Digital Glider Airman | デジタルグライダー エアマン
Developer: Ornith
Publisher: ASK, Co Ltd.
Formats: PlayStation, PSP (PS1 Archives), PS3 (PS1 Archives)
Released in: 1999, only in Japan
So this one’s a rarity - a game that really has been forgotten about in modern times. I counted a total of three(!) videos across the entire internet of it, with almost nothing written in the way of Japanese blogs and guides. Having finished the game recently I have to say it’s a shame it’s been so overlooked, because this is a flying simulation like no other.
As the title suggests, this is all about piloting gliders - aircraft without engines, and its through this one hook that much of the joy (and challenge) comes from.
It all starts off easily enough - just asking you to fly a few hundred metres before landing in water. Easily done. But then the second stage suddenly throws a curveball at you, asking you to make it to the goal a few miles out, while staying within a speed limit and appointed height limits throughout the area. It’s here where you’re forced to learn and understand how the physics work, and how to utilise the updrafts to gain height, then speed, then more distance. The speed and height restrictions force you to be careful - you can’t gain too much height, nor too much speed. And you need to pay attention to where the updrafts are - time to utilise the radar. Doing all this at once is easier said than done…
…But with enough patience you’ll get there. Every new location serves up new terrain that the designers use to make you pull off what previously seemed impossible, and the different objectives within constantly ask you to rethink your approach to flight. One forces you to pilot a glider with the lowest wing strength, making it extremely brittle and prone to breaking in uplift, another asks you to circle in the air - clockwise and anticlockwise - before making it to the goal.
Once everything clicks it becomes an extremely rewarding experience, since any knowledge you gain - whether it’s in the physics or utilising the informative HUD - can be applied to previous objectives that seemed too difficult at the time.
As @matt mentioned in another thread, it’s basically the thinking person’s Pilotwings. It’s big on the simulation aspect with its physics and how understanding the HUD’s instruments practically becomes a requirement. Air gliders are pretty slow and the environments and elements are huge and overbearing, so you can’t afford to make many stupid moves.
So you’re constantly thinking ahead. Each glider has its own lift, weight and drag characteristics which are further editable by messing with the wing dimensions. It’s really surprising how far, how fast, and how long you can pilot these things with enough practice and understanding.
There are signs that the developers knew this, because the audiovisual presentation elevates the experience beyond staid simulation game, suggesting a big appreciation for this type of flight. Each locale has a vagueness to it, and the the background music is both beautiful and majestic. The combination of the two really conveys the beautiful miracle of man-made flight in itself, flight without an engine.
If you’re after a unique, challenging but rewarding flying simulation game with a razor-sharp focus on mastery of a small amount of content, check out this game!