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.

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.

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.

good but short hidden gem on the snes, although not free of its fair share of problems
skyblazer for the most part is your typical sidescrolling 16 bit game where you jump n slash things. you got different abilities, you can wall crawl like spider-man (though its closer to how megaman x does that wall jump) and it mixes things up with flying sections (2 different kinds actually) and some underwater levels
and honestly it executes it well enough that i can say this is truly a hidden gem on the system
but, it doesn't execute it all perfectly
the controls on-foot (majority of the game) are fine for the most part, but sky clings on to just about any damn surface if its even slightly in his way. you ever play one of those ps3/360 era shooters from a post gears of war/uncharted world and it tries to do the whole cover based shooting thing but you end up annoyingly clinging to a surface when you just want to move out of the way? it gave me flashbacks to that shit, only in this case its with that mega man x wall cling. but this game doesnt have that polished game feel that mega man x does. a lot of it, i can't even quite put to words, but the game feel, the controls, the movement... it just feels like its almost there, but like... not quite. it feels like this needed more time in the oven. not much time to get that maillard reaction. the hit detection is probably the part that needs the most work however. so many times i'll be hit by an enemy before they attack, and while i have no proof that this is the case, i feel like the hitbox of any attack isn't properly synced up to the attacks in the game, it feels like theyre all just slightly ahead of their actions, so that by the time they indicate their attack, the hitbox is already out before they actually do the attack. i feel like they knew this, so the game gives you more heath and lives then you'll ever need, and i feel like more of the health or gems (basically mario coins) the game gives you should have been the doritos that refill magic, because the magic you get in the game ends up being so scarcely used because you dont refill the magic meter enough, which would be fine if just the game was longer. this game is probably an hour long and you spend most of it getting new powers you can swap between, and i feel like a bit of mega man influence would have gone a long way in handling them. so the way this game handles it is, you get 8 powers or so, they can be alternated with the L and R buttons in gameplay, they all share the same pool of magic points (but all have different usage requirements) and the pool isn't much to begin with. and you have so many abilities that just switching to the one you need so you dont die or get hit (usually the dash, the first one you even get with a low point requirement) usually means you'll take the hit just looking for the right ability, so for all these abilities you get, its only really viable to find the one you like and stick to it for the rest of the game. the abilities end up feeling wasted. the games short length really is its downfall. it tries to pad things with a couple of maze-like levels, but they dont last long once you find the right path. oh and you know those couple of different flying sections i mentioned? they only get thrown at you probably twice each. the first type controls real jank and i think the devs knew this. its one of those 2d sidecroller shooter flying games type levels, but you can only shoot one shot at a time, it controls like flappy bird, and its over in an instant. it sucked but it was over so fast that i couldnt even process it. the other type of flying level isnt even a flying level. its more like the game throwing you even more of a bone by giving you what are essentially sonic 2 special stages but instead of a halfpipe, youre flying and you need to catch gems
theres no penalty for missing gems, and gems only get you lives (i stopped trying to get lives by the end and ended up having like 35) so idk theres no point to these levels aside from looking cool i guess. the controls are jank, you cant stop moving in a direction if you so much as touch the dpad, and the game does throw spikes at you towards the end of these levels, but all of it is just in the same loop pattern that you can just.... not bother with. if you dont move the dpad, you'll stay in the center and wont get hit or collect anything, and you really dont need it anyway
the bosses are fun though. some can be bs due to the hit detection, and the true final boss is a real pain, but whatever. its actually kind of funny going through the boss rush at the end and all the bosses are such pushovers because of certain abilities

tl;dr this games fun, hidden gem but needs some work

Having Sky in the name is perfect because the main character is very floaty in his movements, but it feels very good to control! The platforming is perfect for the ways you can move around and it expands more with the power ups you unlock, this really is one of the more fun SNES platformers I've played so far.

The art direction is great, is so weird seeing a fantasy world inspired by Hindu aesthetics and mythos, and visually it looks beautiful, the spritework is very pretty, and I personally really liked the enemy design, the fantasious approach is very good, and the creative approaches in the design of the bosses is something I loved.

I really liked the power ups and you can use them in surprisingly creative ways in some places. This makes the game very easy sometimes but honestly I like when you're a bit overpowered in games, is fun as long as it's fair and this is a good example, with the most basic instance how you can sacrifice using a power up in exchange for health, how certain bosses become laughably easy with the correct attacj pattern, so on and so forth.

The only things that push this game down for me is that one, this game is ridiculously short, and if you knowwhere to go in the two labyrinth levels then you can basically finish this game in around two hours, there seems to be some hints that MAYBE there where plans for it to be even a bit longer, with stuff like the flying levels being so short and few.

The second problem I feel is some slight dificulty spikes, which I put in the category of "very easy but very stupid", you know the ones, where you can see that the mistake was on you but the game is made in such a way that making said mistake is also thanks to the way the game itself works. The prime example whpuld be the true final boss which literally consist of just two attack patterns but if you get hit you can die in one or two hits. This however happens very few times across the game.

Overall this is a very good package of a game that had the potential of being more, but is very nice just as it is anyways.

I remember randomly finding this game in my ROM list years ago and just playing it for 30 minutes and thought it was really cool. It took me till now to actually sit down and play it all the way through.

This is a fun 2D action game where you can climb walls, kick and punch enemies, use special powers, and face many obstacles. You have some good control here but sadly there's some issues with the movement occasionally when you land. It's also a little too easy to stick to walls at times. Otherwise it's pretty good stuff.

There's also some bosses that aren't too challenging especially when you know the strategies but they'll give you cool powers that will help you throughout the adventure. It also is good about letting you use most of the game. I do wish you didn't start with only half though when a new life happens.

I honestly would love to say this is a really good hidden gem but it comes with one issue. The game is way too short. This is the saddest part of the game for me. I wish there was more of it but it just feels unfinished because of it. Even some of the gimmicks in levels while fun outside of the water, get reused sometimes even with how little there is. There's even a boss rush, why!

The game does look nice and they even got that mode 7 I think everyone likes for the bonus stages and credits. The sprites for the game got a unique style for the era though they remind me of something, idk what. The music doesn't really captivate me but it's not bad.

I really want to love this game more but it's just missing the things to make it great. I hear this one is kind of a spiritual successor to a licensed game called Hook but I've never played it. It's worth a quick playthrough if you're curious as it's still very good, but I can't help but wish I could play more. I'll miss it.

Recuerdo descubrir este juego en su día de casualidad alquilándolo, fue todo un hallazo, y lo jugué varias veces más en su momento. Hoy día se me ha hecho un juego bastante corto y con algunas pegas: los controles a veces dejan que desear y la dificultad es tirando a elevada, pero los enemigos tienen patrones que se pueden aprender fácilmente y una vez hecho y hacerse con los controles el juego no supone tanto reto. Las magias son en muchos casos innecesarias o inútiles, y aunque uno pueda morir muchas veces se puede conseguir vidas extras fácilmente.

Aún así, juegazo, seguro que tuvo mucho trabajo detrás.

Breezy acrobatics, clever stage design and a beautiful-but-foreboding world make this a great follow to Ukiyotei's prior Hook - really feels like a realization of all the tone they intended for that. Lite-Buddhist themes in both the story and environmental art give it a somber sense of closure, like a true struggle for self-actualization ending in eternal peace. Really solid on all corners, even if it's still fairly low-budget and weak in some departments (these bosses can go to hell).

And its name is SKYBLAZER - it's too raw.