Great fun with another player

User Rating: 8 | WindJammers NS

I have actually never heard of this game before seeing the remastered release make some noise. It's an arcade game from the mid-90s that is basically frisbee with tennis rules. You pick your character based on their speed and power and toss a disc around a court. It sounds way too simple at first and looks simple at first glance, but the controls have a steep learning curve due to the speed of the game.

Don't expect a story or even a back story for the characters here. This is pure arcade action and it's all about the sport. The game has an 80s aesthetic of purples, blues, pinks, and oranges. It looks really good and the characters look nice too. There's a surprising amount of detailed animations here as well, especially for a top-down sports game. The first thing you should do is read the tutorial. It shows animations to help you understand the text, and at first, it seems simple. You can dive for the disc, toss it back, do a curve toss, and a lob. Simple enough. It gets more complicated as you add power for each move. You need to stand still and press up or down on the control stick plus the respective move button. There's strategy involved in this, but mostly for other players.

That's the downside here. The AI is downright cheap and I almost felt as if I scored out of pure luck. There's a difficulty setting of course, but it just feels like you're playing against an AI and there's no way around that. There's online play, which is awesome, but lots of practice against the computer is recommended to get better. You should pick a character and stick with them at first. Faster characters don't need to dive as much as they can dart around the court, but the slow players rely on diving quite a bit, but they have more power and can toss the disc faster and harder.

There are mini-games thrown in which can help you master the controls and your play style, but the best practice overall is with someone else. This is truly a 2-player competitive sports title through and through. There's also no more to this game, so it's great for pick-up and plays and not much else. About 30 minutes per session is all I could stomach before I felt like I was either beating my head into a wall or just couldn't tolerate the same thing. There's only one court, and the visuals, while looking fine here, are dated and look blurry, but the control is responsive and there are no audio issues.

Overall, if you hate or don't want anything to do with 90s arcade games then stay away. There won't be anything here to interest you. Being an arcade port or remaster there's not much the developers could have added without breaking the core game. It's fast-paced, fun, and a blast with another person, but the single-player AI feels cheap and calculating making the game, not as fun. At least there are mini-games to help hone your skills.