Wild Blue Skies review

We’re not going to make it through a review of Wild Blue Skies without talking about Starfox 64, so let’s go ahead and get that out of the way. Nintendo clearly hadn’t given Starfox the love it deserved (until this year), so the team at Chuhai Labs (creators of Cursed to Golf) got to work on their own take for an anthropomorphic arcade flight sim. What they’ve delivered feels like the perfect love letter to one of the Fifth Generation’s most beloved games.

You are Bowie Stray, leader of the Blue Bombers. When the evil engineer, Grimclaw, returns to threaten the world, it’s up to you and your crack team of pilots to defeat Grimclaw and his henchmen to ensure peace. Joining Bowie on the Blue Bombers are the methodical bull, Chuck, snarky deer, Roe, and Thorne, the lizard who’s constantly asking for help with bogeys on his six. Each character, Bowie included, is a clear proxy for members of another flight crew of ages gone by, but they all show up in a way that has their adventure stand on its own.

The Blue Bombers’ adventure spans a series of missions. From futuristic cityscapes to caves, space stations, volcanoes, and beyond, your path is your own to carve and discover. You’ll start each playthrough with the same beginning mission, but the actions you take in-mission will dictate your options for progression. Start to finish, you can finish a whole playthrough in about half an hour, but you’ll find yourself back in the cockpit time after time trying to catch every mission and complete all the trophies. Just like its inspiration, you’ll look forward to replaying the game again and again. 

Each stage ends with a boss encounter. Grimclaw has a wide range of ne’er-do-wells in his employ. Each has their own personalities, attack patterns, and weaknesses. It may take a handful of attempts, but you should be able to pick up most of what they’re putting down pretty quickly.

The moment-to-moment gameplay of Wild Blue Skies is nearly identical to Starfox 64. You can shoot blasters, charge a homing shot, and fire bombs. You can boost ahead and slam on the air brakes to buy some time. You can even bank with the shoulder buttons, pulling off a barrel roll that deflects incoming fire if you double-tap the button. The gameplay itself will immediately be familiar to anyone who played the original Nintendo title back in the day (or the remake, if you have a Switch 2).

While PC players can play with a mouse and keyboard, I highly recommend everyone play the game with a controller. While you’re at it, go into the menu and turn on auto-fire. That’ll save your hands a lot of fatigue.

As you pilot your way through missions, there’s a ton of content you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for. You’ll want to shoot down as many enemies as possible so you can chase high scores. Picking up golden plane icons will get you extra lives. Each level also has four enemies or crates that drop letters to spell out “W-I-L-D”, and doing so will earn you a special ribbon for each level. Oh yeah, there are silver rings to boost your health and branching paths to explore along the way. Everything is so dynamic that you’ll want to play it again and again to try to get it all.

From a visual perspective, Wild Blue Skies is gorgeous. The Starfox formula adapted for modern audiences with a bit of cartoonish flair works in an enticing, addictive manner. The character designs are vibrant and diverse, too. 

Speaking of the character design, Wild Blue Skies features an incredible voice cast that brings the game to life. Jonathan Scott (Beastars) brings Bowie to life as the head of the Blue Bombers. Suzie Yeung (Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII Remake/Rebirth) voices the strong, snarky Roe. Edward Bosco (Ed, Street Fighter 6) ensures Chuck can charge into battle. Finally, Daman Mills (Frieza, Dragon Ball Super) gives the chipper lizard, Thorne, a voice on the comms. It’s impressive to see the impact a few voices can make on an experience – even a short, replayable one.

Wild Blue Skies is an excellent game from top to bottom (and it’s only $15). Despite its inspiration being tied directly to Nintendo, everyone, regardless of platform, will be able to enjoy a top-tier on-rails shooter. For the price and quality, this is an absolute no-brainer to recommend. Why are you still reading this? Get out there and take down Grimclaw!