Finished Balloon Kid! I’m surprised this game isn’t talked about much, because it’s fantastic, taking the general conceit of balloon fight to new heights.
The game controls as you’d expect but this time, pressing B makes your balloons fly away - plummeting you to your doom. But play on for a bit more and you realise the main hook of the game is the introduction of landing areas throughout the autoscrolling levels. Your ground-based character has completely different physics, and to be airborne again you can either jump up to your drifting balloons (this is hard) or pump up some new ones by furiously bashing down on the D-Pad.
The game’s eight levels take this idea to use it to the fullest. At first you’re traversing open woods, and then the open sea, but once you get to the inside of a shark’s belly, or the inside of a cramped igloo, you’re really forced to master both methods of transport as well as switching quickly between them in the presence of enemies and the game’s four boss fights. Each new location brings with it new airborne challenges, too, such as falling icicles to avoid or rainstorms.
If you dig Balloon Fight I can’t recommend this game enough, it’s another well executed Game Boy rethink. And Hip Tanaka’s soundtrack is just wonderful - makes the whole game feel like an adventure.
On a side note, I did also buy off the eShop the Japan-exclusive rerelease of Nintendo Power Cartridge game, Balloon Fight GB. Don’t bother - it’s Balloon Kid with ugly colour adaptation (you can tell the original 1990 graphics just weren’t designed for GBC colour palettes), the only other differences being save points between stages and a world map that contains those stages. 1990 Balloon Kid is the one to play.