Air Fortress (NES) Playthrough
334A playthrough of HAL's 1989 action-adventure game for the NES, Air Fortress.
In Air Fortress, you are Hal Bailman, pilot of the lightship and the last hope for the planet of Farmel. A fleet of eight living ships known as Air Fortresses has decimated the planet's defenses and is now moving to conquer Hal's homeworld.
Each air fortress is split into two distinct sections:
The first part involves Hal's approach of the fortress in a horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up stage. You'll fend off waves of alien ships as you collect the energy and weapon power-ups that'll you'll need to explore the fortress itself.
Once you reach the airlock, you'll have to enter the fortress, destroy its core, and make it back out before the entire ship blows. In these areas, Hal explores a maze of corridors filled with mounted guns and security drones, and if you're smart, you'll have your escape route planned and cleared before you deal the finishing blow to the core. You aren't given much time to make your escape.
You'll then move on to the next fortress, and after you've cleared all eight, a second loop begins that must be finished to see the true ending. The stages are the same in the second loop, but the fortresses' escape routes change and the enemies become more aggressive.
If you'd like to skip to the beginning of the second loop, it begins at 1:07:43.
Air Fortress is a cool game. The shmup sections are a fun way to shake things up after the slower pace of the exploration sections, and I'm a big fan of the game's visuals. The backdrops are on the simple side, but the cold, contrasting colors and all the little details (like the rivets on the metal plates) do a good job of selling the environments, and I really liked the way the look of the fortresses changes once the lights go out.
(Random question: is it just me, or does Hal look like he's holding onto a Roomba that's dragging him through space?)
The soundtrack is also fantastic. The tunes are memorable, and the Metroid-like minimalism of the audio during the escape sequences sets the tone well.
The gameplay generally holds up thanks to the solid controls and the excellent level design, but the game would've benefited from a more balanced level of difficulty. The first few areas are super easy, but before long the game's sadistic streak begins to show. The enemies will begin to relentlessly swarm you, often not even allowing you to walk into a room before they start unloading everything they've got at you, and you'll find yourself being pinballed back and forth between hazards that are annoyingly efficient at draining your energy reserves. Even worse, the second loop likes to make the enemies the same color as the background so you can't even see where you're being shot from. These things are somewhat offset by continues and passwords, but they are obnoxious and do bring down the experience a fair few notches.
Still, the game has its charms and there are a lot of interesting ideas at play. Air Fortress isn't a "Top 10" game by any means, but it is a pretty fun one.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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