Frequent Flyer Review – a Fun Little Take on Konami’s Time Pilot

In the 1980’s, one great shooting game was Konami’s Time Pilot. In it, you fly a plane in the sky while shooting down enemies until you defeat enough to warp to the next time period. It had great control and sound effects, along with an additive gameplay loop. Today, Frequent Flyer tries to follow in a similar style, coupled with its own distinctive flavor.

It does this by having more modern control options while flying your plane and additional gameplay modes compared to it predecessor. In regard to game modes, one of the most notable is its Missions Mode.

As one would expect, you fly around blasting other jets, blimps, and the like as you achieve various objectives. These may involve destroying a certain number enemies, picking up 8 ammo icons, or surviving for a specific number of seconds. This is a bit different than its inspiration. While Time Pilot mainly focused on the number of enemy jets destroyed to complete a level, Frequent Flyer is more diverse in its goals necessary to finish a stage. Like Konami’s title, you cannot stay in the same level after completing the objective.

This mode is enjoyable, but I wish it had more stages. The game has 24 missions total.

Other Game Modes

To help offset this, there are a few other ways to play,

• Infinite Mode has no border to the sky and it never ends until you die. It’s my favorite mode, but the way the screen moves is extremely jarring while playing it. Some players will probably have a hard time with this mode because of that aspect.
• Organized Mode has enemies spawn from one side of the screen at a time and the playfield (the sky) ends after a very short period of time. To me, this mode is the least interesting of the four.
• Time Attack Mode has a timer ticking down and you explode when it hits zero. Getting hit and picking up hourglass icons changes the amount of time remaining as one would expect. I like this mode quite a bit, too.

While each of these modes allow players to change the difficulty, there is no way to make a custom game mode, create new missions, or do random missions. If those features were added, they would help with the longevity of the game a great deal.

Planes and Other Unlockables

Alleviating some concern about the game’s longevity is its many unlockables that spruce things up a bit. As stages are completed or attempted, stars are earned that can be used to buy more planes. All of which are usable in every mode. Additionally, new special weapons are unlocked by filling up the bar at the bottom of the screen. These inclusions are effective in making the game a bit more addictive, which I say to its credit.

Of 10 different planes in Frequent Flyer, many are interesting to use for at least a little time. They vary in speed, number of guns, and the amount of hit points they have before being destroyed. About half are distinctive enough to be viable throughout the game. One is super slow but has tons of guns and health. Another is super-fast but only has one gun on the front. Others are more mid-range in their abilities, with different assortments of stats based on one’s desired playstyle.

Gameplay and Sound Design in Comparison to Time Pilot

In regards to plane control, the game is a little different than Time Pilot. Instead of your plane always being in the center of the screen, you can fly all over the sky and do curves as you perform turns. Other gameplay innovations include,

• Running out of ammo in the middle of a stage,
• Using a temporary shield at the press of a button,
• And speeding up and slowing down movement as desired.

These additional options make Frequent Flyer feel more like a modern game than its predecessor, but it can also seem slower as well. Running out of ammo is irritating and turning in the air isn’t as snappy, for instance.

Another aspect that is different is sound design. Konami’s title has little music, with a lot of the sound coming from your gun and the explosions of your enemies. In Frequent Flyer, there is music and sound effects, but neither of them are remarkable. They’re just OK at best. At least if you don’t like one or the other you can manually decrease and increase volume levels for both music and sound in-game.

Overall, Frequent Flyer is a good little game. It has some irritating quirks, like a short Missions Mode, no ability to choose menu options with a controller*, and no custom modes. Yet, for an extremely inexpensive budget title, it does a lot of things right. The unlockables and extra modes help give the game some diversity and the core gameplay loop is quick and fun. For a title that costs less than $1, you could do a lot worse. I do want to try out some of the developers other games.

* The official page for Frequent Flyer says it has full controller support. This problem may just be an issue with my computer.

Title: Frequent Flyer
Genre: Area Shooter
Year Released: 2017
Developer: Vladimir Slav and Coldwild Games
Played On: Steam
Price Paid: $0.49

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid.