Skyblazer

released on Jan 01, 1994

Arianna, a young sorceress, has been kidnapped by Ashura. Sky has pledged his life to rescuing her. Sky must venture through many colorful stages and nice background effects. Skyblazer is a blend of side-scrolling fighting with magical skills. Locating potions to recover energy and gaining magic points to thrash the enemies becomes a major part of the gameplay. Sky can also stick to and climb vertically up walls.


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A bit too easy & too long for satisfying arcade-style runs, and not quite enough meat to make it last for multiple sessions. Nonetheless, Skyblazer is gorgeous and controls like a dream. The levels all feel substantially different from one another which creates the impression of a world-spanning adventure. Bosses hand out new abilities which don't radically transform the game, but it was a good bit of fun working them into the moment-to-moment gameplay.

I don't know that this will make anyone's shortlist of best action platformers, but there are worse ways to kill a Sunday afternoon.

Um bom plataforma do SNES, o jogo que tem envovimento da sony em sua produção já tem uma cara de PS, bons gráficos, boa jogabilidade, o level design em algumas fases é bem mediano, os boss são interessantes, talvez o último seja um pouco "roubado" e chato, mas de todo modo vale a pena jogar, apesar de não ter me marcado tanto e dar a impressão de ser apenas "mais um" plataforma no mar do genero que tivemos no 16 bits.

Learning there was a Ninja Gaiden inspired action-platformer on my fav system, Skyblazer was always something I would go into thinking I would fall in love with it. There are shmup levels, large amounts of moves, levels centered around wall climbing, all sorts of exploits to speedrun through levels, animations that are hilariously fluid... so why is it something I come out of just thinking "yeah that sure was an action-platformer I guess" and not something I'm super passionate about like with other action-platformers of the era? I wish I could put my finger on it

Perhaps the biggest positive I can give the game is its graphical presentation. Between the rotating pillar levels and the mode 7 world map shmup minigame (yes this has 2 different shmup modes!) there's a lot to take in. There's fuckall slowdown to be had, the perspective is quite clean, all the animations have just enough frames to not be overly fluid for such a fast-paced game... it's honestly really radicoolio
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1048770623805079633/1142671002535460884/Skyblazer_USA_-_Snes9x_1.60_2023-08-19_23-33-10.mp4
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1048770623805079633/1142671053714358272/Skyblazer_USA_-_Snes9x_1.60_2023-08-20_00-05-48.mp4

The gameplay is where I truly am conflicted. There's a lot to like but also a lot to dislike. To start with the negatives, the bosses are truly uninspired. Every boss in the game is either "mash punch to kill it to death while it pathetically squirms in retaliation" or "avoid a million things on the screen" with kinda jack shit in between? I guess some like the wall boss are cool visually.
https://gyazo.com/d1be426f41f6f2c67a8c260f25772736

The shmup minigames are cool conceptually and pretty fun on a first playthrough, but given that the player can only have one projectile onscreen at a time and there are no subweapons in those stages (despite subweapon pickups being available) I can't imagine they would be any fun on replays.

Still, the shmup levels while they last are a cool way to change the pace and never quite overstay their welcome.

Sky's arsenal is immense. The omnidirectional blast is useful on certain bosses, the charge attack allows one to skip a shit load of platforming which is nice, the phoenix form avoids pits... of course the optimal strategy for most of the game is to spam the heal spell but it's alright since the main character's 3 hit combo gets the job done and can even be extended by ducking mid-combo. Also helps extra aerial time can be gained by mashing attacks in mid-air. And definitely be sure to rack up 50 lives ASAP in the first tower, lord knows some levels will require them.

Music and story are both mediocre and I don't feel like getting into them at all. There's nothing bad about them but nothing 1% as sauce-filled as the NES Ninja Gaiden games for example.

Anyhow, Skyblazer is a solid enough action-platformer that everybody owes it to themselves to try once. I ended up needing to start the game over from the beginning 4 times in my life to actually get around to finishing it today. It can shake hands with Soul Blazer for being the most 7/10 game titled S_Blazer in its genre. Overall, one of Sony's best games by far.

Also... the main character is totally just Goku. Similar colours, super saiyan aura, energy blasts, the spiky hair etc. I never even watched DBZ yet this shit was blatant. Jesus LOL.

Joguinho bacana, mas bem genérico.

The levels in this game are what shine. It's varied and interesting, and each level has different challenges for you to overcome in different ways. All the powers you get have uses, and they're all necessary at at least one point in the game. The bosses are good too, with well telegraphed attacks and interesting patterns.

However, It's easy to abuse all the powers you get. You can heal yourself, you have a charge move that can be used anywhere and makes you invincible that you can fly through levels with, a power that makes you invincible for a short time, etc. They are way too generous with lives. They need to give you less. That was my main issue playing this game the couple times I did. I really did not struggle. I will say it's at least worth playing, however.

This game fucking rules! I had wanted to play it ever since watching the Game Grumps play it so long ago. Now that I have I think I'll come back to it once a year or so. The levels are quick but with a decent challenge, and all the bosses have a neat little trick to figure out that makes them very fun to demolish on the final boss rush. Final boss is also a fun little nut to crack. And you get SO many powers to play with. So so fun. SNES hidden gem for sure