Went through all the characters in Sonic Wings 3, just trying them out to see which one would be fun/efficient to play…as per Sonic Wings standards, Kowful The Viking is a mad powerhouse. He’s slow, but is powerful enough to destroy bosses way faster than other character, in some cases I’d say the difference is as much as a minute or more. After taking all the characters out for a drive I played a few more games with Kowful and whoopsie-daisy, cleared the first loop already. That makes it the third game along with Sonic Wings and Sonic Wings Special where I’ve cleared the first loop with Kowful. Though to be fair, I chanced upon a really easy final boss…most of his (her? I’m not even sure what it was) shots were destructable. There’s at least three final bosses I’ve seen now.

And as per usual Video System/Psikyo standards, I can’t do shit in the second loop. Couldn’t even pass the first stage. In the first loop the first boss is, as expected, really easy. It’s a huge, slow tank and you can even park yourself over it for its first form and you’re completely safe. But in the second loop…whooboy. It’s no longer a huge tank. It’s the size of a normal popcorn-enemy tank, only about five times as fast and it goes in and out of the screen, popping up at different places (though there’s a pattern to it) while shooting volleys of fast aimed shots at you.

Plainly put, it’s absolutely the worst kind of pairing for Kowful’s slow ship with its firepower concentrated tightly in front of the ship. I’m thinking this might actually be a clever plan by the developers – make Kowful very strong so that most anybody can beat the first loop with him easily, but make him so much more difficult to use in the second loop, which’ll force the players looking for the 2-ALL to not only learn another ship, but the entire first loop properly.

With that mind, I’ve started playing with Malcolm, who is also fairly strong but much faster and has homing shots as well. After many runs I’ve made it to first loop’s last stage once, where I died due to not realizing the bomb has a brief period of maybe a second or two after it disappears when it can’t be used. A refractory period, if you will.

Just now I was having much trouble with Malcolm (I kept getting stages which he’s not that good for) so I played a run as Kowful. Cleared the first loop again, this time with two lives remaining. Lost them both to the Speedy Gonzales tank.