punting them off treetops is by no means complicated, but you'd be surprised at just how much fun you'll have doing it. The CPU's intelligence ratchets up quickly too, which means you're always on your toes and games usually don't last more than a couple of minutes. As such, you never really have a chance to burn out from repetition. If you have a second controller and can take advantage of the two player cooperative mode, you'll enjoy those short bursts even more. You and your friend can work together to stay alive or you can pop each other's balloons and compete to see who gets the highest score. Bumping the other player into a pack of CPU balloonists is very satisfying.
Both modes, while different in execution but very similar in style, are played simply by guiding your character around the screen with the D-Pad and either mashing A or holding B to propel yourself forward. Owners of the Pro Controller also have the option of using that as their primary device, and adding a second player, as is the case with most Wii U games, requires the addition of a Wii Remote. While the controls are not the tightest in gaming history, they do well to reflect the sluggish experience of trying to pilot yourself if balloons were carrying your weight. Though tighter controls are always a positive, the poor design here can easily be attributed to the developers wanting to make for a more genuine experience regarding movement, but that’s a generous assumption to make.
Whatever control scheme you choose to use, tapping the GamePad’s touchscreen will open up the Virtual Console menu where you can create a restore point in your game, a favorite feature of many modern gamers. Another feature of the Wii U that tends to be standard with many releases thus far is the inclusion of off-screen play, which here allows Balloon Fight to be played entirely on the GamePad’s small screen. You can also access Miiverse from the GamePad while playing, making it easy to brag and show off your high scores. There are no online leaderboards integrated directly into the game, as this is a simple port, but being able to share screenshots of your score on Miiverse –as many players have already done — proves to be a worthy substitute.
Gameplay: Painfully simple. You get a taste of pretty much all of the gameplay in the first 5 minutes. The side-scrolling “Balloon Trip” mode gives a little more life to the game, but overall it becomes tiring quickly. If you have a friend around, the Co-op play can provide a good, brainless distraction, but the formula is the same.
Sound: Heinous beyond measure. The game is filled with high pitched beeps and chirps that are constantly going off. The one high point here is how surprisingly accurate the balloon popping sound is. It is a very good representation of a real world noise for an early NES game. At least they nailed that; after all, it is a game about balloons.
Nostalgia: I had only ever played this game once or twice before, and Joust a couple times. Very little memory associated with this game.
Worth Playing: If you like Joust, and wish there were more just like it, pick up Balloon Fight. Or, if you are a collector, get it because it’s a Black Box game. Otherwise, feel free to pass this one by.
Balloon Trip is an old game, and its age is starting to show. While it's an entertaining game that showcases the simplicity of many classic arcade titles that found their way onto the NES home console, it also has the kind of repetitive gameplay that can become tiresome sooner rather than later. While this Wii U re-release is a suitable port of the original with the much-appreciated additions of off-screen play, Virtual Console restore points, and Miiverse integration, it’s a difficult recommendation for new audiences who weren’t around to enjoy it when it was originally released. Balloon Fight attempts to fly high, but you can't help feeling that it's just full of hot air.
Balloon Fight is a great idea that just doesn't have enough depth or originality to keep you coming back for more. Even the cute characters and additional mode aren't enough to lift the experience up and keep the fun rolling. Unless you're just a diehard Nintendo fan that has to own everything the company has produced over the years, you'd definitely be better off passing on this rather bland and repetitive arcade experience.
Of course, the best news is that time hasn't entirely dulled this title's appeal. If you can find it for a good price, it's definitely recommended. Not all of Nintendo's early attempts at greatness remained enjoyable for more than a few years, but this one certainly did. And if you have a friend with a craving for some retro action, you really can't go wrong with Balloon Fight.
