With Jim finally freed from his balloons, Alice carries him off home...
... Presumably giving him a stern lecture on appropriate balloon usage on the way.
As a medley of different songs in the games plays, the end credits roll. Couple of big names in here (thanks to MobyGames as ever) with the obvious one being Gunpei Yokoi as producer who almost certainly need no introduction, but you should also note Yoshio Sakamoto as director, a big member of Team Shikamaru, a team within Nintendo's R&D1 divison (who were responsible for developing the Game Boy!). In particular, he designed the original Balloon Fight and worked on many ther Nintendo games, including Kid Icarus and several installments of the Metroid franchise. From Pax Softnica we have Motoo Yasuna on programming, who also worked on Wave Race and Mole Mania, and Kuniko Sakurai whose credits include design work on Donkey Kong '94 and the original Earthbound / Mother. Quite a lotta big names, then, eh?
... Oh, but the credits aren't over yet. Once the Team Shikamaru credit appears...
The best part? A little jingle from the original Balloon Fight plays when this happens.
Gotta hand it to ya, Balloon Fighter. You got the last laugh after all!
With Jim saved (well, kinda) and Alice taught a valuable lesson about never trusting a Balloon Fighter, that's Balloon Kid done and dusted.
Not gonna lie, I'm biased as hell on this one. Well, mostly. The thing is that Balloon Kid kinda ticks a lot of boxes for me in terms of things that pretty much instantly endear me to a game- female player character! Tiny sprites! It's an old Game Boy game! It's based on Balloon Fight! And of course that's that odd 'mean streak' the game has about some of its later levels. You put that kinda stuff in your game and you automatically have my attention. It helps that it works pretty well- it's fairly basic and there's not that much advanced stuff going on (unless you're the kind of person who'd want to get a Perfect on every stage or beat the first two stages without balloons) but it feels good, and offers a decent challenge. It does take a bit of practice, but once you've played through each stage a few times, you'll be able to rack up extra lives fairly easily, and most of the game runs at a slow, laid-back pace. On the other, there are some parts that will stump you, and almost seem a little cruel (such as the full-screen jump in Stage 6, the winding passageways of Stage 7, and basically all of Stage 8) considering you have limited continues. Alice's pinball-like physics when she's without a balloon don't help either, nor does the slightly choppy feel to the game (that framerateis a bit weird).
And yet, every now and then, I find myself comeplled to dust off my Game Boy Advance SP (sadly, the ol' peepers canot go all the way and play it on a classic / toaster Game Boy) and just blast through the game. At this point I can play through the game on cruise control, with just a few trouble spots (mostly Stage 7 and 8) so it's fair to say I can stop playing it now, yet that urge to beat it still happens from time to time. It's definitely a little flawed, and yet it endears itself to me. I just wish there was a sequel of some kind, just to expand on some of the tougher elements from the later stages, as it almost feels like it just stops short of expanding further on its mechanics and obstacles (although that said, Stage 7 does feel like it was thrown in at the last minute to keep things going). So, basically, as long as you can put up with the fact that it's an early Game Boy game and has trouble spots that'll kill you until you practice... This is a real charming little game that you really should try.
And now, it's that time, folks!
EXTENDED PLAY!
This playthrough covered Single Play, the main mode of play in Balloon Kid.
What about the other two modes?
Balloon Trip is an adaptation of Mode C - Balloon Trip Mode from the NES / Famicom Balloon Fight, an endless gauntlet of electric sparks above and the cruel, unforgiving sea (and that fish) below. Grab balloons, avoid the sparks and the fish and rack up as high a score as you can. There's not much to note here, as Balloon Trip is one of the most well-known bits about Balloon Fight / Kid, but two things: first, according to the Balloon Fight wiki, survive long enough and the terrain will briefly turn into a blank space (even the sea will disappear) before looping back to the start. Secondly, you can still let go of your balloons... But doing so will, obviously, result in death. Have fun!
The other mode is considerably more intriguing- Vs. Play.
Do you remember those times, friends, when to play multiplayer on a portable console you needed special cables, no internet connection involved and a copy of the game for each player? These days, such antiquated technology must seem barbaric, but that's how we lived. Except I've never played Balloon Kid's two-player mode in real life because I never had it back then, and I certainly don't know anyone local with a copy. Luckily, the miracle of emulation can do it for us- for this I used BGB, which allows you to play linked games by opening the emulator twice. The Vs. mode is pretty simple- Player 1 is Alice, while Player 2 is the otherwise unseen Samm, a rival balloon enthusiast. In an auto-scrolling arena based on Pencilvania that eventually brings in small falling platforms and long stretches of water, Alice and Samm enter combat! The winner is the first to reach the finish line, or the last player standing. You can pop the other player's balloons just as in Balloon Fight, or fight dirty by kicking them into the water when they're without balloons, and when both players collectively grab 10 balloons, a fresh double-balloon spawns for either player to grab and use. First to three wins!
Now, the meat of this extra section- Balloon Kid was never originally released in Japan.
Instead, the region got two other releases to take its place.
First up, the Famicom version from 1992- Hello Kitty World. Eh?
As you might guess from the screenshots, this isn't a straight port. It's been branded with the mark of Hello Kitty, so Alice, Jim and Samm have been booted out in favour of Hello Kitty (Kitty White, if we're being technical) who's on a mission to rescue her friend Tippy Bear. As far as additions go, the game now supports two-player alternating play in Single Play mode (Player 2 is Mimmy) and there's a cute little animation when you beat each stage. There's less really added to this port, and a lot more changed. For a start, Vs. Play and Balloon Trip have been removed entirely. Cosmetically, most of the enemies have been modified to look 'cuter', the environments have been touched up with the exception of the factory which is now completely different, and so on. Mechanics-wise, it's the same, except the fish that jump out of the water (not Floppy Fish, obviously) can no longer eat you, and certain obstacles like spikes can only kill you when you're down to one balloon.
Let's get to the negatives, then. For a start, the game feels very cramped now- the game no longer scrolls vertically, and so the ceilings are much closer to the ground than before. You won't notice this at first, but certain segments like the bonus rounds and the fish boss fight really make this obvious- it's much easier to have your balloons burst upon touching the roof in this version. Finally, several of the graphical changes- the bright colours, the cutification of the enemies, and Hello Kitty herself- mean that a lot of Balloon Kid's charm is gone. For a start, Alice is surprisingly expressive for a Game Boy character, pulling a few cute faces during gameplay- although Hello Kitty is cute, she's also emotionless, so that element of the graphics is lost here. Additionally, by altering the enemy designs, Balloon Kid's little mean streak, seen in parts like the flames on the fires being erratic, the menacing feel of the factory, etc., is lost in this version. It's mechanically sound, but Hello Kitty World is definitely not my preferred version of the game, although if you're desperate to play the game on a home console, this is your only proper option.
On the plus side, I found a fan translation that probably took some liberties with the script. Ha!
The other version, from 2000, is a bit more faithful to the source material- it's Balloon Fight GB for the Game Boy Color.
Released as a Nintendo Power downloadable game in Japan (one that you'd buy as a re-writable cartridge at a kiosk) as well as a special-edition pre-written cart, that came with a Nintendo Power GB Memory cart, a pin badge and fold-out manual for the game- thanks to @gosokkyu for establishing that for us- Balloon Fight GB is a colourized version of Balloon Kid. That's it, really. None of the graphics have been enhanced, with the exception of the Stage Start/Clear screen which now has a luminous look to it and the electrified floors in Stage 8 now look more like fires, but they've been put into colour, and that's your lot! The only other changes are the addition of Super Game Boy support (the game gets two borders- one as standard, and one used if you hold any button while the game's loading (thanks to The Cutting Room Floor for that one) and individual stage colour schemes) and the addition of a world map- when starting 1P Mode you're free to start at any stage you've previously reached, and this is saved to the cart's memory. This also means the game no longer limits your continues, although you'll still start every game with the standard 5 lives. Unlike Hello Kitty World, though, the addition of colour doesn't ruin the game's 'edge' so to speak.
This version was also released for the 3DS Virtual Console in Japan...
While Europe and the US got the original Balloon Kid for their Virtual Console stores. That's fine.
Nearly done! We'll briefly talk about music in the game.
First, what does it reuse from Balloon Fight? The following are reused in some way...
Balloon Trip Theme - Remixed for Stage 1 / Stage 5 / Credits, reused for Game C / Bonus Stage
Perfect Game - Reused for Perfect on results screen
Respawn - Reused for Credits
Stage Clear - Reused for Game C Game Over
Game Over - Remixed for Boss Defeated
And moving on, but of a weird one here- some songs from Balloon Kid are reused in the Game Boy Camera...?
In the Animation menu, Song #03 is the Fish boss music, and Song #14 is sort-of the boss intro music.
Finally, scans.
As I'm a terrible video game collector, I don't have a box for this one.
Which is a shame, as the boxart is kind-of funny in that Alice looks nothing like that in-game. Oh well.
Here's the manual instead, click to embiggen:
And yes, the enemy descriptions are supposed to rhyme. Cute, eh?
So, I bet you're wondering- any references to Balloon Kid in the Smash Bros. series?
Or, well, any other Nintendo games? Any at all?
HAHAHA, NOPE.
ARTICLE'S OVER, BYE!
