Those that observe Hamster’s Arcade Archives releases on the Nintendo Swap and PlayStation 4 will know that the developer fairly clearly appreciates the shoot-em-up style. Certain, it’s partly a results of the age of the video games Hamster tends to work with, however there are round 100 shooters within the full Arcade Archives line-up to this point. Solely a fraction of them are NEOGEO video games, nevertheless, so we most likely shouldn’t anticipate to see most of these video games present up on iOS. We’re restricted to the NEOGEO line-up, and we’re quickly approaching the very backside of that barrel. We’ve reached the Ghost Pilots ($3.99) line, folks.
Ghost Pilots arrived on the NEOGEO inside the system’s first yr, when SNK was nonetheless looking for its footing with the {hardware}. Inspiration would arrive quickly after its January 1991 launch. Avenue Fighter II hit in February 1991 with all of the pressure of a raging bull, kicking off a preventing recreation phenomenon that the NEOGEO was capable of profit enormously from. In these early days, one in every of SNK’s secret weapons was a expertise that had been lured away from one in every of its main opponents. Takashi Nishiyama is a person who shouldn’t want an introduction, however let’s go forward and provides him one.
Nishiyama is, maybe, one of many extra essential figures in arcade gaming historical past. He acquired his begin at Irem, and was accountable for two of its largest early hits: Moon Patrol and Kung-Fu Grasp. He then made the bounce to Capcom, the place he was concerned with video games like Part Z, Trojan, Legendary Wings, and Avenue Fighter. Sure, the primary one. Certain, it wasn’t a patch on its sequel, however we wouldn’t have that recreation with out the unique laying the groundwork. He was approached by SNK after he took his go away from Capcom, and began on two initiatives for the brand new NEOGEO system. Every would signify one in every of his style specialties from his earlier works, and one of many two would show to be a essential, influential, iconic recreation for SNK. The different was Ghost Pilots.
Ghost Pilots is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up for one or two gamers, although except you might have a few exterior controllers, you’re prone to be flying solo on this mission. The setting is World Warfare II, and also you’re up in opposition to an enormous chunk of the Nazi forces. Your weapon of selection? A bafflingly sluggish seaplane, decked out with a normal machine gun and a restricted variety of one of some completely different bomb sorts. The gun will be upgraded by selecting up power-ups, and you’ll choose up additional bombs alongside the way in which. Mainly, that is an try at doing a Toaplan-style shooter in a setting much like that of Capcom’s 19XX collection. With Nishiyama’s expertise and the facility of the NEOGEO, this could have been a slam dunk.
Nicely, even the most effective miss a shot every now and then. Ghost Pilots is extraordinarily uninteresting. It’s sluggish. The facility-ups are so vanilla they really feel like they got here from an early Nineteen Eighties shooter. There aren’t sufficient enemy sorts to correctly combine issues up, and it solely takes a few phases earlier than you’re prone to tire of assorted colours of airplanes swooping in at you. The graphics are superb however hardly spectacular for the period, with solely the bosses actually displaying something attention-grabbing from a design standpoint. After the primary stage you get to select between two routes, which is probably the one attention-grabbing factor Ghost Pilots does. Neither one is extremely thrilling, sadly. It seems like a recreation that got here a half decade too late.
We’ve acquired the same old extras from Hamster, doing their ready finest to present the sport a raison d’etre. The Caravan and Rating Assault modes are about as a lot enjoyable as you may hope to have with this recreation, and attempting to hustle your approach up the leaderboards provides the sport a shot within the arm it sorely wants. You’ve got entry to a bunch of choices for the sport itself, and when you have an exterior controller you should use it to play in lieu of the fully serviceable contact controls. As talked about earlier than, the sport has help for simultaneous two-player motion, however you’ll want an additional exterior controller in your second participant. As normal, no on-line multiplayer help.
Regardless of the additional modes and high-quality presentation by Hamster, I’ve quite a lot of bother recommending Ghost Pilots with any vigor in any respect. Certain, it performs superb. You possibly can cross a couple of minutes with it if it is advisable. There’s definitely a good little bit of content material right here for a shooter of its period. However it simply isn’t very pleasurable. Your airplane is just too sluggish and your firepower too plain, making the core gameplay really feel uninteresting. It’s all very repetitive because of the restricted assortment of enemies and unimaginative stage designs, too. Is it value a couple of dollars? I imply… possibly? It’s not trash or something. However you may definitely discover extra pleasurable shooters for a similar worth, so I wouldn’t hassle with this one except you’re completely ravenous for a recreation of this kind.
