Air Twister has actually been out since last summer, though exclusively on Apple Arcade. Since the platform, despite many fine releases, is quite far down on the editor’s priority list, it took until now to get a review done. Was it worth the wait? To a very high degree!
No twist really, right?
It’s quite easy to just call Air Twister for Space Harriers little sister and call it all done. The producer is the same, namely SEGA legend Yu Suzuki. A number of the enemies are very similar, and their laser shots almost identical. However, there is more than that to show here.
The first thing that strikes me here is of course the similarities with just Space Harrierbut also with Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon. This type of rail shooter is rare. Why is actually material for a completely different type of article; my point is that Air Twister fills a hole I almost forgot I had in my gamer heart.
Like on rails, that is
A rail shooter of this type thus has your character at a fixed Z position. You can move however you want in two dimensions (X and Y directions), but the forward speed is basically constant and you can’t affect it. Around you, wave after wave of enemies appear, even these static ones. This allows you to pretty painlessly memorize not only patterns, but also precise timing and plan your moves accordingly. That kind of thing can pretty effectively kill replay value, though Air Twister makes up for it, including through unlockables.
Princess Arch gets a decent wardrobe together in the end.
You can also unlock the jukebox, complete with lyrics!
Time stops, explosive or bouncing shots, as well as a full wardrobe complete with different hairstyles are available to unlock. You do that with the game’s currency, stars. These are obtained by destroying entire enemy formations, similar to the upgrades in Step by step or Salamander– the games. You spend them on a skill-tree-like game board with several small “alternative” paths on it (keep your hand on your heart, you unlock everything in order as soon as you can anyway).
Air Twister is roughly a dozen courses long and won’t take long to complete. Just like all the titles I have compared it to so far, it is therefore quite short and concise, which makes the replay value all the more decisive for a positive review. In addition to the story mode, there are a handful of mini-games as well as an arcade mode in five different difficulty levels. In arcade mode you are stuck without upgrades, which honestly makes even Easy Mode quite difficult. Overall, Air Twister passes the test in terms of replay value. However, it crosses over into MVG territory with one of its absolute best aspects: the soundtrack.
A Supersonic Woman of You
The soundtrack is signed by the Dutch singer-songwriter Valensia. The name was completely new to me until now, but the music feels so incredibly familiar. It’s clear that Queen has been a big source of inspiration – Valencia even sounds a bit like Freddie Mercury. Because yup, i Air Twister almost all the soundtracks have vocals. And most of them are bangers!
In addition to Queen, there is something here that brings to mind Bowie, but in the gaming world as well Phantasy Star Online and Panzer Dragoon. Calm waltzes and musical rhapsodies are interspersed with Gregorian hymns and triumphant orchestra (albeit a sampled one). It should be a hodgepodge, but it’s a well-constructed and coherent puzzle. A soundtrack well worth listening to outside of the game!
However, the roots are noticeable
There really isn’t much negative to add here Air Twister. It is exactly what it claims to be, and while it could have been more, it is a complete package in itself. However, it is noticeable that this is not created for classic gaming machines in the first place. Here are artifacts of touch screen as the main user interface. The ugliest thing is the pause icon at the bottom which is constantly visible in the upper left corner. It involves quite a lot of clicking to correctly navigate the menus with control, and even if you get around it to some extent by using the mouse, it feels completely foreign to use as a control device in Air Twister. In an otherwise high-quality product, this particular aspect of the design feels lazy and carelessly done.
I also have nothing left for the extremely artificial achievements that the Steam version is drawn with. Daily rewards, prompts to log in in the middle of the night, and a total play time of a hundred hours are all cheevos that absolutely stink of artificial respiration – well, anything but a reward anyway. Perhaps this makes the Switch version extra attractive, but considering how well that machine sells, it shouldn’t have any problems with the sales numbers anyway.
Air Twister will be released for PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox One/Series X|S and PlayStation 4–5 on November 10, with a recommended price tag of SEK 240. A physical edition for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4–5 is available for purchase via Strictly Limited Games from around SEK 350. This review is of the PC edition and is made possible thanks to a review code.
2023-11-08 09:00:00
#Air #Twister #Recension
