While the shoot ’em up genre has largely been forgotten these games were in the spotlight during the 80s and 90s. When the world moved to 3D gaming no one seemed to care about scrolling shooters anymore which is a real shame. The genres big problem during its heyday was the fact that so many were released leading most of them to feel derivative. Developers occasionally came up with new concepts, but for every instance of this we had four or five clones released within the same time frame. One shoot ’em up that always stuck out to me was Legendary Wings. While most games of this kind let player pilot ships this one instead pitted you as a winged warrior against mythological beasts. Recently I found this one at a local pawn shop and just had to have it; I only ever rented this one before. Legendary Wings is an okay shooter with some pretty distinct ideas.
Legendary Wings’ story takes place in the distant future where a super computer has taken over. You play as one (or two if you bring along a friend) winged warriors armed with guns, and you’re the last hope for this world. It’s pretty basic, but you just gotta love the ‘Engrish’ text in between stages. Basic gameplay is typical by shoot ’em up standards with vertically scrolling stages where you guide your character around the screen dodging projectiles and enemies all the while blasting your foes to smithereens. Your basic laser shot can be upgraded by touching glowing icons that appear from time to time. The first upgrade gives you a twin shot, the second offers a thick more powerful single beam, then you have a double shot that moves from side to side, and finally a single blast that can go through multiple enemies. There’s no life bar here, and each time you take damage your weapon goes back one level. If you’re hit while equipped with only the basic shot you lose a life, but you continue instantaneously until you’re all out. This is much better and more dynamic than the ‘one hit and start over’ method used by games like Gradius.
What makes the game unique is the fact that, while you will spend most of the time in vertically scrolling levels, there are areas that move horizontally instead. Within each basic level is a giant mouth that tries to suck you into it, and if you’re hit by its breath you must fight your way through one of these side scrolling areas. These are completely optional, and at first it’s easy to avoid, but in later areas the mouth creature is tough to avoid. In addition the second part of each stage scrolls horizontally. What makes these sections tough is that there are often multiple paths on different tiers, and many of these are dead ends that can cause you to lose a life if the scrolling crushes your character. It keeps things interesting especially when you’re playing with a friend because co-op is simultaneous.
With that said I do have a few issues with Legendary Wings. For starters the game is very difficult. Enemies attack from both the air and ground, and you have to drop bombs to hit the latter of these. The screen is regularly filled with projectiles. Unfortunately this game suffers from a fair amount of flickering, and it can be impossible to see incoming threats sometimes. The last, and probably biggest problem has to do with the boss encounters. You fight a boss at the end of every vertical and horizontal gameplay section. Unfortunately Capcom opted to simply re-use these for every stage. You will always fight the same dragon (with the same attack patterns) with a simple color swap, and the same hulking machinery at the end of each labyrinth. This makes the whole experience a little monotonous and repetitive with only the final boss differing from the others. In the end it just feels lazy even by 8-bit standards.
The graphics here are okay. The roman art style is depicted wonderfully through each pixelated background, and the basic enemy designs are varied and memorable. Unfortunately the character designs are a little off and just look odd to me. Slowdown runs rampant through each and every stage, and occurs sometimes even when there’s not a lot of on-screen action which is weird. Flickering as I’ve already mentioned is another problem here, and it’s worse than usual by NES standards. With that out of the way I actually really like the soundtrack. It perfectly fits the mythical theme generally, and the optional scrolling areas feature some really well done spooky music. Stage one’s track is one of the most memorable for me across the entire era.
Legendary Wings suffers a few issues, but by and large it’s an above average shoot ’em up. While some aspects of the game feel generic and uninspired the mixed gameplay modes, alternative theme, and weapon system are enough to make this one stand out from the pack. Legendary Wings comes packed with an enjoyable co-op mode, but even single player is mildly enjoyable. This is one I recommend adding to any collection.
