STUNT FLYER Review for Nintendo Switch

I’m not going to lie – if you’re not the most coordinated individual, Stunt Flyer, by developer Torus Games and publisher Ultimate Games, has a bit of a learning curve. This cartoonish flying/racing/adventure game puts you in the cockpit of a brightly-colored biplane and launches right into gameplay, teaching you how to steer, roll, dive, and shoot (water guns). There’s no prologue, no dialogue, not even a start menu. It’s not especially hard to learn how to steer, but some directionally-challenged gamers (like me) may find themselves crash-landing into the ocean a lot at first. Fortunately, there’s no HP, no life system, and no penalty for repeatedly colliding with hills, landmarks, trains, and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

Each world of Stunt Flyer is a self-contained island that features a series of missions. You can take them in any order, and the more you complete, the more features you unlock. You also unlock harder missions with higher rewards, and you can sail through a multitude of colorful rings to gain experience points. The initial set of missions range from shooting down targets to photographing landmarks to racing enemy aircraft, all with the goal of completing them in as little time as possible. The less time you take to complete a mission, the more experience you get at the end. You can retake them whenever you want, racing either against yourself or against a friend in co-op mode. I’ve enjoyed the photography and racing missions the most so far, while the precision-based shooting missions haven’t been as much fun. That’s more of a personal preference, though, since I’m not a particularly precise gamer.

The flight mechanics are easy to grasp – you steer using the sticks, speed up or slow down using the left and right buttons, and barrel roll or twist using the triggers. I spent some time flying around the island checking out the scenery and getting the hang of the controls before I started in on the missions, but more coordinated gamers will probably be able to jump right in without any practice.

As you complete missions, boost your flight rank, and gain experience, you’ll also start to unlock new aircraft. You start out in a simple red open-air plane, but you’ll quickly be able to swap it out for more exciting options. Even if you haven’t unlocked an aircraft yet, you can still see it on the loading screen – I spotted a flying pirate ship, a UFO, a fighter jet, and even a straight-up rocket. You can also swap out the stock pilot for someone more interesting, with ten options to choose from right off the bat. There are conventional characters in old-timey flight suits, but there are also aliens, pirates, steampunk aristocrats, tribal chiefs, and “Mayor Gloster,” a dead ringer for the Monopoly Man plus some nifty flight goggles.

Stunt Flyer is low-stakes and low-stress, making it a great way to unwind at the end of the day or on the weekend. It’s as intense as you make it – you can work hard to whittle down your mission time second by second, or you can take it easy and enjoy the vibes. I myself fall somewhere in the middle – I have a serious competitive streak when it comes to racing games, but it’s nice that you don’t have to beat a certain time to finish a mission and move on to the next one (looking at you, Crash Team Racing).

The only downsides to Stunt Flyer that I can think of are that the graphics are a bit lackluster and there’s some extended lag when switching worlds. I’m not knocking the game for being cartoonish – plenty of games, from Super Mario to Legend of Zelda to Crash Bandicoot, have “unrealistic” graphics that are also incredibly high-quality. My issue is more that there’s a lack of detail in parts of Stunt Flyer’s environment – some trees are just cones, clouds are blocky, and you can clip in and out of hillsides depending on the angle you approach them. There were also a couple of times when the loading screen froze after switching between worlds, forcing me to close the game and restart. However, the graphics and the occasional lag doesn’t detract from the quality of the gameplay, and honestly, when you’re flying around in the air and the landmarks are further away, you don’t really notice it.

Stunt Flyer doesn’t reinvent the airplane wheel, but it doesn’t need to. I’ve been playing a lot of Souls-like games recently, and sometimes it’s nice to take a break from charging at a boss for the thousandth time and soar around a colorful island in a flying pirate ship instead. If you’re looking for something to help you unwind after a stressful day or fill a couple hours on a long flight or road trip, Stunt Flyer may be just the solution. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some landmarks to photograph and some enemy planes to race. 8.5/10

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About The Author

Ian Robinson-Lambert

I’ve loved video games ever since I started playing Mario Kart on my parents’ Wii back in seventh grade. These days, you can find me playing a mix of historical RPGs and horror (shout-out to Assassin’s Creed and Resident Evil). I also love a good puzzle, and of course I still have a soft spot for the Super Mario series!

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