Aero the Acrobat (Switch)

Powah Dunk | August 27, 2024 | Mini Review | No Comments

Aero the Acrobat is one of the many “mascot” platformers that graced the 16-bit era of consoles, alongside Cool Spot, Zool the Ninja from the Nth Dimension, and the incredibly niche Sonic The Hedgehog, Ratalaika Games have ported the original Aero the Acrobat to modern consoles and we are taking a look at if it’s worth a trip to the circus or not.

Aero is a bat as per the mascot platformer contract you had to either be a logo or an animal to make it in this game, heck even Cheetos managed to hit the mythical “twofer”, an evil rich kid called Edgar and Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel have kidnapped all the workers for the fun circus and it’s down to everyone’s favorite “Acro-Bat” to save the day and perform some gnarly stunts in the meantime.

Being the game is a traditional 16-bit platformer it’s a little light on the story and that is perfectly fine, instead, the game throws you into your first level where you learn that Aero looks a little like an Amiga or “Euro” platformer and rather than just getting to the goal, you have objectives, the example in level 1 is you have a certain amount of Star Platforms to make disappear.

Aero can throw stars at enemies to stun them or dive into them which is quite cumbersome to pull off but feels good when it finally clicks, all the levels are circus-themed and involve you pulling off stunts such as diving through rings of fire or being shot out of a cannon, it’s enough to separate it from the Green Hills or Mushroom Kingdoms of the time and gives it a unique look and feel.

There is a fantastic mini–game you can unlock between stages that see Aero dive and using mode-7 technology plummets to the ground and you have to collect items and make sure you hit the pool below, a spectacle of its time and frankly quite a lot of fun.

Aero is one of those platformers where the character is a little “loose”, he’s slippy and doesn’t quite go exactly where you want him to but fortunately Ratalaika Games have included the handy Rewind, Save, and Load State options that help any retro game and here it just allows you to take that edge off that could stop you from enjoying this little Sunsoft classic.

In a massive surprise, there is also a Gallery mode for the game, it includes the Manual, behind-the-scenes documents, and even promos, There is a lot of cool stuff here, and it allows you to see how much effort was put into trying to make this the next household name, this instantly pushed this title up as it feels much more of a celebration for fans and the curious rather than just packaging the game with a few QoL improvements and shipping it off.

Between the Cheats, QoL, the Gallery, and the fact you have both the JPN and US SNES versions of Aero The Acrobat playable here, not only is this the definitive way to play this game, but it also makes it so accessible for newcomers who may be curious into what the genre that birthed Mario and Sonic had to offer outside of those two.