After years of fanboy requests and wild speculation, Nintendo’s Pilotwings franchise has finally returned as a 3DS launch title. Does Pilotwings Resort soar or plummet gamers back to earth?
By Leo Stiles
Pilotwings Resort is a fine example of what Nintendo’s latest 3D handheld is capable of but thanks to a dearth of content it sadly amounts to an expensive tech demo and a pale imitation of its classic predecessors.
At first, this game is glorious and before you get stuck into things properly, you are treated to a free flight mode that has you soaring through the game environment, taking your breath away for a few moments. The overall nature of the graphics may be simple but they are vividly rendered and have a solidness that make the game’s 3D effect a treat for your eyes.
Sadly, this freedom is short lived and just as you are warming to the leisurely nature of this mode, the game dumps you back to a main menu where the options are frighteningly slim. What’s worse is that the simple joy of free flight which has long been the series’ true pleasure is then locked away behind timed tasks and a series of mission modes.
Jet Pack missions are surprisingly difficult, as you’ll need to watch your fuel to garner high scores
These mission modes are the meat and potatoes of the game and there is some challenge to be had here, with timed courses and manoeuvre challenges mixed up with some nice photography missions and a whole host of ways to up your score and grab bonus points. There is no denying that there is a one-more-go draw to this mode but with just six levels of challenges (6-9 missions per challenge), you could easily tire of it over the course of a weekend.
The other mode is Free Flight which could have made up for the weak missions of the other mode but is hobbled by a quite baffling decision to impose a minute and a half time limit. Your job in this mode is to collect location tokens and balloons within this time limit and at first there is no way to extend the time – you have to find all these collectables to do so.
Persevere with it and you are offered the chance to extend your flight time with some special timer tokens but it just isn’t enough.
Lack of content
The real problem here is that the game is built around one island location and after a couple of flights around it, there is nothing to really explore or secrets to discover and you are left with a game that gets old far too quickly.
One of the joys of Pilotwings 64, the previous game in the series was the wastes of the game world and one that could be explored without any restriction as you hunted out elusive secret locations and watched the world change from day to night.
There is none of that here and we kept playing in the hope that we would be whisked a new location to explore, before realising that what you can see in five minutes is literally what you get.
Nintendo have done a lot of public dismissing of the kind of games that are appearing in the App Stores of various smartphones, but it you ask us they had better take note of just how much value for money gamers are getting out of some of the better titles on those devices because Pilotwings Resort doesn’t even come close to delivering comparable bang for your buck. 
Launch games for new systems are alway a bit hit and miss but Nintendo rarely drop the ball on their own titles and after playing this emaciated game we are genuinely shocked that the company would chose to push this out when a remake of Pilotwings 64 would have gotten the job done far more effectively – it’s not like Nintendo aren’t fond of repackaging their classic titles.
The game is a brilliant showcase for just how impressive 3D visuals can be on the handheld but Nintendo clean forgot about the gameplay. Rent it if you’re curious but if you can only afford one 3DS game at launch stay well clear of this one. After this, Zelda can’t come soon enough.
Format: Nintendo 3DS; Developer: Nintendo
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