Genesis - Aero the Acrobat Review

Aero the acrobat is one of Sunsoft's mascots. As his name implies, Aero the acrobat is a circus acrobat whose trademark move is his air 'spin.' He also happens to be a bat. In this game, his girl friend is kidnapped and its up to him to find her and release her.

Gameplay: 5/10

Gameplay in Aero the acrobat is a relatively simple affair. As Aero the acrobat you have the ability to jump, duck crouch and of course hover in the air. Your only means of actually 'hurting' the enemy is spining into them with your air spin move at 45 degrees. Jumping straight on them will only result in getting hurt which is annoying. The hovering in the air might have been the answer to this. You know, jump, hover in the air, pick your moment at leisure and then spin into them. Too bad there's a really short time limit on the hover feature making it mostly redundant. Trying to use it is just too annoying most times. You have just about enough time to realise you're too close to a spike or enemy before being hurt. Furthermore, jumping twice doesn't make you jump higher, that's how you activate the spin, which means you have to be careful not to spin yourself into an enemy when you're trying to jump around another.

You also have the ability to fire stars at the ememy but stars are limited! Of all the silly things to do you actually have to collect ammo, as if you weren't powerless enough as it is.

Graphics: 3.5/10

Graphics for such an old game are quite well drawn and the design is cartoonish as it should be. The environments are cool, your characters are cool. Some might fault the game for focusing too much on circus characters but then again, the game is suppose to be focused on the circus theme.

Sound and Music: 3.5/5

The sound and music for such a game isn't too bad. Well nothing really stands out nothing isn't too terrible either. Considering they didn't go overboard with the circus music I'm fairly happy giving this game above average marks, especially considering how old this game is.

Game design: 1/5

This is the big hole in Aero the Acrobat. Great graphics, good animation, good sound and music can't hide the fact that the levels are death pits. Spikes are everywhere and one touch will kill Aero, most of the times you can't see the spikes either because they're off screen. What makes things worse is his spin ability doesn't do anything to help that. In fact you'll probably end up in the spikes thanks to his spin ability by spinning up when you should be spinning down or something like that.

There are a number of cool things like cannons, swimming pool, bubble machines and hoops to help you, and I like these touches to the game. I mean you can interact with them, moving them around into the best positions for example or taking a swim in the pool, but there are just too many spikes!

Longevity: 2/5

Well I can say that Aero the Acrobat will probably keep you occupied for about 30 lives then you realise that there's just no way the game will let up in throwing spikes in places you least expect.

For: Good graphics, smooth animation, cool backgrounds, okay music, cool extra objects in the game

Against: Very difficult, hard to control Aero, spikes everywhere

Genre: Action

Produced by: Iguana Entertainment/Sunsoft

Year: 1993

Platform: Sega Megadrive/Genesis

Runs on: Genecyst, Gens

Scoring Summary:

Gameplay: 5/10

Graphics: 3.5/5

Sound and Music: 3.5/5

Game design: 1/5

Longevity: 2/5

Total: 15/30

Rating

50%

-Reviewed by Barnabas