Wild Blue Skies, a Switch game from Chuhai Labs, follows a team of four pilots recruited to stop an exiled engineer from taking over the world. A review by Nintendo Life describes the game as closely resembling Star Fox 64, from its cast and story beats to its on-rails shooting and all-range dogfights. The game was in development and announced before the Switch 2 remake of Star Fox was publicly known, the review notes.
Players take the role of Bowie, leading his team across seven stages toward villain Grimclaw’s base. Some levels include secret objectives that unlock branching routes, while others switch to open dogfighting arenas. The review says the controls, power-ups, level progression and objectives are also similar to Star Fox 64, with the Landmaster and Blue Marine among the elements absent.
The review criticises Wild Blue Skies for giving its characters little personality and says its dialogue and story lack the charm of their Nintendo counterparts. It also describes the campaign as short, at around two hours, and warns that losing all lives can mean restarting from the beginning. Teammates can sometimes obstruct the player, while the difficulty can be punishing.
A revised scoring system offers one notable difference. Alongside shooting enemies, players can earn points by completing four stage commendations: avoiding damage, defeating a boss quickly, keeping the whole squad alive and finding four hidden WILD letters. Each commendation adds 50 points, and the review says players will likely need to complete several to earn a stage medal. It adds that the system may encourage replaying the brief campaign, but also complicates an approach that already worked in Star Fox 64.
The review’s strongest praise is for the presentation. Wild Blue Skies uses a colourful, cel-shaded visual style, runs well on Switch 2 hardware despite being a Switch release, and features fully voiced dialogue and an animated opening cutscene.
Nintendo Life considers the game competent but too derivative to stand out, particularly for players who have already played Star Fox 64 or its remake. It notes that the original game is also available through Nintendo Switch Online, making Wild Blue Skies a difficult recommendation even for dedicated fans.
Sources: Nintendo Life.