 When I first played Super Mario 64, I remember the first thing that struck me was… wait. I don't have to do anything? If I don't want to. I can just hang out here and run around and climb trees and triple jump into the waterfall? I loved having the freedom just to hang out. I have a feeling Nintendo kinda knew this would affect a lot of people this way, because the other launch title for the N64, Pilot Wing 64, takes full advantage of that same thing. game where you just hang out on this big island, taking it easy. Now when I looked at F-Zero X for N64 last week, I thought it stayed reasonably faithful to the first game, providing a familiar vibe, making it seem like a natural follow-up. But PilotWings64 dials it back considerably compared to the first PilotWings game. Yeah, it still has the same point structure, where you need to complete challenges, controlling various vehicles and all that. But there's way more freedom here, in the first game you had to complete at least two or three challenges in two or three completely different ways, whether it was piloting a biplane or a jetpack, a hang glider, or skydiving, and if you're not proficient in every area, you're not going to progress with the game. What's cool about PilotWings64 is that it lays out everything in front of the player right from the get-go, and everything is separated by vehicle. This time around, there's a hang glider, rocket pack, and helicopter, and you can pick and choose what challenges you want to complete for which vehicle at whichever difficulty you'd like, with unlimited attempts. The challenges can range from destroying a runaway robot, to just simply taking pictures. And yeah, if you've played a PilotWings game, you know the drill here, each of the three vehicles have their own feel, with the hang glider being very slow, with a bit more of a margin for error, the rocket pack has the most flexibility, where you can move in all directions pretty easily, and the helicopter is the toughest to control with very little margin for error, as you can see here. The major difference this game presents from a control standpoint is that there's six different playable characters here, and they represent three different classes, light, medium, and heavy, with each class providing its own unique feel to each vehicle. So what's your incentive to complete all these challenges? You know, other than for the sake of completing them. It's to unlock new game modes that let you play around within this game's world. For instance, you can unlock Birdman, where you fly around as Coco Beware, I mean, fly around as Chris Anderson, I mean, well, you can see what I mean here. You get wings and you fly around until you crash. There's also a mode that shoots your character out of a cannon and do a target, one where you're jumping around on springs, and a skydiving mode as well. Alright, I know I'm not exactly breaking new ground with this video. I mean, just search PilotWings64 on YouTube and you'll find like 10 reviews for it. So why pick this game to do a video? Well, I think it's incredibly unique in that it's three completely different things at the same time. And by that, I mean, number one, it was ahead of its time. Number two, it's still outdated as hell, since the mechanics and challenges are represented much better in PilotWings Resort for 3DS. And number three, it's still somehow worth playing today. And I say that because just look at the popularity of games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. Calming, chill-out playthroughs like PilotWings64 have become almost overwhelmingly in demand today. And this game is definitely a really chill playthrough. It's not even that this game aged well necessarily. It's what it represents that's grown into practically its own genre, so to speak. It's pretty clear at this point that Nintendo saw PilotWings more as a hardware showcase than a bankable game franchise on its own. So it's fascinating to me that this game still holds up as well as it does today, almost in spite of itself. Well, as long as you're able to mitigate the difficulty of some of the tougher challenges. It's a PilotWings game, so you're still gonna have a hell of a time controlling stuff like that dang helicopter or reaching some of the tucked away rings with the rocket pack. I personally have always totally sucked at PilotWings games, but really that never stopped me from enjoying them, especially this game. Because man oh man, the hand glider stages where you're just slowly drifting along, set to this great music composed by Dan Hess. I mean, it's really nice. Hell, even the results music is a total jam. So yeah, PilotWings64's playability today depends on what you're looking for. If you want a precision-based game with much better graphics, then you're obviously way better off with the 3DS PilotWings game. But if you're just looking to take it easy, take your time, have unlimited attempts, and enjoy some really good tunes, then yeah, PilotWings64 is exactly what you're looking for. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.