Overview
Legendary Wings was originally known as Ares no Tsubasa ("Ares's Wings") when it came out in the Japanese Arcades in 1986. Two years later a NES version was released exclusively for North America, the first Capcom game to receive this treatment. Much of the team that worked on Legendary Wings were also the developers behind the Mega Man games, and it is rumored that they were tasked with creating the NES version of Legendary Wings in order to be allowed to work on Mega Man's sequel.
An interesting quirk of Legendary Wings is how it'll occasionally switch to a side-scrolling mode whenever the hero enters a giant statue's mouth (known as a "trap zone") or reaches the end of the stage. The goal of these areas is the same: Simply pass through and survive the waves of enemies. Infrequently the player can also find "Lucky!" zones full of power-ups and bonus point objects by destroying a specific ground enemy and entering the hole they leave behind.
Differences Between Arcade and NES Versions
- The side-scrolling levels in the Arcade were on foot and played more like a run-and-gun platformer than a shoot-'em-up.
- The Arcade allows for two players: A woman in a pink bikini named Michelle Heart and a man in blue briefs named Kevin Walker. The NES game just has the latter character, with no second player option. A version of the Arcade game also changed Michelle to a second male character.
- The power-up system is slightly different. In the Arcade mode, the player loses a life when hit and loses all their power-ups. In the NES version, they simply revert to the last power-up level they had achieved. In the case of the Phoenix power-up, the player can take up to three hits before reverting.
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