 Snapshot! I sat for a long time trying to come up with a reason why a game like Sky Blazer was completely and utterly ignored when it came out in 1993, and I can't really think of a good one. I guess maybe the gaming landscape already had a ton of platformers and this got lost in the shuffle? But then, I don't remember even seeing this game for sale or for rent anywhere back in the day, so maybe the publisher, Sony, didn't have too much confidence in the game to advertise it a whole lot, but that's pretty stupid because this is a perfectly good game, the whole thing is just mystifying. Since there were a million platformers available in the early 90s, a game really has to do something unique to stand out. Sky Blazer does this by having some quality level design that does a nice job complimenting your abilities. Two stages in particular you play right away are running and jumping through trees, like something out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and a kind of hang gliding level. It's almost like he's blazing through the sky or something. This is another one of those games that's fun because of the freedom you have to just coast around almost anywhere you want in each stage. It reminds me of games like Sparkster, Twin B Rainbow Bell Adventure, and even a little bit like Mega Man X2 with X's Midair Dash. That's some pretty good company right there, but yeah, the real fun in this game is just flying around everywhere, kicking ass, climbing walls, shooting various projectiles. The difficulty of the game might suffer a bit because of that, but yeah, if you're looking for a challenge, you should probably look elsewhere. This game is not particularly hard, but it's still a lot of fun because of all the abilities you have. Another way Sky Blazer stands out is the music. I don't remember ever hearing a 16-bit soundtrack like this one. It's got kind of an eastern vibe to it. You hear it for just a few seconds and you immediately know it's Sky Blazer. You can't say that about too many other games. The visual style is also well done. Your character, named Sky, hence the name of the game, looks a lot like Will from Illusion of Gaia, which I always thought was kind of interesting, but the enemy sprites in the backgrounds are all detailed, and the bosses especially are really cool looking and creative. You can tell some real effort was put into this game, which makes it even more puzzling why it wasn't marketed a whole lot. If this game has any weaknesses, it's that you have to be really close to an enemy to use your regular attack, and the hit detection is kind of wonky at times. Not only with enemies, but like, just, what the hell? I mean, just, come on, get up there, dude. What the fuck? Sometimes I feel like they made the sky sprite a little too big, which leads to some goofy stuff like this, but maybe that's just me. Also, like I said earlier, this game is a bit too easy at times, but that's not always a bad thing. It's fun to just breeze right through. The big lockdown, though, is how short the game is. There's only about 20 levels or so, so the game can be beaten in like two hours. Still, I can think of worse ways to spend that time. Anyway, I would call Sky Blizzard a hidden gem, but it's not really hidden. It never was. It's right freaking there, so go play it. It might be a bit easy and a bit short, but it's well worth checking out.