Aero the Acro-Bat 2 Resurfaces to Reveal These Lost Mascots From the 16-Bit Era
There was a day when The iconic character boom was in full swing. Superstars Sonic and Mario were largely responsible, and due to their fame, studios tried to imitate their success. There were many attempts, some more successful… and others more unsuccessful. At the height of mascots and relevant characters, an acrobatic bat and a kamikaze squirrel were unveiled, both sworn enemies and at the same time protagonists of their own adventures. Today we have the pleasure of analyzing Aero the Acro-Bat 2, a direct sequel of this little winged animal which, despite its acrobatics on stage, ended up falling on its face.
Double pirouette to the past
Sunsoft was responsible for the launch of Aero the Acro-Bat 2 in 1994 on Megadrive and Super Nintendo, although now it’s our friends at Ratalaika Games with Shinyuden bringing us this proposal to current generation consoles. Its mechanics, visual appearance and concept have not changed at all (for better or for worse), even though They included improvements such as classic rewind and a series of extras to deepen the work.
The story of Aero the Acro-Bat 2 is simple. After the defeated adventures Ector In the first part, we return to the circus where we work. Curiosity killed the cat, and in this case, the bat too, since behind the tarps We find a mysterious magic door that teleports us to a strange world and different from ours. There you must complete the phases to save a vampiric damsel in distress and, in doing so, defeat our great rival once again.
You have to go to bat
Our time at the circus will serve to confront all the enemies that come our way. We can do a spin in the air capable of hitting our rivals. And if we take a few stars scattered throughout each level, we can also use as if they were shuriken. Unlike other platform games of the time, here we will not be able to jump directly on the heads of the enemies, so the concept to end it changes a bit, you have to design other strategies. At first it is a bit difficult, because they are diagonal attacks, although once we understand, no opponent will be able to resist us.
Aero the Acro-Bat 2 draws heavily on games of the time. And there’s no doubt it’s copying aspects we’ve seen in titles like Sonic 3. We will have secrets that we will discover by going through the walls, the music (very good by the way) will make us relive these moments with the blue porcupine and there will be phases like snowboarding
The King of Repetitions
Despite this phase with the table of snowthe truth is that the rest brings nothing that we have not already seen. Unfortunately, Aero the Acro-Bat 2 doesn’t (and didn’t at the time) reinvent anything in the platforming genre. Yes, each phase will have its own characteristic elements like gears that allow you to fly, a sort of trampoline or switches that allow you to access secret paths, but this does not revolutionize anything at all. This is a pure platform game, where good execution of jumps and attacks takes precedence over speed.
As was the case with all titles of the time, The duration is short (you can complete it in just two hours), but it compensates with a demanding difficulty level. Luckily for us, we can enable rewind. An implementation that we have seen in many games “retro” and this allows us to continue enjoying the game without being excessively frustrated. There is also the possibility of saving the game whenever we want, despite the short duration of Aero the Acro-Bat 2.
A better past
Perhaps the main problem you see with the Aero Acro-Bat 2 is the lack of care that has gone into the product. As it already happened with its first partwe are faced a re-release that, except for the extras and rewinding, is the same game as it was 30 years ago. And if you push me, I’d say that in some ways it’s even worse, since on big TVs everything looks even more pixelated. Hopefully this experiment will serve as a breeding ground for a release that’s fit for the times, whether it’s Acro-Bat, Zero, or any other Sunsoft character.
Aero the Acro-Bat 2 Conclusion
Ratalaika Games and Shinyuden continue their motto of saving old glories, and this time they do so with a second part starring the acrobatic bat. We are faced with a very classic platform title, which draws more on its nostalgic side for those who played it back in the day. In its time, it did not revolutionize the genre, and it certainly does not today. But players who are hungry for retro titles will find a challenging and colorful adventure with an attack pattern somewhat different from the others. It is a shame that there are no improvements over the original Aero in Acro-Bat 2, except for its rewind system, extras and saves.
Aero the Acrobat 2
4.79$
Benefits
- It’s always good to recover lost classics.
- Rewind for the most impatient
Disadvantages
- Graphically, there is no apparent improvement.
- It lacks something more “substantive” or additional extras
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