Part of what made me want to play through all the Nintendo 64 games was growing up with Future Publishing’s N64 magazine. I only had a small number of games myself, but read about so many more. Pilotwings is one I remember getting mentioned a lot in the magazine throughout the years, and it always sounded fascinating. The image of a cannon and Mount Rushmore (with Mario’s face) was one I distinctly remember seeing a lot.

Pilotwings is an arcade-style flight sim game, although still requires a lot of skill to perfect, especially landings. There are three main vehicles, each of which have a series of challenges to complete, which then unlock additional modes.

The glider is first up and is definitely the weakest of the three main types. I can appreciate how it must have felt brand new, using a standard controller to control a game like this instead of a flight stick, not to mention the 3D worlds, which have lots of nice little details.

The challenges start out simple, and get more complex and difficult. There’s a nice variety such as quickly going through a string of rings, finding more widespread rings, and finding certain objects to take photos of. You’re scored based on your speed and accuracy, and it all hangs on your landing, which is difficult, but does feel like you’re in control.

The Rocket Belt (aka a jet pack) is immensely fun to fly. You have a strong thrust and a weaker thrust, and will need to get across the map quickly, burst balloons, fly through a cave, and land on platforms. Trying to avoid hitting the ground is difficult, even though the game tries to help by having a bar show up when you’re close to the ground.

I think the weakest aspect of Pilotwings was the camera, which was a challenge in early 3D games. This one is a bit strange as it pans the camera away from you rather than around your character, and reverts back when you stop pressing the c-button. Despite this, the jet pack is just extremely enjoyable.

The gyrocopter is the third main one, and is equipped with rockets to blast targets with. This is much faster than the previous vehicles, so it tends to use the whole islands, which are all really nicely designed with lots of little things to look at. I especially love “Little States”, a mini mainland USA with lots of details representing a few important locations. It would be lovely to see updated versions of these islands.

With the gyrocopter, you’ll have some ring challenges that feel like intense races, and you get to battle a giant mech as it terrorises a city. The gyrocopter is a lot of fun, and is probably the easiest to land, although being accurate for a best score is still difficult.

As you complete the challenges, you’ll unlock bonus games. The first of which is a complete blast: human cannonball. You get three attempts at each target, with your best score out of the three being counted. This means that you have a few attempts to adjust your aim and power to account for the wind speed.

While it starts off simple, like the rest of Pilotwings, it gets really difficult, with some targets you can only see on the radar as they’re behind a mountain or below the cannon. It doesn’t stop the mode being enjoyable, though.

The second extra mode is skydiving. It starts with a rather wonky formation challenge above the clouds, but feels amazing when you get past it and get full control of skydiving on the island. I wasn’t very good at the actual scoring, but the skydiving itself is really fun.

The last one I couldn’t get the hang of. They’re a kind of bouncing boot, but the controls just feel strange, and I kept bouncing in directions I didn’t want to go and just fell over a lot.

My favourite mode of the game is locked behind getting a silver medal on all of these challenges, although you can temporarily try it out by finding hidden stars in the jetpack mode.

The Birdman mode is a free flight mode. You don’t have to worry about fuel and staying in the air is easy. There’s no challenges to complete, it’s all about enjoying the sights. It’s just nice and relaxing. The main mistake is how many people playing the game may never actually get to try it due to the game’s difficulty, and needing so much to unlock it (I have to admit, I ended up using cheats).

Pilotwings 64 is a very interesting game and I really think it deserves another go. It did get a game on 3DS, but that just used Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort, which already had a plane mode. I’d love a sequel that brought us the islands from this game in more detail, some new ones, plus all these modes and some new stuff. I’d also love just being able to choose free flight for any of the vehicles – having the challenges dotted across the maps would also be a great touch. A new Pilotwings could be a ton of fun.

Fave

It may not look exciting, but – damn it – it plays like a dream.

Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #1. Review Score: 89%

Remake or Remaster?

A remake that’s also a sequel would be perfect for Pilotwings. Have the islands and activities from this with lots of new stuff.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no way to buy a new copy of Pilotwings 64, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.

Re-releases

2022: Nintendo Switch Online (subscription only)