Aero The Acro-Bat

"Perhaps the most overlooked platform game of all time."

In the winter of 1993, Sunsoft created Aero the Acro Bat; another hero in a very big trend of platform mascots that year (Bubsy, Sparkster, Plok, etc.).
And it's one birthday present I'll never forget.

The circus has begun, and the agile Aero the Acro Bat is the star attraction. He amazes the crowd with his every move. Unfortunately, an evil industrialist (that's ironically dressed as a clown!) named Edger Ektor and his right hand squirrel Zero sabotaged the circus by loading it with traps and miscreants dressed as clowns and other circus regulars. Edger hopes to get Aero assassinated then waste the circus so he can build more power plants and things.
Thus, the battle begins.

Here's another problem; Aero doesn't want the crowd to know that he's in a battle, because they may get scared away and evacuate the circus. Thereby Aero has to keep them occupied by jumping through hoops and such while still keeping his opponents busy without making it look like it's a real fight! But it's not as hard as it sounds.

Aero has a ton of moves at his disposal: the most basic attack is the drill; a move that shifts him about two inches done simply by pressing the jump button a second time while you're in the air. You can drill in four different directions, but never straight. It pummels enemies, but can also be used to help move you to higher/further places.

Secondly, he can throw stars at enemies. They damage as much as two drill attacks, and move about as fast as a Mega Man pellet. However, you don't have an unlimited supply- you have to collect them like how Mario collects coins (only they're nowhere near as abundant).

Third, he can look around himself in any direction, which is quite useful since they're so many secrets.

But there are also quite a few levels where the controls are different when Aero's riding something.

There are also the wings; an item that allows you to fly anywhere you want (like a bat's SUPPOSED to!) for about five seconds. Every time it's around, that means that there's a secret nearby.

Last but SO least, he has another version of flying- the hover; a rather worthless move where you press a button to make him flap his wings and float still for 2 seconds. I never found any use for it myself, other than giving you a couple of exrta seconds to look at what's about to kill you (spikes, lava, etcetera).

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 9+

Aero has FAR more moves than your average mascot. He's not just another animal hero that does that vicarious ''jump on enemies and collect 100 coins/boxes/rings/whatever'' thing. The gameplay is far from straightforward since the levels make you backtrack, elevate and lower so much. Despite all that, it never becomes an outright maze (except for one level).

The control is on point and most of your moves are useful for a large amount of levels.

GRAPHICS: 9+

The surroundings set a perfect atmosphere for the game. On the circus levels you see everything you should; the purple floors, the large crowd, and even the padded multi-color walls!
The Funpark levels are just as accurate and detailed with clouds above mountains above trees that all scoll as you move, albeit the same background keeps passing.
Things don't look bad in the foreground either; everything looks good, even the very grass/floor you walk on is finely detailed and vivid.

As for the characters, Aero isn't a stigma or a panacea to Sunsoft- in other words, he's just there.
He has a weird costume with a red half mask (that lets you see his bat face from the nose to the ne- well, if he had a neck). His jacket and shoes are also red. With his suit and hair being black. Trust me, he's not (quite) as stupid as he sounds.
He's just a BAT-MAN fighting an EVIL CLOWN. Sound familiar?

But the enemies can be a little too silly sometimes.

SOUND: 7+

There's only one voice in the game- that amusing albeit annoying ''YEEEEEUUUOOCCHHHH!'' sound Aero makes whenever you lose a life.

The game could use a bit of improvement in the sound department. The item collecting sounds can be rather irritating sometimes.
The drilling sound is middle-of-the-road, provided you don't hit anyone. They sound cooler to kids than anyone else- I got the game when I just turned 10 and I kinda liked them at that time.
But I'm very pleased that there is no jumping sound, jumping sounds and mascots DON'T MIX! Just ask that hedgehog.
None of the sounds are bad to the point of game-altering. Mainly because it gets drowned out by the..........

MUSIC: 10!

Even more atmospheric than the sound! The game plays a few classic circus tunes and a lot of originals.

Most of the music sounds like it was done on a monster movie piano (like on the first level of Castlevania 4), only a LOT less morbid. A few other parts of the game are done on a very watered-down electric guitar, as if it came from a children's keyboard. Some is upbeat and some is slow.
The bottom line is this; the music is absolutely (trust me, you'll never hear me say this word again) delightful! I mean, some of it is so- happy that it can make you feel all warm and- you know what I mean, especially on level 2 parts 1 and 4.
While other times the music can be kind of exciting (like on the riding levels) or even scary sometimes- but in a cute sort of way if you know what I mean (?!).

You'll interpit the music in one of two ways: very charming or very silly.

And on that note, I urge that you DON'T buy the Genesis version unless you don't have an SNES, because the ruined music hurts the overall feel of the game.

LEVEL DESIGN: 10+!

The place where the game shines the most.
You go from a circus to an funpark to the woods to the evil Edger Ector's hideout.
Now, you might be saying ''only four levels? That game's too short!'', but each level has four to six sub-levels in it!

Almost every level Aero is doing something new since most of them have different goals.
On one level the goal is to jump through 25 magic hoops scattered throughout the level, while another has you find a key to open a cage holding Aerial the Acro Batess (she serves no purpose from there), and a couple just have you riding a one-cart roller coaster where you duck high obsticales and jump the low ones (HOW you can jump in a roller coaster is beyond me). There's even a dark level where you can only see a spotlight on Aero until you find and turn on the lights.
There's also a cool bonus level where you bungee jump through a bunch of loops on a top-view level using mode 7 effects.

You fight some pretty weird normal enemies; although most of them are big clowns and small clowns, you later fight parachuting clowns, ghosts, and evil elephant ballerinas.

The bosses are somewhat fun; you fight some twins on stilts that juggle torches and unpredictibly toss them at you, and a clown head robot operated by Zero that cries deadly tears (?!) at you.
For some reason, the third level has no boss, but I really wish it did, because three just isn't enough.
However, the last boss of this game is one of my favorite bosses of all time. I'm not going to spoil it, but I will say that he's as much of a level as a boss!

CHALLENGE: 8

The game has no difficultly settings, and there's no way to really change how hard or easy it is. But it's at a very perfect difficulty for intermediate players, and it will take them about five full tries to beat the game.

Another problem: some of the early levels are FAR harder than some of the last ones! In fact, level 1 part 5 (the dark stage) is perhaps the hardest level on the game! And if you lose all of your lives there, you start aaalllll the way back to level 1 part 1! And trust me, that will happen a lot!
Four of the five riding levels give you fair warning of obsticales, but that barrel riding level is a real pain in the neck.......... If he had a neck.
There are extra lives all over the place, but they are so hard to get that only experts can catch them- thereby adding to the problem on BOTH sides!
But you feel pretty rewarded once you beat the game because of the cool and amusing ending. I won't tell you what happens, but it VERY cleaverly follows up to Aero 2!

REPLAY VALUE: 7

The game has a lot of secrets, but none of them alter the course of the game.
After you beat the game (I said AFTER you cheaters!), you can play with the cool codes a bit, but using them before you fairly beat it will really suck some of the fun out of it.
This is not the type of game you'll want to finish over and over again, but you'll want to do it about once every two years.

OVERVIEW II

YES! This is probably the most unique platform game ever made. The constant changes in the gameplay will keep all platform game fans hooked.
The circus themed music, graphics and level design compliment the game a lot.

NO! The uneven difficulty and lack of bosses.

SAY WHAT? This game was made in the 93/94 era when Sunsoft cheat-proofed ALL of their games from the Game Genie so people would have to wait for THEIR codes.
However, they caught so mach flack from it that all their games were compatible with the Game Genie by the time Aero 2 hit the stores in mid 95!

Edgar's #1 henchman, Zero got his own game a year later in Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel.
I really didn't expect him to have a game, since he hardly lifted a muscle on this one!

OVERALL: 9+

Truly an underrated game. You just can't beat it in it's uniqueness with another platform game!
This game has it's share of rough spots, but there's not one that really takes away from the game.

If you can overlook the cuteness (which I know you can if you're a Mario or Sonic fan), go out and BUY THIS CHEAP GAME NOW!!!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/21/00, Updated 09/21/00