"Wacky and almost incoherent, but a lot of fun nonetheless!"

Air Fortress was another entertaining NES game that never seemed to gain much popularity. Developed by HAL Laboratory, INC. in 1987, Air Fortress is an amusing little cross breed of sci-fi action/adventure and a side scrolling space shooter.

While Air Fortress is a fun game, it suffers from poor localization and translation. As there is only a short snippet of storyline given at the beginning of the game (which happens to be entirely optional) and a wacky ending, you are not given much to work with. From what I was able to gleam from the introduction, the planet Farmel has had a golden age of two centuries, as they sailed all around the galaxy in their new lightships.

Sadly, this Utopian society faced a crossroads when the peace was disturbed by a ‘misterous big fortress' [sic]. Evidently these fortresses were somehow living, and were destroying all other civilizations somehow. So, the Federal Bureau of Galactic Government (FBGG, if you can dig it) organized a massive retaliation against these menacing air fortresses. Unfortunately for the FBGG, these air fortresses had “very high potential” (??), their fleet was wiped out.

So against all odds, the bureau makes a last ditch move by sending a single specially trained man to annihilate the fortresses, ID number 82592. Enter your character, Hal Bailman. What special training Hal has is never quite made clear, but he is riding a new single pilot ship, the Lightbrasner, and packing a special armored suit. Thus, it's all up to you and Hal to defeat the air fortresses and return Farmel to grace.

Despite Air Fortress's bizarre story, it has enough entertaining game play to make up for it. One problem I've noticed is that Air Fortress is often given an unwarranted comparison to Metroid. Whereas Metroid focused on exploration and item finding, Air Fortress is more of a suspenseful sabotage mission mixed with side-scrolling shooter elements.

Each level begins with Hal riding his Lightbrasner across the surface of an Air Fortress in a Gradius-esque manner. I feel I should mention that Lightbrasner is hardly a ship at all, but a weird sort of boogie board that Hal straddles in what seems to be a monstrously uncomfortable manner. I thought it looked like a train when I was young, but I definitely know better now. Anyway, the side-scrolling portions of the game are fairly simple. You can move in any direction across the screen, and can fire your cannon with the A and B buttons. Hitting any obstacle, surface or enemy spells death for Hal, and forces you to restart. While the first side-scrolling levels are easy, the final ones offer a nice challenge considering Hal's frailty. Power-ups are slim to none; they consist of bubbles with letters or symbols in them, four in all. Two of them only assist you when you are inside the Air Fortress, giving you more health (referred to as E, or energy) or more bombs to use inside. Others include short invulnerability and a quick flash of light that destroy all enemies on the screen. The objective is to safely fly Lightbrasner to the airlock at the end of each level, where you enter the Air Fortress on foot.

Once inside, you need to make your way to the core of the Fortress, destroy it, locate the exit and escape before the Air Fortress detonates. I personally found these portions of the game to be much more entertaining. You still possess free form movement, as Hal can fly with his jet pack. The A button is your normal cannon attack, and the B button will use the more powerful bomb attack. Your bombs are very important, as they are limited in number and make destroying critical enemies much easier. Anyway, you'll need to navigate the fortresses in search of the core reactor. This is a lot of fun, as the fortresses are both large and intricate, both memorable and fun enough not to be frustrating. There are various challenges and puzzles to figure out and survive. However, my absolute favorite part of the game is the atmosphere change after destroying the reactor. The bouncing, upbeat music is switched with a thoughtful, eerie track and the lights dim. Hal needs to find his way out before the fortress explodes. Since the Lightbrasner inexplicably appears not at the entrance but at a completely unknown part of the fortress, getting out can be challenging. Adding to the atmosphere is the music, which will increase in tempo as the detonation nears, as well as the screen, which will shake and move violently as your imminent destruction approaches. This touch scared the hell out of me when I was younger, and the game would not be nearly as memorable without it.

Air Fortress's graphics are neither stellar nor disastrous. Above average, definitely, but I would call them solid. They do their job effectively. The side-scrolling portions always look fairly nice, as the backgrounds are rarely too plain, and the many asteroids, debris and enemies in your way are nicely done. The fortresses interior tend to look a little more plain, only occasionally changing backgrounds, usually wild patterns with palette swaps now and then. Hal himself is a little awkward (especially on Lightbrasner…), but has a few nice touches. The little stream from his jet pack is almost unnoticeable, but still appreciated. Firing his weapon will knock him back a little from the recoil, which is a nice touch.

Musically, this game falls short. The sound effects are all acceptable. Nothing that really stands out, but they won't leave you wondering what's going on, either. The lack of selection in terms of background music is what hurts it. For the side-scrolling levels, you get the same track. Ditto fortress interiors. However, the music you do get is quite catchy, especially the title song. You'll have to live with quality over quantity this time.

Well, Air Fortress offers little in terms of replay value, but it should take a fair amount of time to beat, since the upscale in difficulty later on offers a fair challenge. All in all, it's a worthy addition to the collection of any NES gamer.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06