Lasers, Ribbons, and Robots, OH MY - An extensive review of Aaero

(Edit: Thanks for the feature peeps :ok_hand: )

(Please keep in mind this is my first review of any game so I have probably made some large mistakes. I will gladly take any constructive critism to help me improve with my reviews.)

:waning_crescent_moon: Introduction :waxing_crescent_moon:

Heyo, it's me, Contos

So I got Aaero a few days before New Year's and WOW, I just mean WOW.

So Aaero is, in all simplicity, a rythym game that is also a shoot em' up, and it does this BEAUTIFULLY!

Now being a fan of shoot em' ups and rythym games, I knew I was going to like this game, but it took my expectations and YEETED them straight out the window and into Disney World because this game was monumentously better than I expected.

I loved this game so much, I just had to make it more aware to the public, now then, let's get started.

:waning_crescent_moon: (×)/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\(×) :waxing_crescent_moon:

| Introduction |

| What is This Game? |

| Gameplay |

| Story |

| Graphics |

| Music |

| Challenge |

| Replayability |

| Enjoyability |

| Conclusion |

:waning_crescent_moon: (×)/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\(×) :waxing_crescent_moon:

We just got the intro out of the way so, I feel it would only make sense, to actually explain what this game is first.

:waning_crescent_moon: What is This Game? :waxing_crescent_moon:

So Aaero is a game made by the Mad Fellows, a 2 man, UK indie developer that consists of Paul Norris and Dan Horbury.

It goes for $14.99.

In basic summary, you, as one of 4 ships (they're just aesthetics), fly through the level, while trying to stay on a track and shoot robots throughout, while also jamming out to Dubstep and Electric Dance Music (EDM). Now the rythym aspect is very simple yet perfectly executed to where you stay on a circular track that's constently moving. The shoot 'em up aspect of it is very unique and interesting as you don't just spam the FIRE button until you hit something, it actually makes you think because you have to lock on to targets and then fire with things such as timing and counting coming into play.

Like I previously stated, the music is yes, Dubstep and EDM, some people will be turned off by this saying how it's not 2012 anymore or something and I get it, but just listen to this.

And it sounds even better during gameplay.

Speaking of which.

(Wow, I was actually able to make a good segway.)

:waning_crescent_moon: Gameplay :waxing_crescent_moon:

So Aaero's gameplay is truly easy to learn, hard to master. Now both aspects of rythym and shooter intervene with each other pretty well so it's difficult to talk about one aspect without touching on the other, but I'll try my best not to.

(Also this will be divided into 3 sections)

~ Part 1. Rythym ~

Lets talk about the Rythym part of it first, as that's what the game focuses on much more. So your flying is automatic, your ship is just zooming along this 3D tunnel of sorts while you use the left joy-stick to stick to sides of the tunnel, you hold up on the joy-stick, you stick to the top of the tunnel, and vise versa for all other degrees of the tunnel (wait do circles have degrees).

Anyway, this tunnel will have a "ribbon" going along the edge, but never between the center and the edge, the ribbon will always be on the outer-most edge. Now by keeping your ship on the line is how you do good at the game. If your ship is off the ribbon then the music's volume will become much quieter, almost to the point to where it's mute, and you will slowly lose your combo meter (more on that later) if you are not on a ribbon while one is present.

~ Part 2. Shmup ~

Now lets talk about how the shmup gameplay works. By moving the right joy-stick around, you will move a cursor around that, when hovering over an enemy, will lock onto said enemy, and pressing ZR will fire. Now the cursor can lock-on up to 8 targets at once. Now you might be thinking it's limited to one lock-on per target, oh no. Actually, you can put all 8 lock-on's onto one enemy, this is really good for quickly dealing damage as it lock-on's extremely fast.

Now one very important aspect of the Shmup aspect is how the lazers work. You see, when a lazer is fired, it will fire to where it will sync up with the music. If you press ZR right as the beat hits, then the lazer will hit the enemy frame 1. If you press ZR between these beats, then it will fly along making an arch shape until it hits the enemy in sync with the beat. This can be important, especially when dealing with the homing rocket enemies, locking onto the rockets and getting rid of them ASAP is important.

~ Part 3. Flow of Levels ~

So, earlier when I said, when a ribbon is present, you may be asking what that means, well you see. During levels, there will be intervals when there is no track, the game simply focuses on the shoot 'em up, now this usually happens during the beginning, middle, and end of the level. This helps create a very easy approach to the game as people only really need to practice the "chorus" (most commonly repeating part of the song) of the song with the rythym aspect. The levels have this common formula of Shmup, Rythym, Shmup, Rythym, Shmup (Rare to have a Shmup at the end but it still occurs in a few levels).

(Now of course you don't ONLY practice the chorus, it's just that's what you'll become familiar with quickly.)

. . .

So next, lets talk about the other main part of any game, the story.

:waning_crescent_moon: Story :waxing_crescent_moon:

Now the game doesn't have much to offer on this sadly. The backgrounds and levels could definitly be formed into some kind of post-apocalyptic, last hope of humanity kind of story, but the game has not a single bit of exposition, you're greeted with the menu, then you play the game.

Is this necessarily a bad thing, no. I do wish that it had at least some image, comic book like cutscenes but the game's fine without it.

:waning_crescent_moon: Graphics :waxing_crescent_moon:

First of all let me say Aaero's graphics are AMAZING! It's polygonical with lots of cool colors with a simple shine that is very pleasing to look at it. There are no textures, just shapes and effects, such as the yellow glow from a ship's thrusters, or the red glare from a robots eye.

All in all, the graphics are simple but satisfactory. Now the menu screen, is a thing of pure beauty. A few simplistic white rocks spiking out of water with reflective plates floating by, and just let me tell you, it's just :ok_hand: .

While playing the game, you'll go through three worlds (or 4 if you count the second DLC levels). You'll go through a abondended desert, a ruined city, and an ocean (and a weird sky futuristic city). All of these places are made perfectly and beautifully. The desert feels sad, the city makes you scared, and the ocean is tranquil. Every aspect of it is made to deepen a feeling that something has happened here.

:waning_crescent_moon: Music :waxing_crescent_moon:

Well I mean, what would a Rythym game be without some music. Now like stated earlier, the music is mostly dubstep and EDM. And something I feel I should go ahead and point out is that all the songs in the game are LICENCED, which means they are all official, real band made songs. So you know these songs are gonna be quality. (Well like Ill Still exists but we just ignore that)

Now if you like dubstep, you're going to love Aaero, if you don't like dubstep, you're still probably going to really like Aaero. The music is all around amazing and I have found myself jamming out to it just in general (on YouTube of course). The songs are just amazing, the bass and treble of it along with the over-all dope feeling of it truly fits the theme of the game.

:waning_crescent_moon: Challenge :waxing_crescent_moon:

Let me tell you, this game ain't for no, "Mom! Roger won't let me Falcon Punch hiiiiim" kids. This game, while the first two levels offer a fairly enjoyable/simple experience, the rest really ramp it up. I wouldn't call it a difficulty spike as I was able to get past every level on at least my sixth try (except for habby 9000 that took me a while). Be aware though cause Aaero can offer a very pleasing challenge once in a while that could take a few restarts to get past, the levels are layed out to where you will get used to the layout very fast and adapting quickly is needed in some cases as things will take you by sudden surprise your first playthrough of a level.

Now the game starts out with access to 2 difficulty modes, Chillout and Normal. Chillout is very appropriately named as you have infinite lives and every level is unlocked from the get-go. Level wise I don't believe there is any differences besides the enemy taking longer to fire. So this mode is good for trying to practice a level or just wanting to enjoy the song.

Now let's move onto Normal mode. Still appropriately named, normal mode is well, normal. The enemies and track feel fine tuned to an average player's skill. With being able to get hit 3 times before you die, and only needing to do average on a level to unlock the next one, normal mode is fairly balanced and can offer a fun time for someone seeking playing the game while still putting in work.

Now there are 2 difficulty modes after this, Advanced and Master. Advanced unlocks after you have gotten 75 white stars (more on that later) on Normal mode and it really does ramp up the difficulty. With the track being more challengingly placed such as on the opposite side of the ribbon that you were on, and the robots fire a little faster. Now with Master mode, things REALLY become difficult. You need to unlock 75 black stars (more on that later) from Advanced mode to unlock Master mode. Master mode makes the enemies fire fast and ferociously with the track zooming all around the place. It's name fits and watching perfect gameplay of it leaves me in shock.

"Why would I want to play through these levels so many times," you probably aren't asking, well, let me tell you why.

:waning_crescent_moon: Replayability :waxing_crescent_moon:

The small level count is completely made up through the insane amount of replayability for each level. Each level has 5 factors after you beat the level that tell you how good you did, and these are

Targets Hit

Enemies Killed

Track Consistency

1 out of 5 Rating

Overall High Score

Each one of these factors can keep someone coming back to a level over and over again, but let me explain what each one means first.

* Throughout the level, there will be red dots known as targets that you can shoot. They usually take 1-3 lock-ons to destroy and there are usually 4-6 targets in every level. They really work as nothing more than a collectible and a high score booster, bit they're still fun to get.

* There are a set amount of robots you'll come across in each level, with it increasing depending on what difficulty you're on.

* At the end of a level, you are presented with a percentage that basically means how accurate were you with being on the track, for example, if it's 65% then you were connected to the track for 65% of it, and 35% percent of the time it was there, you were not on it. Now as far as I know, it is impossible to get a 100% consistency without some form of TAS. Even the pro players of Aaero will only get around 92-98% consistency.

* So you those white and black stars I mentioned earlier, well that's what these are. In normal mode, after you complete a level, you'll get 1 to 5 white stars depending on how good you did, and you need to have a certain amount of stars to unlock the next level. Works the same way in the other difficulty modes, in chill out you get, um, crackers I don't know. In advanced you get black stars and in master mode you get black and white stars.

* Now of course Aaero's replayability is very arcade-like, so what would it be without a high score.

Now that combo meter I mentioned earlier, well let me explain that. In the upper left UI, there will be a bar that fills up while you are on the ribbon, and it will decrease while up are off the ribbon. Every time it fills up, it acts as a high score modifier and whenever you lose 2 (I think) of these bars, you will lose a life. Losing a life acts as a BIG high score decreaser, so you don't want that happening.

Now there is one replayability factor that matters more than any other of these, and that is

FUN

:waning_crescent_moon: Enjoyability :waxing_crescent_moon:

Aaero is super fun just to play the levels over and over again. The levels are super fluid and flow extremely well. Everything feels good to do and the core gameplay is so joyous that even if the graphics were trash, it'd still be super fun to play.

:waning_crescent_moon: Conclusion :waxing_crescent_moon:

*Inhale* *Exhale*

Okay wow I did not mean to write so much about this game but I just loved it so much I just kept writing and writing.

So overall, what do I give this. Well I'm going to use the Dunkey rating scale, if you know what that is good, if you don't, basically a 3/5 means this is a quality game that is worth you buying, anything below is bad/terrible and anything above is amazing/MASTAPEECE. So without further ado, I give Aaero a . . .

4/5

It truly is a phenomenal game that deserves more attention on the Switch, though it does fall short is some areas, it exceeds everywhere else.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, I know I had a ton of fun writing it so without further ado, bye.

:key: ~ Contos