Carrier Landing in Top Gun for the NES
38 comments
·December 15, 2025jjice
Classically featured on the Angry Video Game Nerd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZTUX1bwJ0
debo_
I never had much trouble landing on the carrier, but refueling in the sky? I think I only managed it a few times.
palmotea
> 1398 mi/h
Isn't that something like Mach 1.8? That's one fast tanker.
ceejayoz
There is a F/A-18 tanker variant, at least.
But you don't do the refueling at those speeds, heh.
phantasmish
My recollection is that if you missed it you kept playing but were doomed to crash maybe 30 seconds later from low fuel. Talk about punishing.
ghc
I never played Top Gun, but I did grow up playing "Turn and Burn: No Fly Zone" for the SNES. All these years later, it's still amazing to me how much the graphics improved from one console generation to the next. I don't remember any other console transition being so consequential from a graphics perspective.
jrjeksjd8d
Super Mario 64 was an N64 launch title. Resident Evil 4 was a late Gamecube title. In my mind that's probably the biggest gap in graphical fidelity between generations of console. But I can see how going from NES games like Super Mario Bros to SNES games like Star Fox would be a close contender.
PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3 or Xbox -> 360 feel more iterative because they started after the 3D era had already begun. We haven't had a new dominant paradigm for gaming since then (besides mobile gaming).
thm
I'd make that (non-Super) Mario Bros. -> SM RPG with the SA-1 Chip
burnte
It took me months of play as a kid to finally land on that carrier. I felt like a Maverick himself when I finally landed it.
ethagknight
The mission accomplished regardless of crash or land is hilarious
ceejayoz
Very prescient, too!
pikkoloassembly
Oh god the trauma this brought back.
pak9rabid
Damn, that was a walk down memory lane.
rob74
> After about a minute of flying the game checks your state and plays a little cutscene showing either a textbook landing or an expensive fireball. Either way, you get a “Mission Accomplished!” and go to the next level (after all, you don’t own that plane, the taxpayers do):
For realism's (and comedy's) sake, they could have shown a pixel ejecting from the five (I think) pixels that form the jet before it explodes into a fireball, then floating down on a tiny parachute and being rescued by a tiny boat.
...but seriously, you didn't even get your score reduced for crashing the plane on landing?
Boxxed
> ...but seriously, you didn't even get your score reduced for crashing the plane on landing?
Well, you don't get the 10,000 bonus points
bitwize
In the "bad ending" to Rocket Knight Adventures (complete the game on Easy or lower), you actually see Sparkster leave the Pig Star's crashing escape pod as a pixel, then there's a little sneezing sound as a tiny parachute deploys. It's kind of disappointing, but then to see a real ending you're supposed to beat the game on a higher difficulty.
pavel_lishin
If I remember correctly, this game was very briefly featured on the Dungeons & Daddies podcast in the most recent season.
Scene_Cast2
If you're into carrier landings and have a VR headset, I highly recommend checking out VTOL VR.
symmetricsaurus
Don't think there was ever a Top Gun for Virtual Boy.
thinkingtoilet
I remember this being next to impossible as a kid. The whole game was tough, but this was on another level.
phantasmish
My grandpa’s greatest gaming achievement was beating Top Gun: The Second Mission on the NES, in the ‘90s. Perhaps his training as a B-17 tail gunner gave him an advantage, lol (he never fought, war ended after he finished training but before he saw a combat sortie). He was better at the game than any of his grandkids, hahaha.
(I’m pretty sure it was the second mission, it was the one with the space shuttle launch or whatever at the end)
Reminds me a bit of the game Retaliator, when I was 12 a class mate earned himself a night of "pick your own time to go to bed at camp" because he could show the teacher how to land. [0, the landing is at the very end]. I think at the time nobody knew what key to hit to deploy the landing gear (and flaps, though I think you could land without flaps). And since it was all copied stuff there was no book, no internet...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYwcrxbhiLs