Battle Wings (1984)

Data East

Arcade

3.00 from 12 ratings

30 members have it in their collection · 1 playing now · 9 backlogged · 4 wish listed

Battle Wings, known in Japan either as B-Wing (ビー・ウィング) or B-Wings (ビー・ウィングズ), is a vertically scrolling shooter first released as an arcade game by Data East in 1984. The game was ported by Data East to the Family Computer in 1986, and was Data East's very first home release for this platform. The game consists of 45 levels (30 in … Read more
Battle Wings, known in Japan either as B-Wing (ビー・ウィング) or B-Wings (ビー・ウィングズ), is a vertically scrolling shooter first released as an arcade game by Data East in 1984. The game was ported by Data East to the Family Computer in 1986, and was Data East's very first home release for this platform. The game consists of 45 levels (30 in the Family Computer version), and no background story or plot is given. The player controls a ship called the FX-1, and collects power-up parts (called a "wing") to progress through the levels and ultimately defeat the Gobunasu armored mobile fortress in the final level. The game consists of two different top-view screen levels, where the player can press the second button to descend to the ground whenever they do not have a power-up. The player is unaffected by attacks from airborne units while they are playing on the ground level, but the ship is automatically brought back into the air after a certain period of time. The player can still be hit by attacks from ground units while they are on the ground level, and can also lose their ship by crashing into obstacles. The 8-way joystick controls the player's movements, and one button is used for shooting, and the other is used for descending to the ground (or un-equipping wings). The background image continues infinitely when the player scrolls in the horizontal directions. Completing the final level of the game causes the score counter to increase to 9,999,999 points, which the player can enter as their high score. The player can also score cheap points by equipping and un-equipping their power-up. Pressing the button twice while the un-equipping animation is occurring cause the player to gain 2,000 points. The player gains an extra life every 40,000 points, so it is possible to gain lives almost infinitely. If the player gains over 10,000,000 points in this way before completing the final level, the counter takes over 20 minutes to increase to 99,999,999 points. Read less
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Details

Developers
Data East
Publishers
Data East
Genres
Arcade, Shooter
Themes
Action, Science fiction, Warfare

Release dates

  • Oct 1984 (Full Release) (Japan) Arcade
  • 1984 (Full Release) (North_America) Arcade

Also available on

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Bundled in

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Rating distribution

5 stars
1
4 stars
3
3 stars
4
2 stars
3
1 star
1
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Chovus

Status Chovus Jun 22, 2026

Played as far as boss of stage 19 out of 30 before getting too bored to continue. I played at normal speed, which was unusual for a NES action game to be that manageable on my PSP. It started off with weapon selection from quite a long list. I has no idea what they did so went with multi, then …

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Played as far as boss of stage 19 out of 30 before getting too bored to continue. I played at normal speed, which was unusual for a NES action game to be that manageable on my PSP. It started off with weapon selection from quite a long list. I has no idea what they did so went with multi, then immediately lost it because the other button made the ship fly down to be invincible for a couple seconds while also discarding the current weapon. What? Stupid. Taking a hit also lost the current weapon, with the next hit being death. Or crashing into a wall or boss was death regardless. Weapon power ups were spread throughout the stages and I got a chance to try them all out. Hammer was the best because it gave a rotating shield that could hit enemies from any direction, on top of decent forward shot. Jump was needed to kill some bosses because the center shot warped through solid matter, making it an overall good weapon to keep just in case. Some obstacles also had their weak points behind indestructible matter. Why the hell was this mechanic in the game? Then side shot to both sides with minimal frontal power, making it critical for enemies coming from the sides and the boss type whose weak point was only accessible from the side. Some of the other weapons could hit the side but they were far less reliable. Wide, multi and van were like this; not really worth using but better than nothing. Anti gave back shots and was usually worth switching to because back enemies were usually coming up. It had enough front firepower to be reliable. The best frontal shots were flame, dyne and cannon. Then was a special green ring shot that I found a few times, which came with the rotating shield and big ring shots that curved a little. Unfortunately the game forced me to switch after using it for a while, either because the a stage had the stage 1 weapon select or because I needed jump or side for a boss. There were 2 other secret shots that I never found, and a power up that let you swap weapon on the fly. But rather than show the names I had to recognize them purely by how it changed the ship graphic. It was annoying how a lot of bonus pickups could be destroyed by your own shots. Apparently the final boss was unique but not as difficult as the jump and side requiring ones. There were also weird animal bosses that did not match the rest of the game at all, and the overall graphics and backgrounds were bad. You could fly left or right to scroll the screen and loop back around, which was occasionally useful for avoiding enemies. Did not work during bosses though and it was possible to be crushed against the screen edge.

This was a boring shoot em up that did not need that many stages. The variety of weapons was cool but I did not like how certain ones were absolutely required at certain times. If you failed to get the correct one you best die and respawn. It would have been much better if you collected the entire arsenal 1 weapon at a time and could freely swap at any time, optionally with limited ammo and ammo pick ups. It also needed way more stage and boss variety, and instead of 30 stages of basically the same content, make it 10 stages with 3 difficulty levels. Ultimately I got bored and did not complete the game because if felt like playing the same game on easy, then normal, then hard.

5.0/10

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