Air-Combat Games With Short Self-Contained Missions

The DOS original gives each flight a briefing and returns you to the carrier afterward. That makes an early sortie a sensible stopping point. How those sorties go can change the course of the campaign, so even a short trip can carry some weight when you come back aboard.

A planet or sector works as a compact chapter in the original Nintendo 64 game. Corneria even has an alternate objective. Keep Falco in action and follow him through the stone arches to see a different route open on the map. That first mission is a good reason to start a fresh run.

Finish the PlayStation 2 campaign to unlock Free Mission, then return to a single assignment by itself. Early sorties are good for a brief visit. Each has its own objective, and the score and rank give you a concrete reason to fly one again.

Pick a pilot and fly a scene in the original PlayStation 2 game. Its toy-like planes share the sky with outsized machines, and the tracking camera can keep one opponent in view while your own craft moves around it. Try another pilot to see how the same adventure changes its assignments.

Pick a cleared mission from the GameCube game's selection screen. The Battle of Hoth has its own start and finish, from flying a snowspeeder up to the AT-ATs to protecting the evacuation. You can return just for that scene, then pick a very different job on a later visit.

The original Xbox game divides its main story into ten episodes. Each ends with a results screen that includes a grade and a boss clear time, giving you a natural stopping point before the next chapter.

Sega's arcade game runs through a string of quick stages with visible breaks and branching paths. Reaching a fork gives you a different string of scenes to chase next time. It works well as a short arcade run from start to finish.

A Wii story mission begins with a briefing and ends with a grade. Once you can revisit it in Free Mission, pick an early assignment and see if you can improve the result. The game even draws the flight paths on a map afterward, making the ending of a sortie worth a look.

The 2017 full release gives you one island and an objective in each sortie. The island layout and assignments can change between runs. You get a small piece of a larger run at a time, with room to poke around before you move on to the next island.

On the original Xbox One release, Chronicles Mode tells its story during a series of side-scrolling sorties. The story moves between past and present, so each stage is another small piece of Natsuki's career. An optional display traces where enemy shots are headed and makes the busy screens easier to read.

Ash's campaign is broken into 30 individual missions. One flight might send you after rival aviators and another puts a giant robot on screen. Pick this when you want a fast game with a defined assignment and a clear point to stop before the next one.

The original Apple Arcade release strings together 12 compact fantasy stages. Princess Arch flies through changing scenery and fires homing arrows at the creatures ahead. Treat a run as a short arcade session, with each new backdrop marking the next leg of the flight.