This aspect of the game is where a lot of the criticism regarding Skypatrol comes from, mainly because of how unforgiving it is compared to other Sonic games. In fact, the only things you have to worry about are keeping your flight meter replenished by collecting sweets, and avoiding the environments, which kill you outright. If you get hit by enemies, you’ll start careening towards the ground, but you can mash one of the buttons to recover. Unlike other Sonic games, you don’t need rings to keep you alive. You can avoid obstacles by moving up and down, and can slow down and speed up by holding left or right respectively. Tails is always flying, so the only way you can fend off enemies is to throw your ring at them. Tails’ Skypatrol is a horizontally scrolling game where your goal is to get to the end of the level and defeat the boss lurking there. With nobody else in her way, Tails is the only one who can stop her! Alongside her henchmen in flying machines Focke-Wulf, Bearenger and Carrotia, she’s planning to take over the island and has turned everyone who opposes her into crystals. Tails decides to head off on a little trip, and stumbles across an island that is currently under terror from the evil Witchcart. But while it can definitely be imposing and unfair at times, there’s actually a method to its madness, and underneath lies a pretty decent game. Tails’ Skypatrol has gotten a reputation for being one of the hardest games in the franchise, and an extremely difficult game at that. The game was developed by Japan System House (JSH)/Biox, a studio who worked on various 8-bit SEGA games during the 90’s (although credit was also given to SIMS, another studio in a similar vein, it’s ambiguous as to how much involvement they actually had, due to the abundance of pseudonyms seen in the game’s credits).

The first of these games was Tails’ Skypatrol, a Game Gear exclusive that never saw release outside of Japan until its inclusion as an unlockable in Sonic Adventure DX. These two games are among the more unusual entries in the series, as they were not only spin-offs based on a character besides Sonic, but they also played very differently from any Sonic game that came before or since. In the middle of all these 8-bit games were a couple of spin-offs based around Miles “Tails” Prower, the fan favorite character who debuted back in Sonic 2.

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