Captain Skyhawk (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of Milton Bradley's 1990 shooter for the NES, Captain Skyhawk.

Captain Skyhawk is an arcade-style, pseudo-3D shoot 'em up that I really enjoyed as a kid. We rented it often, and for the countless times I beat it, I never got tired of it. It was one of my go-to picks on those weekends when we showed up late to the video store and the new stuff had already been checked out.

You're given eight missions in total, and these are always broken up into three distinct parts. The first - a vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up stage where you have to destroy a base, rescue a scientist, or bomb a target - make up the large majority of the gameplay. You dodge and weave between mountains as you take out enemy ships, helicopters, and anti-air batteries, and you have to always be hyper aware of your surroundings. One false move will send you crashing to the ground in a ball of flame.

After completing the primary objective, you make your escape from the enemy base by blasting through swarms of enemy planes in a series of dogfights. These are viewed in the traditional behind-the-plane view that anyone who has played Top Gun (   • Top Gun (NES) Playthrough  ) will be immediately familiar with. The pace is much slower and easier to handle than the top-down stages, and bogeys you take out in this mode are rewarded with credits that can be spent upgrading your primary gun and restocking secondary weapons.

The third and final segment of each stage is a minigame that requires you to dock at a space station by lining up with the bay and matching its rotation angle during your approach. If everything goes well, you'll land safely, ready for next mission. Screw it up, and some poor guy is going to be left scrapping your charred remains off the side of the station.

Along with the variety of the gameplay, one of the most striking features of Captain Skyhawk is its presentation. The NES was no stranger to simulated 3D, and Rare had all but mastered the art of the isometric perspective through their work on NES titles like Snake, Rattle and Roll; R.C. Pro Am; Cobra Triangle; and Marble Madness.

True to form, Rare outdid themselves once again with Captain Skyhawk. The bases are all depicted with a convincing and thoroughly legible illusion of depth, and even when you're tearing through at breakneck speeds, everything streaks by at a silky smooth framerate with nary a sign of slowdown or flicker. The artistic and technical prowess on display make Captain Skyhawk a real NES showpiece for its time.

And the fourth mission (9:59) being themed like a scene from Cobra Triangle is such a cool shout-out to another of Rare's NES classics!

David Wise's soundtrack can't be faulted either. There isn't much music to speak of, but what's there is super melodic and memorable. (That title screen ditty is still one of my favorite video game openers!)

The controls are what you'd expect from a Rare game. There are a couple of awkward button combinations - it's difficult to maintain a constant altitude while adjusting your speed, and taking advantage of barrel rolls requires you to adopt a ridiculously uncomfortable grip on the gamepad - but the plane controls smoothly and responds instantly to your commands. It's a fairly difficult game, but when you die, it's safe to assume that the fault did not lie with the game's mechanics.

Here's major tip in case you ever find yourself struggling: enemies only fire when you cross their vertical line of sight, so until you've learned the level layouts and enemy placements, it's best to avoid smoothly sweeping back and forth across the screen. If you suddenly reverse directions, you risk flying straight into the path of an attack that you unwittingly provoked just a moment before.

Captain Skyhawk is so well put together that it's hard to imagine anybody not having fun with it. Copies of the game are plentiful and can be had for dirt cheap, so if you haven't played yet it, consider giving it a shot!
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!