Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the review code

Title: Aero The Acro-Bat 2
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $5.99
Release Date: 09/04/2024

Story

In this direct sequel to Aero the Acrobat, the evil Edgar Ektor is rescued in the nick of time, and prepares to kickstart a Plan B to get revenge on Aero for being defeated by him. Meanwhile Aero finds himself in a strange new world, as he investigates this strange new plan! Pretty solid backing for a direct sequel, while managing to not conflict too much with the side game that would come out a bit later. Also like Aero 1’s port, this has been fully localized into Japanese.

Presentation

This is another Ratalaika port and wait… What’s this? A brand new wrapper? Yes, Ratalaika has completely thrown out their old wrapper for this port, bringing in a newer one that’s a lot more bland. There’s also no sound effects for navigating the new UI, as there were before, so you’re in complete silence.

That being said, you do get a bunch of archival material still, and there are plenty of display options as well, even if you can no longer tweak them to your liking. The CRT filter here is OK, and there are other filters meant for other consoles and handhelds, which don’t really work all that great here with a SNES game. I still found the pixel scaling options to be pretty good however, and the manual/art scans are incredibly nice to have, even if I liked how the old wrapper displayed them a lot better.

For the game itself, Aero 2 is only the SNES version yet again. Both versions are pretty good this time around, but the Genesis one had some fancy 3D trickery done to help show some extra effects on the Genesis, which just aren’t replicated in this SNES version. Instead you just get a clean, colorful platformer with well done sprites, and music that manages to be the biggest surprise out of the entire franchise; seriously, Aero 2 on SNES sounds phenomenal, and gives off a very mid 90s instructional VHS vibe with the instrumentation choices. Emulation of the audio is pretty good as well, though I found the port to be a bit quieter on the max volume settings compared to how the other wrapper made these games sound.

Gameplay

Aero 1’s main and biggest issue was how each stage forced you to perform an arbitrary amount of tasks in order to be allowed to exit the stage. Sometimes it was as easy as finding a key, and sometimes it required you to go around the stage like a madman trying to find star blocks. Thankfully, Aero 2 makes a killer first impression by throwing all of that out the window and just tasking Aero with getting to the end of the level. He has his star throwing and dive powers back from last time, along with a drill dive attack and a slide now.

Another benefit comes from just how much better the controls feel. The game is still tricky, yes, but there weren’t nearly as many cheap insta-death or bad gotcha moments like there were in the first game, and everything being more responsive helps a lot with that. Aero feels way more fun to control and his momentum buildup is better this time around, too. Tighter and fairer platforming just lead to a better playing game all around.

Aero 2’s stages also pack a lot of secrets, and more of the fun kind rather than the tedious stuff the first game had hidden away. Lots of levels have hidden nooks and crannies that can award you extra stars or lives, take you to a bonus challenge room, and even hide the four letters making up Aero’s name. Get them all in a stage, and you play a bonus game where cups are swapped around and you get the prize underneath the one you pick. Pretty simple stuff, but the better levels really do make exploring for these goodies a lot more enjoyable, especially since you aren’t forced to get all of them or backtrack for things you missed. (Even if the game does track how many items you find and enemies you defeat at the end of each stage, it really doesn’t mean much at all here)

The worlds also provide nice variety, ala the first game. Unlike last time where the rollercoaster stages were absolute torture, now we have a series of snowboarding levels that are far more enjoyable and fair compared to the nightmarish autoscrollers from the first game. I wouldn’t call the later worlds perfect platforming designs by any means, but they offer plenty more fun than the cheap frustration Aero 1 could throw at you, making Aero 2 an enjoyable fun romp that you’ll actually want to stick around to beat, unlike the first.

Sadly, the wrapper does have one weird oddity that makes this port a bit wonky, although the new QOL and other features are still pretty helpful. See, while you now have autosaves for save states now, and can remap buttons, toggle cheats, do the usual stuff, the fast forward button in this new wrapper acts incredibly strange on Switch. 2X or 3X, the fast forward effect hardly does anything at all to make much of a difference, which when compared to how that button worked in Aero 1 is very noticeable.

Luckily the rewind is still as snappy as it ever has been, but if you were hoping to say, speed up through the cutscenes or end of stage tallies without skipping them, you won’t find the fast forward button to do much at all here. Why this new wrapper makes fast forwarding strain the Switch, I have no clue. Luckily the QOL and fun of the game itself is generally unaffected and I didn’t notice any bothersome input lag, either.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Aero 2 is a far improved followup to the dull original. Better level design, better gameplay, better variety, all better, all around! Of the two Aero games, this is the one to play for sure. Unfortunately, the new wrapper, while offering some new QOL features like autosave, definitely feels like one made for the newer consoles VS the older ones, since the fast forward feature is barely usable now, and the clunkier UI makes for less charm when trying to configure options and the like.

Still, this is a decently fun SNES platformer, and while it won’t blow your socks off or anything, this one at least will keep your attention and provide for an enjoyable romp without the tedium of Aero 1. Is the spinoff game Zero even better? We’ll find out soon on that…

I give Aero the Acrobat 2 a 7 out of 10.