Freefall '95 Review
S-Bend Games’ roguelite Freefall ’95 combines arcade score chasing and extreme sports trick combos inside an endearingly absurd concept.
Freefall ’95. Credit: S-Bend Games
The premise of S-Bend Games’ Freefall ’95 is delightfully absurd: hurtle thousands of feet toward Earth after a catastrophic plane disaster while dodging debris and chasing high combo scores by chaining tricks. Then die and wake up right back on the plane.
The immediate comparison point is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Every run asks you to maintain momentum and build combo chains of tricks as you weave through falling wreckage, grab pickups, and try not to slam directly into pieces of flaming aircraft. The faster everything moves, the better Freefall ’95 feels. I especially loved interacting with the debris itself: ride it, break it, kick off it. There’s a real sense of flow once you start stringing together long combos, and chasing higher scores quickly becomes addictive.
Between runs, you spend time aboard the plane talking to passengers, taking on sidequests, and buying upgrades. This is a roguelite, after all. New mechanics, upgrades, and challenges start opening up quickly.
Freefall ’95. Credit: S-Bend Games
Freefall ’95 demands a lot from you. Maintaining combos while dodging debris, watching for quest objectives, and simply staying alive becomes overwhelming fast. The game moves at such a frantic pace and there’s so much going on that I occasionally struggled to read what was happening onscreen, even though the vibrant ‘90s-inspired pixel art looks fantastic. The skill ceiling is high enough that I suspect some players will bounce off long before reaching that mastery curve.
The game’s sheer silliness and fantastic playfeel kept me hooked. The concept is genuinely original, and the score chasing has that magnetic, old-school arcade pull that reminded me of losing entire nights to Tony Hawk back in the PS1 days. Freefall ’95 won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoy chasing scores in difficult to master arcade games, this is an easy one to recommend.
Freefall ’95
Freefall ’95 pairs fantastic movement and clever arcade design with a punishing difficulty curve that demands players fully commit to mastering it.
