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
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