 This past week I was lucky enough to hang out in Seattle for a few days where I was able to visit both Pink Gorilla stores and picked up some used games, one of which being Legendary Wings for NES. I always knew about this game, but I was never that keen on playing it much because it's a shoot-em-up, and I'm pretty friggin' terrible at most shoot-em-ups. The thing is, though, Legendary Wings is an arcade port from Capcom, so it's a really polished game, and one great thing about getting games from Pink Gorilla is that their cartridges are super clean, so I figured, why not? And yeah, this is one of those games where there's already a gazillion reviews for it out there, but I just wanted to document my own experience from start to finish of making an impulse by bringing it home, being absolutely terrible at the game, while slowly getting better until I'm able to finish it. Legendary Wings does have a lot going for it, for one thing, it was designed by Mega Man creator Akita Ghidamura, and not only is this game an arcade port, but you could make the argument that the NES port is slightly better than the original arcade. One reason is because Capcom ported the game themselves, rather than handing it off to another company, so that's a big plus, although the cover here makes it look like you're playing as a young Marlon Brando, or maybe that's a young William Shatner with a decent head of hair. You get three lives, and nine continues to get through five levels that are split into two stages each. B is your normal weapon, and A drops bombs on ground enemies, and the game also supports two player co-op. Unfortunately, the game slows down a ton with a second player, but hey, at least it's there. On the surface, this game appears to be the same old same old, albeit with really strong controls and a very straightforward power-up system. You grab a P icon, and your weapon gets better. Take damage, and your weapon powers down, and that makes this game much more forgiving than stuff like Gradius, so if you suck at shoot-em-ups like I do, this one is a good one to get into. You can power up your weapon up to four times, and you're going to want to make that a priority because your basic weapon pretty much sucks. But once you get the strongest weapon, which the manual refers to as the Firebird, you can wreck anything and everything, including some projectiles headed your way, and plus you can absorb up to three hits in this form before losing that power. It's a lot of fun. This is more than just your basic shooter, however. For instance, right away in the first level you can fly into the giant mouth of this statue, and you enter what's referred to as a danger zone, where Kenny Loggins starts shouting at you. Well, no, but the game suddenly switches to a horizontal shooter. I found out the hard way, though, do not go in here unless your weapon is sufficiently powered up. The first two weapons just aren't going to get the job done here. Thankfully, though, you can skip this section entirely, and instead you can focus on bombing enemies on the ground, where you can eventually find a lucky zone. No enemies here, just lots of points that grant you extra lives. So yeah, like I said, this game is pretty forgiving. The power-up system, however, does remind me of Gradius a little bit, and by that I mean, if you are underpowered, especially later on in the game, you are going to have a bad time. Like I said, the first two weapons pretty much suck, but one thing I've learned through playing games like this is that it's pretty foolish to try and shoot everything. If you're stuck with a crappy weapon, just kinda unfocus your eyes a bit and concentrate on dodging, and when a power-up comes along, make sure to grab that so you can get back to firing at stuff again. I know it's advice from a total amateur, but it worked for me. Stylistically, this game is a strange mishmash of Greek mythology complete with columns and statues, then suddenly there's an Egyptian motif, then you're in the middle of a Contra level surrounded by brain matter and hearts and weird appendages. The story doesn't exactly try and weave all that together either, since it's your typical futuristic supercomputer going haywire and trying to kill humanity, and it apparently tries to do this by playing mad libs with the universe. Well, let's just be glad that stuff like R-Type, Contra, and Battle of Olympus got put into the blanks instead of, you know, Bill Ambeer's combat basketball. The manual says there's 32 enemy types, but you could have fooled me, because there's a lot of repetition here. It doesn't help that the boss is the same at the end of every stage. Hey, I like big, ridiculous R-Type looking bosses as much as anyone, especially when they take up half the freaking screen, but seeing the same boss over and over is a bit of a letdown. But yeah, Legendary Wings is a fun time, and I appreciate how forgiving it is for an older shoot-em-up. It was a pretty cool experience to pick this game up, basically sight unseen, and learn the game over the next few days. Yeah, it's not without its flaws, the slowdown gets pretty bad at times, especially with the second player, and seeing the same bosses again and again is a bummer. But still, this game does have that Capcom polish to it, the settings are bizarrely entertaining, and sometimes it's just fun to get overpowered as hell and destroy everything in sight. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day!