Back in 2017 I was very much into the achievement hunting scene in a competitive way. As I was looking for games with a lot of achievements for a competition I came across Aaero, a unique rhythm shooter that had a ton of achievements in it and decided to give it a go. I played 2 missions and hated it and moved on. A year later I decided to pick it up again and give it another go and I couldn’t put it down. Something just clicked when before it didn’t. With Aaero2 I immediately wondered, would it grip me right away or would I have a similar experience as the first?
The music rhythm genre has really seen a decline in popularity from the heights of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band days, but there are still a few games in the genre out there, perhaps none more unique than the Aaero franchise. While most of these games have you clicking a button with the corresponding button when the music requires it, Aaero goes a completely different route. You control a ship and must ride the ribbons within the game to stay on beat. When the music goes up, your ship must go up with the ribbon and down when it goes down. If you are off beat, the music will simply not sound the same. The better you are at staying on the ribbon, the higher your multiplier becomes and the higher the score you get. Oh and there’s a bit of an added twist. It’s also a shooter where you lock on missiles to fight off enemies.
With Aaero2, developer Mad Fellows has added more depth to the game. While the core of the gameplay is still the same, you ride the ribbons and shoot the enemies, they’ve done a good job of expanding on that premise. In the original you simply used your reticle, which you control with your right stick, to lock onto enemies and then shoot them with your missiles. You could lock on to multiple enemies at once and it was quite a simple procedure. With Aaero2 you now have to hold down the RT to keep locked on and when you want to shoot you let go.
The biggest difference is that you now must time your missiles. You get 8 of them to shoot at a time, but if you do so in sync with the song you will get a massive boost to your multiplier for your score as well as get your missiles instantly reloaded instead of needing to wait for them to reload. This is simple enough in spots where you are just focusing on killing the enemies. Typically, especially in the early levels, you will have a section of riding the ribbons followed by a section of fighting and then back to the ribbons. With no ribbons to focus on you can usually just attack the enemies. While they do fire back at you it is not terribly difficult to dodge their attacks while attacking them.
However where the challenge really ramps up is in the sections where you have to ride the ribbons while also fighting enemies. Using the left stick to stay on the ribbon while using the right stick to aim all while trying to dodge attacks and get your missiles off at the right time can be downright stressful. Not necessarily a bad stress, but it’s a lot of things to focus on at once. If all you care about is finishing each level then it’s not too bad, but if you want to get the highest score possible and work your way up the leaderboard? Be prepared for a lot of fun while also sweating each move, especially on the higher difficulties.
I should also mention there is a machine gun now that you shoot with the left stick. In my experience this was much easier to use in terms of killing the enemies quickly, however it seemed like it didn’t boost your multiplier that much, which again if you are going for the highest scores rather than just completion is a bit of a problem. Oh and did i mention that theres also obstacles that move with the beat? Ya, there’s a lot going on at once, and considering you only have 3 lives before you fail the mission, it’s going to test your abilities for sure.
There’s also 3 boss levels which add a different layer and do a good job of splitting up the game into 3 sections. While there is no story to tie things together, each boss was fun and unique. The boss levels are more or less just more intense versions of the previous levels where you focus a lot more energy into hitting the weak spots of these massive beasts.
The one weak spot with the fighting occurred once I made it to the advanced difficulty. Enemies become more frequent at that difficulty and for some reason on the very first track I had enemies whom if I didn’t kill quite quickly would vanish behind me or too far out of my range to lock on. Since these enemies attacks were to come close and blow up on contact, it meant an instant death with no chance of preventing it. In a game where 3 deaths means the end, it was quite frustrating knowing I was going to lose one of those lives if that happened.
Traverse Stunning Levels With A Great Soundtrack
Outside of the gameplay, the star of Aaero2 is undoubtedly its soundtrack. I’ll be the first to admit that if i was to turn on my phone’s music playlist, I wouldn’t have any songs similar to the tracks in Aaero2 on it. The soundtrack is mostly techno mixed with rock which isn’t something I listen to in my personal life. Having said that, it’s a testament to the soundtrack that I actually quite enjoyed all the songs. Many of them I went back to a couple times simply to rehear the song and just enjoy it. With 18 of them there’s a decent amount of variety. Some are just the beat and some have vocals with some being a bit slower in pace and others what I feel like would be in a techno rave.
While you may not be coming to Aaero2 for it’s graphics, I did think it looked quite good for what it is. There is a lot of variety with the levels, going from snowy areas and underwater locations to more fiery locations and woodlands. I did find myself on more than one occasion taking a moment to just say “damn this spot looks great” whenever I’d have a brief moment to breathe.
Co-Op AND Multiplayer? A Perfect Combo With One Glaring Misstep
When I played the first Aaero I don’t recall ever thinking to myself “this would be fun in co-op or multiplayer”. So when I saw that Aaero2 was going to have both features I was curious how Mad Fellows was going to do it and if they could pull it off. I’m happy to say they pulled off both quite well, with 1 major caveat to the multiplayer.
First off though, the co-op is both local and online, and supports 2 players which is great. I tested both local and online and both worked well.The game actually flourishes even more in co-op. While you don’t really work together with your partner much outside of having a lending hand to kill enemies, it does make the ribbon riding that much more fun and interesting.
Each player has a colour ribbon they are assigned to that matches their ship. If you don’t ride the correct ribbon then your score will be affected. And the layout of them in co-op makes it a bit more challenging as well as you jump across your partners view with the ribbons jumping back and forth and high and low. You also share lives with your partner and have double the lives as you do in single player, so you aren’t punished if your partner perhaps isn’t quite as skilled as you.
The multiplayer actually works pretty well too. Each level is broken down into 5 sections. Whoever wins the section based on their score in that specific part gets a point. Get at least 3 and you win. These levels also act fairly similar to the co-op with each player being assigned a specific ribbon, however the enemies are also colour coded meaning you only need to focus on the one’s that are your colour. Because of this they are also the only one’s that will attack you. But this is where the glaring issue comes into play.
There is no dying in multiplayer. If you screw up and run into one of the obstacles? No worries you go right through it like it doesn’t exist. An enemy gets a shot off and hits you? Who cares. I don’t know if it was just too hard to implement the death into the multiplayer to make it work or what, but being able to just focus on shooting the enemies with no fear of being hit or worrying about dodging obstacles took away a big part of the appeal to the game and most of the challenge. I understand the challenge of multiplayer is to get a better score than your opponent, but it took away from the experience quite a bit.
Conclusion
Ultimately Aaero2 hit most of the boxes you’d want from a sequel to a successful game. It’s built on the foundation that was laid and made the experience that much more enjoyable. With a great soundtrack and improved shooting mechanics riding the beat has never felt more enjoyable. With the added co-op mode you can turn it into an enjoyable concert for two. Outside of the strange decision to make everyone invincible in multiplayer and a few minor hiccups elsewhere, Aaero2 is worthy of your attention.
Aaero2 was reviewed on Xbox Series X. Gamer Social Club was provided a code for the purpose of this review. Aaero2 is available exclusively on Xbox Series S/X October 15th 2024 with a Steam version coming at a later date.
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