Balloon Fight (NES Game)

Do you like Joust? Do you like Bubble Bobble? If you answered in the affirmative to either of those questions, chances are you'll really get a kick out of Balloon Fight. It's an adorable little game that is sure to delight lovers of single-screen platformers.

This game is a lot like Joust in that you are out to knock your enemies out of the sky (they're trying to do the same to you). You've got little balloons attached to yourself, and you've got to flap your arms to fly around and attack your enemies. The arm flapping seemed really laborious to me at first, but that's only because I'm a complete idiot. I played through 30 stages of this game before realizing that instead of continual mashing of the "A" button to make my little man fly, I could just press and hold "B." Yeah, took me 30 levels to figure out the function of the second of two buttons.

This game is a lot like Bubble Bobble in that once your enemies are downed, you have to touch them to clear them off the screen otherwise they'll come back (I suppose Joust has the same feature with the eggs). After you knock them off whatever ledge they land on, a bubble will come up from the water at the bottom of the screen and you can hit it for extra points. I may have only been thinking Bubble Bobble because of the bubbles in Balloon Fight, but there is another reason it's a lot like Bubble Bobble: it goes on basically forever. I made it to level 51 before biting the dust, and there was no discernible end in sight.

In addition to the other balloonists who are out to get you in Balloon Fight, there are occasional balls of lightning shot by the clouds, as well as a giant fish who will eat you if you get too close to the water (I suppose that's comparable to the pterodactyl and lava hand in Joust). Once you get into the higher levels, the screen becomes almost a total hazard zone.

All in all I have to say that I love Balloon Fight. The animation is charming, the music fits perfectly, the gameplay is simple and addictive. It's everything you could want in a single-screen platformer. The only knock I can give it is that unlike Bubble Bobble, it uses a lot of the same levels over and over, so you get pretty accustomed to the pitfalls of each of the six or so levels you'll actually see. Other than that, this game is deserving of...