Aaero2 Review

Imagine someone said “let’s make an on-rails shooter, but it’s also a music game” and that’s what you kinda get with Aaero2. A marriage of Vib Ribbon and Rez, rather than Guitar Hero or Parappa the Rapper. It was a weird union that got me hooked when I discovered the original way back when we all got locked indoors a few years ago. You traverse new alien landscapes in a dinky wee space ship hurtling along neon lines, blasting enemies and making sweet music as you do it. And now, Mad Fellows are back with this wonderful sequel that takes those same basic gameplay ideas and runs with them.

For those of you unaware of the original, and what it entailed, let me explain the premise. Instead of following a guitar or drum beat with taps of the face buttons, Aaero2 wants you to follow neon lines that appear at the edges of a circular HUD. This might be formed by the vocals or in the case of the more dubstep sounding stuff, the wubwub bits. I don’t know what they’re called, I don’t know dubstep sorry. Key changes or dropping beats cause the line to sort of jump about or curve from one side to the other. Sticking to this keeps every part of the song playing in harmony, with missed connections causing everything to become muted or drop out completely. However, unlike the usual suspects, it’s still possible to get to the end of each stage, you’ll just have a rubbish score and the song won’t sound very good.

Occasionally it will throw in the odd obstacle to pull you off track, but forward momentum is entirely on rails. Easier difficulties give you a bit of magnetism, but as you improve, the training wheels come off and you need to be more accurate with the fine movements required to follow. It’s generally pretty chill compared to the insanity of something like Through the Fire and Flames on expert in terms of inputs. That’s not to say it’s easy though and on more than a few occasions I was caught out by the way the lines moved like a wave or rapidly jumped up and down.

And that’s not all Aaero2 demands of you. Whilst trying to keep one eye on the lines you’re following, you’ll be getting cross eyed as you try to track and tag enemies and their projectiles. Some might just float about and not really do anything whilst others will launch rocket barrages or attempt to kamikaze their way towards your fragile ship. Take a hit and the multiplier you’ve built is wiped and you spawn back in. Three strikes and you’re out.

Thankfully, you’re outfitted with a machine gun and rockets. The right stick lets you aim your reticule, holding the right trigger as you pass over enemies paints them with a lock on and you can unleash a barrage of hellfire on release. Timing their release with the beat causes them to deal more damage and dishes out better points, and fully reloads them so you can fire off another volley quickly.

What starts as a relaxing wee exercise in precision stick control, can rapidly descend into chaos as you notice a floating explosive about to detonate in your face. It gets even more mad when the boss tracks are introduced! That’s right we even get bosses and all their glowing weak point glory. There’s three in total and all of them challenge you to bring together everything you’ve learned to put them down. These set pieces are an excellent change of pace that put a different set of demands on you whilst still following the same set up as the rest of the game. You’ll still be moving forwards, you’ll still be dealing with basic enemies between boss phases and you’ll still be dodging projectiles and obstacles.

In one fight you’ll feel like you’re being hunted as you dodge flailing tentacles in a tight underground cavern, whilst in another you’ll feel like the hunter as you blaze across the seabed. Putting together everything you’ve learned and absolutely nailing the timing of your rockets so you hear that sweet “ping” is electrifying and really gets your heart racing.

Do well enough in each stage and you’ll be rewarded with a star rating that will then unlock the next track when you collect enough. It’s here that I’m happy to say that it never feels grindy regardless of the difficulty. Sure you might need a few attempts because you’ve lost all your lives or you weren’t quite hitting those perfect rocket volleys, but I never felt like the game was trying to stop me from progressing.

If you are struggling though, this time you can rope a friend in to help out! The full track list can be played locally in co-op, as well as online. Each player has different parts of the song to “play” and each has an individual score that will combine at the end for a final score. As expected, PvP is a straight up vs mode where the best score wins. It does throw in one interesting mechanic in that it breaks each song down into five stages. As you pass gates, the player with the highest score wins a crown with the overall aim to win a best of three. It’s quite thrilling eeking out points and watching the lead change hands throughout each section. It’s competitive, but in a fun way and that’s something that I feel has been missing from most games for a while.

I played a bit locally with the Mrs (the non gamer) and unfortunately she wasn’t as impressed as I was, but it was good fun. I even ventured into the Wild West of online matchmaking. Often the downfall of an indie studio, it was perfect here. No lag, smooth movement, jolly co-operation. Every player I encountered was a joy to play with regardless of their experience. I ended up playing half the list with a newbie at one point – it was clear they knew the basics but weren’t super experienced in the deeper mechanics, yet without a word we weaved a wonderful tapestry of music into existence. I spent an hour with that person and loved every minute, thank you random internet stranger.

Now here’s where I have to be honest and say I really don’t know enough about music to properly critique the soundtrack. What I will say is that bar maybe one or two songs, I loved what was on offer. Mad Fellows have teamed up with Monstercat to deliver another excellent collection for Aaero2. It’s all EDM stuff, chilled out tunes, rock/nu metal inspired tracks, stuff that sounds like dubstep. It was all good is all I can really offer.

To the artists and devs, I’m sorry I don’t have the musical vocabulary to describe your wonderful work properly. I just know how it made me feel and for me music is as much about the feeling as anything else. I liked what I was hearing and it made me want to hear more and play more. These ears of mine are very particular, and some music just leaves me feeling irritated, this was never an issue in Aaero 2. A few of the songs are pretty much stuck in my head and my internal jukebox likes to pop them on at random when it’s not doing much else. It’s nice having them rattling around in there.

The visuals are equally arresting. Despite the low-fi presentation, the environments are packed with detail and the lighting does a lot to enhance the mood. The levels are mashup up of natural environments and technology covering forests and lakes, as well as man made caverns filled with gates and laser beams. Enemies are packed with little biological details like wings and antennas but look almost mechanical as they’re adorned with weaponry and armour. The whole thing is a perfect example of why art style is more important than realism. It’s really quite beautiful.

And that sums Aaero 2 up nicely. The whole package is a thing of beauty and it’s interesting enough that after two games I want more and I’m hoping for DLC again. It’s addictive and always had me having one more go to see if I could get those extra stars I was missing. Mad Fellows have another absolute winner on their hands here, and as I often say when it comes to indies, I absolutely implore you check this out.