Review #711: Aero the Acro-Bat

 So... basically it's Nightwing?

 Aero the Acro-Bat took me by surprise. I had played the SNES rom a few times in the past, and while my younger incarnation found the character interesting, never spent much time with it. But as a SNES lover that never had a SNES, the GBA port was a decent way to get a legit copy of the game and finally give it the good old college try. And it was pretty good!

 This is your average 2-D platform game of the era, albeit with a very European feel. You know the feel, strong colors, plenty of collectibles valued in points and plenty of fake walls you can go through for extra goodies and a bit more Sonic than Mario, sloppier jumps but faster running speed. Since the GBA doesn't have much screen real state it's easy to get hit by enemies you simply couldn't react fast enough considering your running speed and how little ahead you can see. The game is pretty generous with Lives and health, as a matter of fact I finished the game with over 66 lives, so getting unfair hits and deaths every now and then doesn't sting much. As for the game, it's 4 worlds long, each world having 5 stages and a boss, except for world 3, which lacks a boss. It's pretty short, but it's fun.

Controls are a bit weird at first. You can't hurt enemies by jumping on top of them, but rather, by double tapping the A button and performing Aero's spin attack. This move also serves as a second jump, and it'll go either diagonally up or down depending on you holding down on the directional pad or not. You can also collect stars, which you can then shoot with the B button. Don't hoard them because you're back to 0 at the start of every stage. So far it seems somewhat par for the course, but what changes things is the R button. If you press it after jumping it'll let you hover for a short while, but double tapping it will let Aero cling onto ropes. The latter was quite unexpected, as Stage 1-3 stumped me after I read in a fact that Aero could actually do that. It's a weird mechanic, used very sparsely, which makes me wonder why it's even there in the first place!

 The first few stages tended to have objectives, such as finding keys to doors, or stepping on an X amount of platforms, but it seems like they gave up on the final stages and they play like normal platform game stages. Each stage has a timer, but I think it's just for points, as I defeated a boss way past the time limit and I proceeded to the next stage just fine. Either way, stages are pretty decent, and it gets really good once you get more comfortable with how Aero moves and how the spin attack works. You'll be hopping-to-downward-spin-attacking enemies in no time, while using the upwards spin attack to attempt to reach secret platforms or what not. It's a fun, fast-paced game.

 Aero the Acro-Bat is more than fine, and it's a perfect purchase for anyone who is into retro SNES/Genesis platformers. My one complaint is that the developer opted not to re-release Aero 2, choosing to focus on newer IPs. Which bombed, these are the creators of NinjaBread Man and its ilk after all.
 7.0 out of 10