Windjammers (or Flying Power Disc in Japan) is a Sports Game developed by Data East in 1994 for use on the Neo Geo. It is a fast-paced game of frisbee, but with special moves and the ability to score goals, à la Pong or air hockey. It features six unique characters with equally unique abilities from many countries in the world to see who is the best of the best. Ever since Giant Bomb played it on their Extra Life 2013 livestream, the game has skyrocketed in popularity, leading to a re-release of the game by Dotemu on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2017, and Nintendo Switch the year after.
A sequel, Windjammers 2 was released by Dotemu for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox One on January 20, 2022.
This video game provides examples of:
- Casino Park: 2's Casino Court not only sports a glitzy light-up floor, but also a unique scoring system. While other courts have set point values for both goals and misses, Casino assigns the disc itself a random point value with each serve (ala slot machines) This ranges from as low as 1 point to as high as 10.
- Comeback Mechanic: The Stadium arena in 2 has a small red center goal line that expands when a player goes on a scoring streak, making it easier for the opponent to hit a five-point goal. Once the opponent scores any number of points, the red zone resets to its original size.
- Epic Fail: The characters throw the disc in the air before they use a special move. If they move too much, they'll fail to catch the disc and it will land on the ground. This is a "Miss", worth two points to the opponent, and the character responsible looks very embarrassed. A "Miss" can also happen if the character blocks a throw, but doesn't get under the disc in time after it rebounds.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Japanese title, Flying Power Disc, summarizes the game quite well without even needing to call it Windjammers.
- Mini-Game: There are two in between certain levels. Dog Distance has you play as a dog fetching a frisbee and Flying Disc Bowling is self-explanatory; for it is basically a game of bowling with a frisbee instead of a bowling ball.
- Scoring Points: Considering that this is a sports game, each player has three goal posts that vary in points, depending on the arena. By default, a match is first to two sets; each set is first to 12 points, or whoever is ahead after 99 seconds.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Through the BIOS menu, you can change the second Beginner level character. If you have it set to United Kingdom, you get Steve Miller. For the South Korea setting, it's Beeho Yoo. Although they look the same, they do have different voices.
