ACA NEOGEO Ghost Pilots

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Ghost Pilots is a Shmup released in 1991 in arcades and on the NEOGEO home console as a launch title, with a port to NEOGEO CD in 1996. This modern release sees the game coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2018.

Ghost Pilots is one of numerous entries in the Shmup genre to be set during (a somewhat fictionalized version of) World War II, with players taking on Nazi forces in a… seaplane? Sure, why not.

Graphically, this game is better than many other games that came out in this time period, and that gives it a fair amount of appeal. Unfortunately, this is one of those games where one press of the fire button fires one bullet, meaning you either need to button-mash, or go to the ACA NEOGEO menus to enable rapid-fire. The problem there is that firing reduces the speed of your plane… not that it matters, though – your normal speed is absurdly slow already, and this combined with your large size on-screen means you’ll have difficulty avoiding enemies and their attacks.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

In the end, while I think Ghost Pilots is visually really nice-looking, the gameplay is far too frustrating for me to recommend, with your slow movement speed and overly-large size pretty much guaranteeing you’ll be slamming into enemies and their gunfire far too often. You have plenty of options for Shmup on Nintendo Switch, and even within the ACA NEOGEO line of games. I suggest you find something better than this to play.

tl;dr – Ghost Pilots is a Shmup set during a version of World War II, and while it has appealing visuals, your slow movement speed and overly-large plane mean you’ll be crashing into enemies and their attacks far too often. You have far too many better options to waste money on this.

Grade: C-

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