Welcome to Playstation Basement! This is a new weekly series published every Saturday here on Console Purist. Every week I will be reviewing an obscure, weird, or unknown game for the PlayStation. My rating system is out of nine. 9-7 is Good, 6-4 is Neutral, and 3-1 is Bad.
For the first Playstation Basement, here is Notam of Wind (Kaze no Notam or 風のノータム). Notam of Wind is a hot-air balloon simulator by Artdink. It was released only in Japan in 1997.
The cover art is quite beautiful with a style like a prog-rock album. It shows a scene of three hot air balloons in the sky near a seaside pool with mountains in the distance. It has a sort of vaporwave aesthetic including the strange phrase, “Did you luxuriate in the wind?” on the spine of the game.
The in-game graphics are similar. The game has a lot of bright colors and mysterious backgrounds. I enjoyed seeing all of the different sights of the three varied stages. The weather and time for the stages can be modified to things like rain or snow and night or morning. It keeps the environments fresh, though the effects can be pretty wild sometimes. The default balloons look very nice, and you can also edit them to have your own patterns and colors. It’s a simple editing tool that works well. The graphics are somewhat blocky, but it works with the game. It’s just hot air balloons after all, and I think the blockiness makes the world seem stranger and more alien. The player never interacts with the landscape beyond soaring above it; what are these castles and cities and who are the people that live there? Unfortunately, there is a lot of pop up and fog, which makes it hard to enjoy the sights.
The sound is the highlight of the game. The tracks include ambient sweeping synths, electronic dance beats, and twinkling chimes. It really captures the spirit of flight. The soundtrack is comparable to Bomberman 64 or RayStorm. It’s one of my favorite soundtracks on the PS1. The sound effects include what you’d expect: wind, collisions, metallic menu sounds, shots, and the sound of the burner in the balloon. They sound good.
The gameplay is another story. Unfortunately, the player does not have much control over the balloon – the only options are to turn on the burner, thus filling the balloon with air, or to release air from the balloon. Adding air makes the balloon ascend while releasing the air causes it to descend. There are five altitudes, each with a different air current, which changes as you play. Because the air currents are somewhat random, it can be quite difficult to control the balloon and fulfill your objectives. The three objectives are to chase and shoot down an enemy balloon, to destroy a ground target, or to land in a small area on the ground. Of these three, which are selected when you pick the stage, I found the third one the most difficult and the first the easiest. I was never able to land the balloon in the target area at all, and my girlfriend was not able to either. We got pretty close, but as the balloon descended, the air did not always go in the direction we needed it to go in. We often ran out of gas and crashed instead. Shooting the targets isn’t too hard. The other balloons in particular start all around the player, so one can most likely be destroyed in a few minutes. Unlike the rest of the game, the shots are fired in first-person. You have infinite ammo.
Notam of Wind is a very interesting game for sure. Like Artdink’s other PlayStation games, Tail of the Sun and Aquanaut’s Holiday, Notam of Wind is experimental and freeform. There isn’t a story or even much of a goal. Basically, there are nine different levels to play, three missions that can be played on each of three stages, and that’s it. There aren’t any bosses or ending. It’s the classic kind of arcade style. “Did you luxuriate in the wind?” That says it all. Unfortunately, the controls and emphasis on luck really hamper the game. I don’t know if I was able to “luxuriate”, but I did have some fun with this unique title.
Notam of Wind receives a Neutral rating (6).
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