FGC #338 Pilotwings Resort
- System: Nintendo 3DS exclusive. I know you were excited about that Vita adaption, but it’s not happening.
- Number of players: Explore Wuhu Island by yourself. No friends allowed.
Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: This is the quintessential launch game. It’s a fun toy to play with for a few hours, but when there are real games afoot in a few months, it is quickly forgotten. And this one launched opposite Ocarina of Time 3D? Man, it’s a wonder anybody played Pilotwings Resort at all.- Favorite Activity: The jetpack should be a thing of beauty, but it just feels… lame. The hang glider is hella boring, so I guess piloting some wings in a plane is the default winner. Yay, default!
- Did you know: There are three Pilotwings games, and all three launched with their respective systems. Will we ever see a “complete” Pilotwings experience on mature Nintendo hardware? Probably not. We have Star Fox for that.
- Would I play again: Bored now. Moving on.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Castlevania Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate for the Nintendo 3DS. Oh. Oh goodie. Time to play my least favorite handheld Castlevania game. Yes, I mean every word of what I just said. Please look forward to it.
Why aren’t you more fun!?
Never played the Nintendo 64 game (I’m guessing it being co-developed by a third party development company that merged with one company, was sold to another, and is now dead has resulted in complications in regards to getting it on Virtual Console), but I have played both the SNES and the 3DS games.
Pilotwings SNES is a neat tech demo, but I don’t really like how the game controls. Skydiving through some rings and parachuting onto a jump pad should not be that difficult! The 3DS is better, but yeah, it’s pretty boring.
You want a fun Pilotwings experience, my advice is to play Just Cause parts 2 and 3. Skydiving, parachuting, parasailing, and flying planes and helicopters are some of the activities you can do on your island vaction (both in the open world and in missions), and 3 adds a wingsuit! Also there’s car driving, shooting about the place with a grappling wire, hooking vehicles/objects/people/animals(in 3) together with said wire, and if you want to you can engage in acts of vandalism and liberating the island from a mad dictator.
3 also gives the wire thing pulley functionality and adds mechs via DLC. That said, I’d recommend 2 more than 3 in the (likely) event that you’re playing on console, ‘cuz 3 had some loading issues (in regards to both time and actually loading objects right) that were never really fixed up. Also online play may not be mandatory but 3 sure as hell lets you know you went offline rather intrusively.