Timeline | 1986: Balloon Fight

It may have taken a lot from Joust, but Balloon Fight was one of the fun things about the early NES days.

The basic premise of Balloon Fight is to stay airborne and keep flying while trying to pop the balloons of the other player (or computer players). The character has two balloons attached to his helmet and pressing A or B causes the Balloon Fighter to flap his arms and go up (doing nothing will cause him to slowly float down). If one balloon is popped your ability to rise is lessened and you drop faster. Loosing a life occurs when both balloons are popped, you fall in the water despite still having balloons, you allow the large fish to eat you (by straying too close to the water's surface for too long) or you get hit by lightning.

A screenshot from Balloon Fight showing Player 1 (center) Player 2 (left) and 4 enemies, one of which is temporarily defeated.

The two basic modes of the game are Balloon Fight and Balloon Trip. Fight can be played with one or two players and the goal is to clear the screen of enemies and be the last man still flying, you can play this mode cooperatively to reach higher scores. Balloon Trip is a single player only game where you try to dodge lighting sparks and obstacles to try to collect as many balloons as possible to get a high score.

Balloon Fight was loads of fun (on the NES, in the Arcade as 'Vs. Balloon Fight' or in the original Joust form :) ) but lacked depth. Other NES franchises would spawn many sequels and huge franchises, but besides a Game Boy sequel called Balloon Kid, the only thing that has come from Balloon Fight are cameos in other games (like Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros., etc.) and re releases on the various Virtual Consoles (Wii, 3DS, WiiU). Still it is a fun game!

Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_Fight