Balloon Kid

Balloon Kid
Front cover of North American Balloon Kid package
Developer(s)	Pax Softnica
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Gunpei Yokoi (producer) Yoshio Sakamoto (director, art director) Hirokazu Tanaka (sound composer) Takayuki Onodera (chief programmer) Hitoshi Yamagami (progress manager)
Platform(s)	Game Boy, Game Boy Color
Release date	GB NA October, 1990 EU January 31, 1991 GBC JPN July 31, 2000
Genre(s)	Platform game
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Media	Cartridge

Balloon Kid is a flying platform game developed by Pax Softnica and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy on October, 1990 in North America and on January 31, 1991 in Europe. It is the sequel to Balloon Fight. Unlike Balloon Fight, Balloon Kid is not an arcade-style game, has a plot, and has three named main characters that are not generic. They also have their own personalities.

Plot

Setting

Balloon Kid takes place in a small part of an unnamed, Earth-like world. The only city in this part of the world is Pencilvania, a town with pencil-shaped skyscrapers. Other places this part of the world are these unnamed locations in order of appearance: a forest, an ocean with a giant whale, an icy mountain, and an industrial building. The very first place a player starts from is a small house in a rural part of Pencilvania.

Story

In the little town of Pencilvania, there lived a brother and sister who loved to play with balloons. Alice and her younger brother, Jim, would spend endless days filling the skies with their balloons.

One day, Jim filled all his balloons and tied them together to make a beautiful balloon rainbow across the sky. "What a great idea this was, Jim," said Alice, "but please be careful!". Just then, a strong wind blew and Jim was carried away into the sky. "Oh, no! This is terrible, I must save Jim!", thought Alice. Meanwhile, Jim, who was a very clever boy, thought, "I wonder how Alice will find me.........Wait! I've got an idea. I'll leave a trail of balloons for Alice to follow!".

Characters

• Alice - The protagonist of Balloon Kid. She must save her brother Jim from tragedy. Player 1 controls her in all three modes.
• Jim - Alice's mischievous younger brother who accidentally flew away in a bunch of balloons while he was making a balloon rainbow across the sky.
• Samm - Alice's friend and eternal rival. Player 2 controls him in 2-Player mode.

Gameplay

In 1-player mode, the gameplay is an arrangement of the Balloon Trip mode of Balloon Fight, where the screen automatically scrolls toward the left, while the player controls Alice that uses two balloons to float into the air with. To make her float in the air, the player must press (and sometimes hold) the A button to make her wave her arms to hover upward. Alice also has the ability to remove her balloons and walk on the ground, as well as jumping. If both of her balloons are popped or removed, and if she lands safely, she can inflate two new balloons and fly again.

The object of this mode is to travel from the beginning to the end while collecting balloons left off by Alice's brother, Jim, along the way. The player must also prevent Alice from bumping into enemies that are attempting to pop her balloons, push her or kill her altogether. Some enemies, such as Balloon Birds, came from Balloon Fight. The giant fish that eats anyone who flies too close to the water, also came from Balloon Fight. There are four bosses in Balloon Kid. To defeat them, the player must make Alice fly about them and make her detach her balloons to bounce on them. She can also jump and stomp on them, whenever it is safe for her.

The 2-player mode is loosely based on Balloon Fight's Game A and Game B modes, where one player battles against another player. One player controls Alice, while the other controls Alice's friend and eternal rival: Samm. The goal is to collect more balloons than the other player before they arrive at the end of the stage.

Balloon Kid's Balloon Trip mode is based on Balloon Fight's mode of the same name, but with Alice instead of the original, generic Balloon Fighter. Everything else, including the BGM itself, are unchanged from Balloon Fight's Balloon Trip mode.

Alternate versions

Balloon Fight GB

A colored remake of Balloon Kid called Balloon Fight GB (バルーンファイトＧＢ) was also developed by Pax Softnica and published and released exclusively in Japan by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color and the Nintendo Power flash RAM cartridge series in 2000. Other differences besides being colored are that battery-backed memory was added to help players save their progress, so they can pick any stage they want after they completed them. Super Game Boy features were also added.

Hello Kitty World

Hello Kitty World (ハロー キティ ワールド) was the Famicom version of Balloon Kid that was released only in Japan on March 27, 1992. This version wasn't developed or published by Nintendo, it was actually developed and published by Character Soft . Balloon Kid was created after it was brought to North America. The only notable changes to the game were Balloon Kid's plot being replaced with Hello Kitty's and the updated/changed visuals.

Reception

• Gamerankings - 80% (based on one review)
• Nintendojo - 8/10
• IGN - 7.8/10

References

See also

• List of Game Boy games
• Balloon Fight

External links

• Official Balloon Fight GB website (Original) (Translated with Excite.Co.Jp's translator)
• Official Balloon Fight GB details (Original) (Translated with Excite.Co.Jp's translator)
• Balloon Fight GB interview with Hitoshi Yamagami (Original) (Translated with Excite.Co.Jp's translator)
• Balloon Kid and Balloon Fight GB at GameFAQs
• Balloon Kid at MobyGames