It may be a bit premature to say, since I haven’t really thought about it all too much, but out of all of the shmups that I have played and reviewed so far, the original Aero Fighters was definitely one of my favorites that I have covered. It definitely had its fair share of quirks that I wasn’t a fan of, such as how short the stages can be and how the game makes you beat it twice in order to beat it completely, but it had multiple characters to select from, plenty of fun shot types to mess around with across each characters, and enough explosive action to make my brain go brr in excitement, which was all enough for me at the end of the day. And hey, it was enough for plenty of others as well, to the point where it would end up getting a sequel not just for arcades, but also for the Neo Geo systems, to ensure that the series would join the SNK Cinematic Universe, or SNKCU, which is totally a real thing. So after two years went by, we would then get the sequel to the original game in the form of Aero Fighters 2.

Repetition is the name of the game when it comes to most shmups, and if there is anything SNK was good at back in the day, it certainly was repetition. While this hasn’t been the case for all of their titles (from what I know anyway), a lot of SNK’s major releases around this era, especially when it comes to their fighting games, have very little differences between them to make them stand out from each other, so it only makes sense that they welcomed a series like Aero Fighters into their family. What I am trying to say here if you haven’t picked up on it at this point is that Aero Fighters 2 is a very “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” title, which in this case is a good thing, because Aero Fighters 2 turned out to be yet another pretty good game, one that doesn’t quite surpass the original game, but one that still manages to be fun and frantic for any shmup enthusiast to enjoy.

The story is, what a shocker, aliens are attacking the world again, and it is up to you and an even bigger cast of even more colorful characters are the only ones who can take them down, which I would say is extremely lazy, but the pretty colors and explosions are distracting me and making me forget about all of that. The graphics are almost identical to the previous game, which I would be a teensy bit upset about, but it is an SNK game after all, so there is no use in complaining at that point, the music is pretty good, having plenty of great tracks to listen to while blowing shit up, even if nothing really stuck with me after the playthrough, and the gameplay/control is also identical to that of the original game, which some people could be tired of at this point, but again, I can’t focus on that because of the pretty explosions.

The game is your typical arcade shmup, where you take control of one of eight different characters in different fighter jets, go through a set of ten different stages through locations around the entire world, and even in the depths of space, shoot the fuck out of everything on screen, even if it isn’t trying to kill you at all because you need them bonus points, gather plenty of different powerups to assist you along the way and gather plenty of money icons to increase your points so you can dominate those other chumps in the high score table, and take on plenty of big, bad, and overly-detailed bosses that are a blast to fight, both figuratively and literally. It has just the right blend of familiarity and adrenaline that can be imprinted into your head and make you not want to stop playing, as it remains really fun, despite how, at the end of the day, not too much has changed from the original game.

To summarize this game as a whole, it is basically just Aero Fighters but with more stuff. Not only are all of the stages, bosses, and obstacles that you find new, but there is also more content as a whole, and more fun quirks added to make it that much more memorable and enjoyable. You can even see that as early as whenever you are selecting which fighter jet that you are going to use to use, as not only is there a greater selection then in the last game, but the pilots themselves also have a lot of personality to them, with some of them consisting of an actual baby, a robot, a ninja, and even a motherfucking DOLPHIN! Seriously, how can you not like that? Not to mention, there are more stages, more weapon types to mess around with, more explosions to be seen, and more fun to be had, so if you have a friend that is also a big shmup person like you, you two can jump in and have a really good time with all that is given to you here.

However, for those of you who aren’t so entranced by the art of bullets making contact with objects and watching them burst in an explosive way, then you will probably not find too much enjoyment out of this game, as it is not only yet another typical arcade shmup, but it also has basically zero changes from the original for the most part. Not only that, but the game doesn’t fix any of the problems that I had with the original, with it still being too short, only around 20 minutes or so, and you still have to play through the game twice in order to get the true ending. This isn’t too much of a big deal, especially since the stages themselves are really short, and not to mention there are these new types of stages that just pour power-ups down your throat like it’s candy, but it still doesn’t warrant a second playthrough just to see the stages again with maybe one or two new bosses. Or maybe it does for you, I dunno, but I’m a real one-and-done guy when it comes to shmups, so this is disturbing my natural flow, and I hate it.

Overall, despite its lack of change and its refusal to fix any of the issues I had with it from last time, Aero Fighters 2 manages to still be a really good shmup from the mid-90s, one that gives you all the explosive, fast and fun gameplay that you expect from this series, and one that is just baaaaaaaaaarely better then the original, by a small margin. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who were fans of the original game, as well as those who are shmup fanatics in general, because while you may be short changed of new content, you certainly won’t be short changed of that good ol’ fashioned arcade fun. Again, I have to ask, how can you hate a game where you fight a giant space monkey as a boss? Not only that, but they even one-up themselves here by having a giant eyeball with human hands, and a… weirdly anime-esque octopus boss………….. Japan is weird.

Game #544