Aero Fighters

"It'd be great except for one very major detail"

 
Before I go into the meat and potatoes of this review, let me just state that the reason for my mediocre rating of this game has a lot to do with a personal pet peeve — you may have a different opinion and feel that I am way off in that judgment. With shooters, different people look for different things and this game just happened to have one thing that I really hate.

What is that? Well, it is the method which the game utilizes to make it a very challenging seven-stage battle. While some games use narrow corridors with enemies looking to blast you out of the sky or by using a few tough bosses, etc., this game has a much more frustrating method.

To put it simply, as the game goes on, you will be confronted with far more enemy gunfire than you'll be able to hold off. While I don't consider myself to be a shooting-game prodigy with amazing reflexes, I don't consider myself to be a fumble-fingered novice --- but I felt like one here.

Whether it be trying to get through a gauntlet of battleships, all with multiple guns firing at you, while smaller boats and planes all were launching an all-out assault, too or traveling through outer space to get assaulted by a LOT of little guys who weren't shy about coming after you with a spread shot — you will realize that death isn't exactly avoidable in this game. You'll die and you'll die plenty of times. You'll spend as much time wondering how exactly you're supposed to dodge everything as you will celebrating victories.

And that is a shame -- because if you take that out of the equation, you have a wonderful game. With multiple characters you have a reason to play this game over. Each character has different-looking bullets and a different kind of mass-kill bomb attack. Also, the character you pick alters the order of which you go through some of the preliminary levels.

Speaking of the levels, there is great variety in them. You have a city, a desert, over a sea, outer space and more. They are all quite attractive, as are the enemies. It really is an attractive SNES game to look at.

Unfortunately, regardless of all the positives this game has to offer, they just don't have the opportunity to shine through because of the gameplay. You just don't notice nice overseas graphics so much when you're completely concentrated on just surviving for a moment last.

Anyway, onto the ratings.

Graphics/Sound --- 8. It is a very pretty game with well-designed levels. The music is sort of blah, but the frenetic action and quality sound effects really don't allow that to become an issue.

Gameplay/Challenge --- 4. On the normal difficulty, there were just too many projectiles flying around to make it an enjoyable experience (sort of what you'd expect on a ''hard'' or ''expert'' difficulty level, maybe). Yes, it is a very challenging game, but not in a good way.

Replay Value --- 7. With multiple ships to take, each with their own attacks, and multiple ways to go through the levels, you have plenty of reasons to pick this up. The only question is, after enduring some insane difficulty in getting through it the first time, will you want to do it again?

Overall --- 6. It's really sad that I have to give this game a mediocre rating because it has so many positive things to offer. Unfortunately, I just don't like games that feel that the way to produce difficulty is to put an insane amount of ammo on the screen — and that's what Aero Fighters does.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/19/03, Updated 12/07/03