Developer: HAL Laboratory Inc. Publisher: HAL America Inc. Released: 09/89 Genre: Action
You have to appreciate old video game marketing. Against all odds Air Fortress received a decent amount of marketing, surprising for such a low key release. The commercials painted the game as an action packed extravaganza that you needed to buy now. Anyone who has spent time with Air Fortress knows that it is the exact opposite. It certainly has its intense moments but not in the way the overzealous commercial would have you believe. Misguided marketing aside Air Fortress is a solid game that will make you sweat through great design. It is frustrating at times but worth the experience.
Like Zanac Air Fortress provides a valid reason to send one man against an alien fleet. The people of Farmel discover space travel and take to the stars. In their journeys they come across a fleet of Air Fortresses headed in their direction. All resistance sent against them are destroyed and in a last ditch effort they send in Hal Bailman alone to destroy each Air Fortress from the inside out.
Air Fortress divides its levels into three distinct parts. The first part is the approach. As you approach each Air Fortress the game is basically a shooter. You collect as much energy and Beam bullets as possible before reaching the entrance. These stages are fairly straightforward and present little challenge. These shooting segments are also incredibly repetitive but necessary for the game’s second half. They are more of a diversion as you try to amass resources for the real meat of the game.
Once inside an Air Fortress the gameplay shifts dramatically. You control Hal directly and can fly freely around the map. Every action you take costs energy but it refills provided you remain stationary. Energy is also your life bar, making for an interesting mix. Energy management becomes a critical skill as you need to stop and recover after heavy enemy attacks. Hal is pretty resilient but you are not invincible even though sometimes you will have energy in the thousands. The later fortresses have enemies such as clones that can drain it in seconds. But regardless of the amount of combat exploration is the main focus inside the Air Fortresses.
The goal of each Air Fortress is to find its core and destroy it, then finding the escape ship before time runs out. From the onset each fortress is massive. There are numerous dead ends and multiple paths to the core. The game does not provide you with a map and it quickly becomes necessary to draw your own. It might be prudent to make a beeline for the core but you also need to find the escape ship in advance. There are several difficulty spikes, most notably in fortress 4 and 6 where the maps become so complex to the point of absurdity. And all this exploration has to be tempered by managing your energy.
While you have all the time in the world to find the core there is an invisible clock that starts once it is destroyed. The game does not offer you the luxury of stumbling on to it as the timer is very short. I would even say too short as nearly every time I barely made it in time and this was with the luxury of a map at hand. Even something as simple as taking one wrong turn or spending too much time killing enemies can lead to failure. This is the most frustrating aspect of the game and it feels completely unfair.
Should you manage to complete all eight air fortresses (a tall order) the game pulls a Ghosts n’ Goblins and forces you to go through it twice to reach its conclusion. The story based reason is that a fail safe causes all eight fortresses to reactivate, necessitating a second trip. To the game’s credit the layout of every fortress changes significantly so it isn’t the same journey. But as nightmarish as they were the first time the second time is even worse. The difficulty jumps so high that it is a true accomplishment to beat the game. At least Air Fortress has passwords to lighten the burden.
In Conclusion
Air Fortress is a solid game with a unique setup and interesting gameplay. It has its frustrating moments but I think the gameplay loop is good enough to overcome its flaws. That being said I freely acknowledge that it won’t be for everybody.
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