Review: Aero the Acro-Bat 2
Season of Aero, boys. You know the drill.
Yes, that's right, I'm going to try and review all the Aero the Acro-Bat re-issues. Why? Because he bloody blinkin' bleedin' deserves it, that's why. That poor maligned bat has somehow become something of the face of substandard platforming, and I won't have it. At least two of the games in the series are pretty damn good, and none of them are actively substandard... just, you know. Standard. And there's nothing wrong with that. Apart from the stuff which is wrong with that, which I will proceed to detail. This review's going really well so far, isn't it? Like I'm in Edge or something. If only you could talk to the Acro-Bats.
So, yes, Aero 2 is here to slap you all in the face with its enormous platforming todger, and first impressions are reasonably good. The control has certainly improved from the original version of Aero 1, with everything feeling generally more fluid and less stiff. Aero's drill attack is no longer directional based on whether he's moving up or down - it's now always upward unless you specifically tell him otherwise, which feels far better and less frustrating. The opening stage is The Belfry, meaning you can quite literally be a bat in the belfry. Fantastic. And it's as stuffed with secrets as the original; there are so many false walls that I found myself wondering how this place could possibly even remain standing, such is its hollow-ry. It's a fun, knockabout little jumparama with a likeable main character, new mechanics including a powerful downward corkscrew and hidden "Chance" rooms that give you an opportunity to grab a 1-Up from a specially made little course with a course - they reminded me of the bonus barrels from Donkey Kong Country, but there's a degree of ennui in the notion of offering a 1-Up as a prize in a game absolutely festooned with them, farting them into your face for almost nothing at times. Check the walls, remember?
But then you finish the first level and realise you're playing the world's slowest shell game. I mean that quite literally. You see three cups, two of which contain items, then a menacing clown appears, intones "welcome" and begins to shuffle them with all the haste of a slug in a K-hole. My god, it takes ages. And it seemed to happen after every level! I'm not sure what triggered it, but at the time I was grateful for the inclusion of a Fast-Forward command on the ZR trigger. But... it didn't seem to make it much faster in the slightest. If anything it sort of seemed to make it slower. Goodness knows what happened there, but it's just the beginning of a fairly significant dip in gameplay that sours the Aero 2 experience.
See, after a few fun levels in The Belfry, you're chucked into the Boardin' stage, wherein Aero decides to copy Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and go snowboarding. For the rest of his life, seemingly, as you'll clear each auto-scrolling stage only to find yet another "act" of the Boardin' stage begins. There was a bonus level in the original Aero which had you riding the world's slowest rollercoaster, and the developers had the good sense to make it brief and quite easy. Not so with Boardin'. I got Board with it before the end of the first act. You can have that one for free, mate.
Thankfully, following Boardin', the game goes back to doing what it does decently, which is normal platforming. And it stays that way, thankfully, though the environments take a bit of a downturn once you clear the bizarre Zool-esque music-based stage, with a dreary factory followed by a dreary castle, lacking the colour and variety of the first game. It's all fine, but it just isn't quite as enjoyable or carefully designed as Aero 1. It is certainly more focused (after Boardin', natch), with none of the "Jump On 15 Star Platforms" type stuff you may remember from its predecessor, but there's something a little muted about the whole experience - it's quite dark, quite dingy, a tiny little bit depressing. Nonetheless, it remains a fairly entertaining platformer that was never really going to compete with the Marios and Sonics of this world.
The emulation package is the same, with all the "quality of life" you could ask for. You can cheat however you want. Which, again, I wouldn't normally advocate, but that Boardin' stage... woof. You also get some concept art and the manual, which is nice, but nothing to write home about. Which is the best way to describe Aero 2, really. You'll play it, and if you're a giving person like me you'll go "yeah, this is alright". It lacks Aero 1's unique circus theme (well, OK, Robocod did it too) but it has definitely been improved under the hood and handles much better. And with the ending setting up spin-off Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, we have that and the fantastic GBA remake of Aero 1 on the way to save us. Give it a try, you might like it. I did. But not a lot, you know? Not a lot.
