Aero Fighter 2 Game Review for Neo Geo CD

First off, this game is also known by the name Sonic Wings 2 in Japan. Why the name was changed I have no idea, as I personally think that Sonic Wings is a cooler name for the series, but anyways.

The Neo Geo CD was released in 1994 by SNK in response to claims that their Neo Geo system, and the games for it, were too overpriced for consumers/gamers to afford. SNK unfortunately released a system that ran on a single speed drive, therefore creating longer than usual load times for the games, sometimes verging on making the games unplayable. They tried to correct this problem with the release of the NGCD’s dual-speed successor, the Neo Geo CDZ in 1996. Unfortunately the NGCDZ was plagued by some hardware issues relating to overheating problems and the like, and both systems never really took off, despite the incredible library of games for them. For more information on the NGCD/NGCDZ systems, please see Boris (Takumaji) Lorenz’s wonderful NGCD FAQ.

Loading: 9.5
Aero Fighters 2 is fantastic in this department. The initial load is a bit on the long side at almost a minute, but after that it’s smooth sailing. The game loads before each new stage, but the load is probably only about 5-7 seconds or so, nothing you will even notice. Go to the bathroom or grab a drink while the NGCD is booting the game up and you will be just fine.

Graphics: 5.5
While the game is old (1994 to be exact), it looks about on par for its time. The backgrounds are composed mostly of buildings and water, with some other niceties such as cars, trees, and other various novelties depending on the stage. The backgrounds interact with the game play a bit in each stage, but nothing amazing here. Sometimes you can destroy buildings or other background obstacles to reveal bonuses for extra points, or to clear a path that the obstacle was blocking. Sometimes the obstacles become a part of the game by attacking your ship or impeding its progress.

The ships that you can choose from are nothing spectacular, most of the time looking somewhat like miniature representations of the planes that they are supposed to be modeled after. Bullet patterns and explosions look much like most standard shmup fare of the time, never becoming too complex or colorful.

Bosses range from excellent, to uninspired and boring. The stage one boss in particular is misleading in its presence. When I first played this title years ago, I got to this boss and figured that all of the bosses in the game would look this great, I was, of course, disappointed later on. Most of the other stage bosses are the standard planes or ships that you find in a lot of games in this genre. They do not look bad by any means, but they are forgettable for the most part, as you have probably seen them before, or something very much like them. The enemies also fall into this category unfortunately. There is a fairly wide range of enemies (tanks, planes, large planes, orbs, boats, subs, etc.), but none of them are particularly eye-catching.

The use of color overall is decent enough, but the very effective use of shadows and darker elements really help out here in the graphics department. While the colors sometimes look washed out and plain, the shadowing almost always complements the action well. Helps with being able to read the bullet patterns for me personally.

Sound: 8.0
Some really great sound here in Aero Fighters 2 I think! The music is mostly very calm and atmospheric, verging on the minimal side sometimes, but never quite silent enough to get there completely. The music is actually what has kept me playing this game for the past however many years. While there are other shmups that are more fun to play, I find this to be one of my favorite soundtracks present in an older game in the genre. While it may not be as appealing to everyone else as it is to me, I do think that most gamers would at least find this soundtrack to be listenable.

The sound effects are not as memorable as the music, but they are not too bad either. Explosions are pretty much the only non-musical sounds in the game, and they work just fine the way that they are.

Game Play: 7.5
Have you ever played a shooter before? Then you know what to expect here. Pretty much the standard format that you would expect from a vertical shmup. You start out each stage at the “bottom”, and fight your way to the “top” as you move around the screen while it scrolls downwards. Enemies approach in patterns while releasing bullets that come in various forms and patterns at your ship, avoid the bullets and destroy the enemies. Each stage culminates in a boss fight with the stage boss. After a couple of the stages there is a bonus round where you destroy massive amounts of missiles/enemies coming at you and earn power ups and points, these can be helpful for the next stage of course.

Unlike other shmups of its era, Aero Fighters 2 actually has a fairly large amount of ships that you can choose from. There are eight total, and each one of them has different abilities as far as speed, shot pattern, missiles, and other attributes are concerned. Some have orbs that roam around the screen that serve to destroy enemies and protect your ship, one has stars that shoot out from your ship for extra firepower, and all of the other ships have something similar in their arsenal.

Each ship has a different pilot that is depicted in the character select screen and on the world map between stages. There is a story in Aero Fighters 2 as well, but as in most shooters, it is unimportant to the game.

There are a few different levels of difficulty in this game, ranging from very easy to very hard. I play on “normal” myself, and find the game to be fairly challenging. I’m not that great at shmups in general, but I can finish the game with the use of a few continues. The stages are very short, and you can continue when you die during them, there are ten total. As with most games in this genre there are two loops that you must complete to see the true endings for the game, but that is above my skill level, especially considering how quickly the enemies bullets travel. If you are the type of person who plays to 1cc games, then maybe you can get the “real” endings? The second loop is killer, for me at least. You have three ships per continue, and start out with two bombs per ship. During the last stage if you die you must start over from the beginning of the stage, which is pretty difficult considering you have to face the hardest boss at the end (a big monkey on a floating platform that is playing cymbals, seriously)

Overall: 6.0
This would be just an average shmup by most accounts, except for the fact that the music is excellent, the ship selection is above-average for a game of it’s time, and the final boss is a freaking giant monkey!! The stages are short, but what is there is filled with pretty solid game play, and the replayability is overall not too bad. If you are a fan of this genre, then this is a nice trip into the past to see how these games used to be before modern games, by companies like Cave, steroided shmups out and made them frustratingly impossible at times. A pretty pleasant experience that can be had for under $20.00 USD.

The term “shmup” is an abbreviated name for “shoot ’em up”, which is a subgenre of the shooter genre of video games. For additional support and discussions, visit the dedicated Neo Geo CD Forum.