Would you consider this a bad game?

I think it's a misunderstood game that isn't as conceptually sound or well executed as it could have been.

Thankfully there is a never talked about sequel that is actually AWESOME. Top Gun: Second Mission, though not the best "flight simcade" game on the NES (IMO that's Konami's Laser Attack, which feels more like Top Gun 3 despite being a "helicopter" game) improves considerably on the original. It also has really badass music and a not bad two player combat mode.

In fact, this was the game I had as a child, and didn't know it was Top Gun: Second Mission, I just knew it as Top Gun. So when I saw everybody complaining about it online when I grew up I was a little confused, because I liked Top Gun. Turns out I just liked the sequel.

If you can figure out the plane landing (spoilers: don't follow the shit ass instructions, it tells you what altitude and speed you need to be going so just match your speed and altitude to that) it's not so bad. The flying and shooting is pretty well done, although not as action packed and frantic as Second Mission or Laser Attack, so that leads to some occasional moments of just hanging around waiting for enemies or some shit. The targeting on enemies to launch missiles is also a pretty faithful translation of the dogfighting scenes in the movie (even though that isn't at all how dogfighting really works) so that feels cool too.

Is it the best game on the NES? No of course it isn't. But it doesn't deserve all the shit it gets from the "lol i cant land the plane" crowd and if you like this kind of NES seems-like-a-simulation-but-plays-like-arcade flight game, Top Gun is a decent choice. It's hell of a lot better than something like Airwolf (American OR Japanese version).

>>4060126
Hell, if it's good enough for James Rolfe's dad to play, it's good enough for me.