Airships in video games

In videogames and RPGs, airships may not be gas-filled zeppelins or dirigibles, but instead literal flying ships. Airships in games are notable because they featured as central plot-based craft in several seminal video games at the point when a mass consumer home-gaming market was forming; such as Super Mario Bros. 3, Final Fantasy, Crimson Skies, and Myst.

They are sometimes kept aloft by helicopter-like rotors mounted on masts, but more frequently not even such a slender concession to the real laws of aerodynamics is made. Airships allow the playable character party to pass about the world map relatively unimpeded by random encounters with monsters.

Notable appearances in early games

Airships have also made an appearance in Super Mario Bros. 3, where they, commanded by the Koopa Kids, were the main presence holding the lands of the Mushroom Kingdom hostage. They served as boss levels, and moved around on the overworld if not defeated on the first try. Mario boarded the auto-scrolling airship, dodged flameblowers, cannonballs, Bullet Bills, Bob-ombs, and thrown wrenches in an attempt to get to and defeat the Koopa Kid on board.

Airships in "Skies of Arcadia"

While airships are merely a convenient plot device in most RPGs, they represent a major part of the world of "Skies of Arcadia", which postulates a world of rocky islands floating in midair, without watery oceans. In "Skies of Arcadia", airships, once blimps and zeppelins but now airborne vessels closely resembling ocean-going ships, often heavily armed, form the primary - in fact, only - means of transportation about the world, and battle sequences can occur against monsters while flying them (leading to complaints about a perceived high random encounter rate, even though SoA's encounter rate is not particularly greater than average for the genre), as well as against enemy airships.

Examples in other games

*"Township" ("Breath of Fire II")
*"Enterprise" ("Final Fantasy IV")
*"Blackjack" ("Final Fantasy VI")
*"Highwind" ("Final Fantasy VII")
*"Ragnarok" ("Final Fantasy VIII")
*"Hilde Garde" ("Final Fantasy IX")
*"Little Jack" ("Skies of Arcadia")
*"Delphinus" ("Skies of Arcadia")
*"Death Ark" ("Dark Chronicle")
*"Dawn of Aces II"
*"Crimson Skies"
*"Myst III"
*"Maplestory"

ee also

*Final Fantasy airships