Blazing Skies

Also Known as: Wings 2: Aces High/Sky Mission
Developed By: 

• Malibu Interactive

Published by: 

• Namco

Producer:

• Ken Lobb

Programmer:

• Steve Hughes

Artists:

• Jeremy Cantor
• Steve Thomson

Composers:

• George Sanger
• Joe McDermott
• David Govett
• Kevin Phelan

Platforms:

• Super NES

Release dates:

• JP - 1992
• NA - 1992
• PAL - 1993

Genre: 

• Combat flight simulator

Mode: 

• Single-player                                     

Check pricing here:

https://www.pricecharting.com/game/pal-super-nintendo/blazing-skies?q=blazing+skies+snes

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Box Synopsis

5,000 meters over France. Spying a pair of prowling enemy planes, you slam the stick forward and enter a screaming dive. Finger on the trigger, your plane shudders from the recoil of tracer splitting machine guns. Enemy number two rolls high over his smoking wingman in the sun.

Enemy bullets tear through your cockpit, but you fly through. Chop the throttle, yank back on the stick and the Fokker over-shoots, filling your sights. He's yours.

Blazing Skies plunges you into the swirling air battles of WW1. Arcade style controls combined with sharp digitized graphics forge a new standard for flight games.

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Gameplay

Blazing Skies is an arcade combat flight simulator game based during World War 1. As the leader of a British plane squadron during WW1, the player  must undertake a series of dangerous missions to destroy enemy planes and key strategic targets. 

The game includes 20 explosive air combat missions that are broken into three playstyle categories. These are dog fights, bombing runs and strafing runs. Success of missions will reward  the player with customization points towards the current pilot. 

Once you complete all 20 unique objectives you successfully complete the game and receive the highest honor and remember the pilots you lost along the way.

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Controls

Directional pad up - Moves plane

L - Moves plane to the left a little/Drop bomb (bombing mission)

R - Moves plane to the right a little/Drop bomb (bombing mission)

Y - Shoot machine guns

X - N/A

B - Closes throttle (slow down)

A - Opens throttle (speeds up)

Select - No use

Start - Start game/confirm selection

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Game Videos

Dogfight Sample

Bombing Sample

Strafing Sample

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Shanwow's Review

Story and Gameplay: 2 point

Blazing Skies is a very challenging arcade influenced combat pilot shooter that tells the story of a WW1 British Squadron completing key missions as they battle the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II in France.

The story is told through 20 unique missions that display the courage of pilots as they follow their commands strategic plan. The narrative is told with the use of text based information between missions. This approach does slow the game down a little if you are new and want to read, however I'm thankful for that because it helps paint a great picture of how the war was and shows respect to those involved. I really enjoyed the fact that before I got into the action I could read about each pilot and get a brief feeling for who they were as a person. 

This game features 20 action packed missions that have their own unique objectives and are play in one of three styles. Dog fighting and strafing runs make up the majority of the game but to be honest the bombing missions were my favorite because of the precision needed for success. The game gives you the opportunity to enjoy all of these mission types several times before the final dog fight with the Red Baron (famed World War 1 fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen. The explanation for each mission is also a nice touch and helps develop a little story within the arcade style play.

This explosive air combat crashes hard when it comes to the length of the game and each individual mission itself. When playing I found that the dogfight missions were the longest and went for an average of 5 minutes where as bombing and strafing runs were drastically shorter. Naturally it took more than one attempt to finish it but because I knew all the information I could skip forward straight to the action which meant my final play through came in at 1hr 40mins thanks to me not being very good at tracking targets with no HUD or radar. So realistically someone with practice could easily finish this game in under 1 hour which is the main reason this game does get top marks in this category.

Controls and Features: 2 points

Taking control of these air craft is ultimately fun but does require quite a few retries to get the hang of. The controller use is fantastic and brings a rather simplistic way to play for this flight simulator but took me a little time to get used to. There are a few layout changes between the three mission types but it remains almost identical and isn't a real worry. 

Blazing Skies features action packed missions that can be completed successfully or failed. Success or failure can progress you in the game but you want to succeed to get the access to customization for your current pilot. This is of importance because improving your stats gives you a better chance of overall success. This feature gave me the ability to plan each mission and pilot I was using so I could have a few advanced pilots in the end of the game.

With life comes death and Blazing skies has a permadeath approach that essentially counts as lives for the player. Being shot down or failing a mission multiple times can result in the loss of a pilot which makes the mission harder to complete. I liked this feature because it did add the need to succeed on each mission which led to me wanting to replay the game for practice. However if you wish to only go with one path you can thankfully use a password system to return to where you failed or earlier.

This air sim game has a simple concept with a clear objective but thankfully enough player choice features to keep it from having an on a repetitive boring feeling. That is great news for players who aren't comfortable straight away with the aircraft's controls which do require a little practice due to the small angular changes with each directional press.


 

Design and Difficulty: 3 point

Blazing Skies graphically looks fantastic and was a new standard when  it was released back in 1993. As I flew around the aerodrome I saw the landscape below me changing with my speed and adapted new textures based on my location. The sprite design of both friendly and enemy plane look great but the Germans are a bit hard to see at distance. The real winner for graphics is the top down look when you are approaching a bombing target. The landscapes in those missions are highly detailed and even zoom in and out based on your height. 

The sound effect team have done a rather good job to bring the experience to life with all their individual game sounds. The sounds used a perfectly placed in time with on screen actions and help break up the engine sounds. One down side is that the sound effects are sometimes drowned out by a loud soundtrack which is on repeat based on the mission type you are attempting.

I'm not very experience in flying planes in games and that led me to having quite a bit of difficulty on some missions, mainly the dog fights. Your aircraft also does feel like it sluggish to control and can't achieve the same maneuverability as the enemy which does feel a bit unfair. 

The game difficulty is also based on the choices you make as a player. I found that changing my upgrading strategy ultimately helped me touch down safely after battling it out with the Red Baron. However thanks to the shortness of this game you can easily improve on any weaknesses you have and eventually finish the game with enough practice. 

Fun and Summary: 👍+1

Blazing Skies creates a true illusion of flying through the dangerous airways above a war torn country. This is my new favorite games for a genre that I usually find no interest in. I really enjoyed the 3D graphics that helped deliver an immersive action experience with a touch of realism.

It may be a short game overall but it has enough challenge to tempt you into replay after replay. I'm thankful for the ability to customize my pilots after success because that helped keep the game rewarding as I slowly increased my skills and became competent enough to spray lead through the wings of The Baron and become the next ace of the skies

• Player choices
• Passwords for progress
• Graphically appealing

                      RetroRating: 8 / 10