Kaze no Notam was developed by Artdink and released for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. Artdink has been around for decades and was primarily known their train simulator games, but in recent years has developing RPGs like Soul Hackers 2, DQIII HD-2D, Triangle Strategy, and licensed anime games.
Oh heck yeah! April is a good month to fly hot air balloons. I’ve only played this for about an hour and let me tell you: getting a hot air balloon to go anywhere you want it to is very difficult.
Good excuse to try the new fan translation. I don’t know much about the development of Kaze no NOTAM, but I highly suspect it never would’ve been conceived if not for Aquanaut’s Holiday before it. I’ve always seen it as the studio trying their hands on a Kazutoshi Iida game without his involvement. In this sense, Kaze no NOTAM feels more like a proper Aquanaut’s Holiday sequel than even Aquanaut’s Holiday 2 or Hidden Memories!
This game is tough!! Dark Souls is nothing compared to flying a hot air balloon. They really don’t indicate how to properly steer and it seems like different elevations can really send you flying in the opposite direction if you aren’t deliberate about your vertical movement.
I found this guide on GameFAQs that translates the manual:
Hot air balloon flight
Rising/lowering
The hot air balloon will rise when you press the △ button, and descend when you press the × button. However, due to their nature, hot air balloons cannot rise or fall immediately.
Movement
To move your hot air balloon in the direction you want to go, align your hot air balloon with the altitude where the wind is blowing in the same direction.
Markers
Press the R1 button to go to the marker firing screen. Aim with the sight in the center of the screen and press circle to fire the marker. To return to the original screen, press the R1 button again.
The overall atmosphere* is great though, I’m loving the music and the “past” setting in Draft Valley. Excited to see how Artdink modeled the present day in “Windy City” and what they predicted the future would look like in “Breezy Earth”.
i tried my hardest to find an eboot file of this to play on vita. i was able to find a “normal” dump of the bin/cue files, but the only program i could find to convert that to eboot was windows only.
this is to say i will sadly sit this month out, but it looks really fun!
I tried yesterday to make an eboot with that software but when I went to transfer it to my Vita Windows blue-screened lmao. So I will not be sharing the file here because it is Cursed