It is a prog-rock rail shooter from the Shenmue man? Certain okay.
I went into Air Tornado pretty blind. Regardless of its launch final 12 months on Apple Arcade, all I knew was that it was a rail shooter from sport designer Yu Suzuki. That alone was sufficient to garner some curiosity. Suzuki’s Area Harrier is mostly considered one of many early progenitors of the third individual rail shooter style. As soon as I really booted up Air Tornado, I used to be hit with shock after shock. Whereas it stumbles a lot alongside the best way, I couldn’t assist however benefit from the weird madness it presents at each flip.
At its core, Air Tornado very a lot looks like a non secular sequel to Area Harrier. You play as an inexplicably floating lady with a laser blasting crossbow. Holding down the A button lets you lock onto a number of enemies earlier than firing a collection of homing photographs with ZR, whereas a fast press of the ZR button will hearth a single unguided shot straight forward. If you happen to’ve performed basic Sega sprite-scaling rail shooters you’ll really feel proper at residence right here. The flying and capturing each really feel good, if extraordinarily primary. That’s most likely the best knock towards Air Tornado. From a purely gameplay targeted perspective, it doesn’t evolve a lot past its inspirations.
This doesn’t imply Air Tornado is totally devoid of any depth, it’s simply discovered outdoors of the first gameplay expertise. After your first sport over you’ll be kicked again to a menu jam filled with content material. Probably the most essential factor on this menu is the Journey Map which acts as a type of ability tree. Right here you’ll spend factors earned from downing enemies to extend your most hit factors, unlock particular perks, and fill out your wardrobe for customizing the protagonist. To be clear, you don’t must improve your character to complete the sport. It is a true arcade rail shooter at its core, not an RPG, so ability is king. That being stated, exploring this really large improve tree does make even a failed run really feel like progress. Past the upgrades are additionally quite a lot of different bonus modes, detailed lore entries, and extra. What you will not discover is a stage choose or proceed possibility must you fall in battle. A sport over means beginning over from stage one, granted you’ll have any new upgrades you’ve purchased within the interim. By fashionable requirements I suppose you may name it a roguelite.
Oh and I suppose I ought to point out that Air Tornado has the soundtrack of a prog-rock-opera. It caught me slightly off guard as I began the primary stage solely to be met with an authentic soundtrack by Dutch prog-rock artist Valensia. It takes some getting used to however Air Tornado simply commits to this unusual vibe that feels very old fashioned Sega. The one draw back is that a number of of the songs get used a number of occasions, which lessens the affect of the in any other case continually altering stage selection, and offers the sport a considerably misleading feeling of repetition.
On the finish of the day, Air Tornado just isn’t a very lengthy or troublesome rail shooter. It took me three runs to achieve the top of its 12 phases. The improve system does make replaying via previous phases simpler and simpler with every try. Nonetheless I felt as if I ran out of sport lengthy earlier than I’d unlocked even half of the upgrades. It’s virtually as if Air Tornado has plenty of secondary depth in its methods that isn’t actually supported by its quick easy marketing campaign. That being stated, even whereas being extremely conscious of those flaws I nonetheless had a very good time taking part in via it. Every thing about Air Tornado is weird and infrequently flawed, however I can’t say it isn’t enjoyable.