"This is control tower, JT2610. 10 kilometers 'til touchdown, over."
"Roger."
"Roger."
The Landing series is a set of arcade flight simulation games by Taito. In each game, the main focus is on landing aircraft, usually passenger jets. Which, as part of the series being designed to simulate flight, is harder than it looks.
The series comprises the following games:
- Midnight Landing (1987) — The first in the series, it is very bare-bones compared to later entries in the series. The only graphics through the cockpit window are city and runway lights, thus simulating late-night landings. There are eight real-world airports to land at (see Trivia page for a list of airports), each one more difficult than the last due to increasingly stressful wind conditions.
- Top Landing (1988) — Featuring proper 3D graphics unlike Midnight Landing, Top Landing adds a take-off level, and six of the eight airports are new (Tokyo's and Osaka's airports are also featured in Midnight Landing). This time, the player may choose the eight airports in any order they wish. Weather conditions have been added as well; flights may take place in clear skies, cloudy skies, or during a rainstorm.
- Landing Gear (1996) — The Oddball in the Series, Landing Gear features a wider variety of aircraft to pilot than the other three games, such as light propeller planes, fighter jets, and even a Space Shuttle. It also uses a flight stick rather than a yoke, despite the game still including airliner flights.
- Landing High Japan (1999) — The last game in the series, and the most advanced of the four, Landing High Japan adds a smaller second screen that displays various instruments of the aircraft, a flaps button, and rudder pedals. Players can choose between beginner mode and operate only the yoke and rudder, or advanced mode to make full use of the game's features, and can pick from several different models of passenger jets. It is the only game to take place exclusively around airports in Japan.
After Landing High Japan, Taito would go on to produce the Jet de GO! Let's Go By Airliner Spiritual Successor series, which covers more aspects of a typical flight.
Compare Densha de Go!, another Taito series that simulates operating mass transit vehicles.
Examples:
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": In Landing High Japan, the loading screens, rather than saying some form of "Now Loading", instead display "Now boarding" (for the takeoff stage) and "Now on final approach" (for the landing stages).
- Creator Provincialism: Half of the airports in Midnight Landing and three of the eight airports in Top Landing are in Japan, more than any other country in either game (United States comes close in Top Landing, with two). Landing High Japan, as the title indicates, takes place exclusively in Japanese airspace.
- Critical Annoyance: In Top Landing in particular, your aircraft's warning system will repeatedly inform you "EMERGENCY, LEFT/RIGHT TURN, LEFT/RIGHT TURN," "DECREASE ALTITUDE, EMERGENCY, DECREASE ALTITUDE", or "EMERGENCY, PULL UP, PULL UP" until you get back on track.
- Hollywood Darkness: Midnight Landing averts this trope, with everything being pitch black save for the runway and city lights.
- Jump Scare:
- In Midnight Landing, the warning siren and voice-over when you are too high are very loud in contrast to the otherwise serene cabin sounds.
- In Top Landing, you get a simple voice-over and Losing Horns if you fail a landing via a Course Out or an Over Run, but if you outright crash the plane, you get a very jarring crashing sound with no voice or jingle. The voice-over navigation warnings from Midnight Landing are less jump-y this time since they lack the accompoanying siren and the background music that plays for the first minute of each stage keeps the voice-over from being an abrupt change in volume.
- Just Plane Wrong:
- Midnight Landing uses kilometers per hour for airspeed, rather than nautical miles per hour (knots) as mandated by most aviation regulation bodies.
- While the games try to balance playability and realism, one notably odd aspect about the games is that you can land your passenger jet with the nose down when in reality, jets land with the nose up and on the rear landing gear first. You will probably get docked points for bad ground contact, but you'll still land safely.
- Oddball in the Series: Landing Gear is the only game in the series where you fly something other than an airliner, and the only one to use a flight stick instead of a yoke. Most notably, you pilot a fighter jet in one stage, and a Space Shuttle in the last one!
- Product Placement: Landing High Japan uses Boeing aircraft with the All Nippon Airways livery.
- Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Hearing the flight attendant announce that the plane has landed is a sure-fire indicator that you've landed successfully. If you go too long on the runway without hearing her, expect to lose by "Course Out" or "Over Run" instead.
- Video Game 3D Leap: Top Landing is a presentation example, implementing 3D graphics into the series for the first time (in 1988, no less!). Midnight Landing in contrast has no polygons, with sprites of lights being the only indicators of depth.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for flying with JT2610. We have just landed at Tropeville International Airport. Please remain seated until the plane has come to a complete stop. Thank you!
