Legendary Wings
Ha! My friend in Texas sent me a copy of Legendary Wings for the NES, with the box and instruction booklet and everything. In my early NES days there were a few games we rented but never managed to buy. Ah, those were good times. My brother and I had Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, and Wizards and Warriors, and the kid next door had Breakthru, Ghosts n' Goblins, Tiger Heli, Karnov, Mighty Bomb Jack, and Kid Icarus. My friend had Metroid, Zelda 2, Blaster Master, and Mega Man 2. Of course we all had Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2. And we would rent a new game every weekend! Good times, indeed!
Anyways, Legendary Wings is a weird game in concept, but pretty basic in design. You're a dude with a gun and mechanical feathery wings in a top-down shooter. Two-players can play at once, which was a big selling point at the time. There is a face near the beginning of each stage that fires cyclones that will suck you into an irritating and pointless side-scrolling level. There is also a hidden bonus stage, which is side scrolling, as is the last section of each level. The loverly Michelle Heart who is a possible helper in Marvel vs. Capcom is nowhere to be found.
The arcade and NES versions were substantially different. In many cases one or the other was clearly better; for example, Strider and Double Dragon were much better on the arcade, while Bionic Commando was horrible on the arcade. It's a pretty good game with great music. But it has one fatal flaw: when you're not powered-up the game is nearly impossible in the later stages. You basically beat the game on one man or not at all. I've always found this to be the stumbling block in shooters. Spending an entire level powering yourself up, then being forced to start over because of one stray shot is lame. Raiden II did an okay workaround for this, with your ship sending out a bunch of your power-ups when you die, and instead of having extra power-ups being worthless if you're maxxed-out, they are worth a nice bonus.
Anyways, Legendary Wings is a weird game in concept, but pretty basic in design. You're a dude with a gun and mechanical feathery wings in a top-down shooter. Two-players can play at once, which was a big selling point at the time. There is a face near the beginning of each stage that fires cyclones that will suck you into an irritating and pointless side-scrolling level. There is also a hidden bonus stage, which is side scrolling, as is the last section of each level. The loverly Michelle Heart who is a possible helper in Marvel vs. Capcom is nowhere to be found.
The arcade and NES versions were substantially different. In many cases one or the other was clearly better; for example, Strider and Double Dragon were much better on the arcade, while Bionic Commando was horrible on the arcade. It's a pretty good game with great music. But it has one fatal flaw: when you're not powered-up the game is nearly impossible in the later stages. You basically beat the game on one man or not at all. I've always found this to be the stumbling block in shooters. Spending an entire level powering yourself up, then being forced to start over because of one stray shot is lame. Raiden II did an okay workaround for this, with your ship sending out a bunch of your power-ups when you die, and instead of having extra power-ups being worthless if you're maxxed-out, they are worth a nice bonus.