I love the Neo Geo, as in, i was a wee child that did always light up when the arcade cabinets started up with that logo and name, letting me know i was in for a good time.
I never owned a Neo Geo cabinet or one of their home consoles, so aside from the odd port on PS1 or PS2 collections, for me Neo Geo was something you went to the arcades, which already tells you how ancient (in prospective) i am, given how that market/scene ended up in the following decades.
That said, i’m glad i never encounted a Ghost Pilots machine, and to be honest i never even heard of this one until i found it and bought its Arcade Classics Archives release on the Nintendo eshop.
As to why, it’s because its one of those early releases for the Neo Geo based hardware that are better forgotten, left in their own little burrow in the ground, their own little cubicle in videogame history.
And strangely not even because it’s that bad of a game… even for a 1991 release it feels outdated, it looks nice but in terms of gameplay features, it feels like SNK wanted to do their own version of Capcom’s 194X series, or a Toaplan style 2D vertical scrolling 2D shmup (one day i will play Truxton and make Mark Bussler proud, i swear!).
It does look good for the time, showing off what the Neo Geo hardware could do, with detailed sprites graphics, rotating models and multiple layers, lots of enemies on screen with no slowdown, and the high quality (for the era) soundtrack can be quite catchy even if a bit too heavy on the bass.
The plot (which i had to piece together from the ACA manual as both very brief opening and ending cutscenes don’t even have a quick text explaining the premise) is the usual WWII one where to fight the Axis forces they sent in just two ace pilots, that will do to kick whatever Hitler stand-in the game will bother to make you fight, or at least the hordes of enemies planes and tanks and mecha zeppelins and shit thrown at you by the implied Nazi forces.
It’s very basic even by 1991, you have a button for the bomb, you shoot, you can choose from like 3 types of bombs after certain stages, you can collect extra bombs, extra lives, stars, an upgrade for the your basic spread shot weapon, and you can decide if to the take the ground or airborne route early on…. that’s it.
No extra weapons, no charging for a more powerful or different kind of shot, no extra planes.
The main issue isn’t even the “basicness” of it all… i mean, it is kinda dull, with very little variety in terms of enemies and some of the more mundane stage designs i’ve seen in a 2D shmup, but the fact your seaplane is too goddamn slow is what sinks the experience to the territory of absurdly cheap difficulty, one that makes you glad you’re playing a free-play emulated versions on home consoles instead of spending way too many quarters in order to do any progress.
Put it simply, there’s too much shit on screen that you’re simply not equipped to deal with, the seaplan is too sluggish, the power ups are so absurdly basic and barely help deal with the barrage of planes following you even after allegedly passing you to go into “off-screen land”, diving into you purposefully or pulling similar cheap stunts that you simply won’t be able to keep up with.
This is a game you will be able to finish only because you can add continues ad libitum, basically throwing money (though virtual and pretend one in this case) at the game until you finish it.
the bombs are more generously given than usual, but it’s a patch, these are not proper smart bombs, and some even slow you down even further when used, making almost pointless their ability to nullify some enemy projectiles in the area where they land, and it doesn’t help that dying reverts you to the shitty base shot, you don’t even keep the upgrades for that upon dying, which would have helped a bit to make the gameplay more bearable.
it’s not quite shit, because the controls are fine, the bosses aren’t bad, but even with a second player, this betrays too much its arcade origins as a bonafide quarter muncher, and while it’s not a short game, with 12 stages split between the ground or aerial route you can take after the first level…. if you would wanna replay it to see everything it has to offer it’s another question.
I did the ground-sea path first and then did the aerial/sky path later, which is just even more bullshit with more enemies sneaking up on you and other cheap shit, both are longer than they should and lead to the same final stage anyway.
If you’d like, this ACA release offers both the Japanese and English release, as well as the usual Caravan Mode with online leaderboards.
Ghost Pilots it’s more dull and borderline boring than outright trash, it’s not that, just barely mediocre and more frustrating due to cheap, often straight up unfair difficulty, even for a game meants for the arcades, that i can’t imagine playing it without unlimited credits/continues, with its gameplay feeling too basic and definitely not good enough to make one overlook the “difficulty” of throwing way too many enemies and never give the player any proper means to dodge or counter the relentless onslaught thrown at the slowest seaplane ever featured in a 2D vertical shoot em up.
This is something only for Neo Geo buffs and-or completitionists that have played every other 2D shmup on the system but this, as its fittingly stuff that’s very near the bottom of the barrel, not quite there but very, very close indeed.
For everyone else, play the Aero Fighters games, there’s also on the ACA label on Switch ( and pretty much everywhere else), and just WAY better.
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