Published by Sunsoft who made hit NES games like Batman and Blaster Master and developed by Eurocom a UK based developer. This also marked the first time Sunsoft decided to outsource a game to a western developer and we all know how Blaster Master 2 and the port of Batman: Return of the Joker for Genesis turned out. Oh joy indeed. Ratalaika Games thought everyone missed Aero the Acrobat and out of nowhere they released the game on the Nintendo Switch eshop as if there ever is such overwhelming demand for this Sonic wannabe.
So what we got here is the SNES version of the game emulated on the Switch release. Typical Ratalaika menu here. We got the options to load and save states. If you have the patience for this game you’ll most definitely need those save states because this game is BRUTAL. I do not mean purposely hard. I am talking LJN quality game design hard. You also can rewind and fast forward with the back triggers on your Switch pad. You also have a gallery here that has scans of the artwork as well as the boxes and manuals from different regions.
So Aero the Acrobat looks like a million other dime a dozen generic 90s animal platformers and you’d be right for saying it is very Sonic inspired. You see the major difference between this and Sonic is the fact Sonic actually plays great. Even though you move really fast the game is far more playable than Aero the Acrobat thanks to the ring system. If Sonic crashes he loses all his rings and becomes invincible for 10 seconds so you’d have a chance to recover some rings. In Aero you’d lose if a piece of dust lands on you. It’s like Spelunker times 10. You are extremely fragile! The enemy clowns are a chore to get rid of. The way you attack in Aero is so awkward. When you press B after jumping Aero dives upwards diagonally. If you push B while falling you dive down. All those As on the bottom of the screen is your life bar. Very often I kept losing As while dealing with the clowns. It gets even better. The way the stages are designed will make you want to bang your head against the table.
Eurocom must have been drinking on the job when they felt the need to place all these spikes in each level. If Aero touches a spike you lose a life immediately. If you touch a fire hoop the wrong way you also lose a life immediately. There has been moments when I tried to dive on an enemy I landed on a bed of spikes. Also I hit spikes often whenever I used that catapult on that screenshot above. In Sonic you can see what is above if you hold up for a couple of seconds. You cant even do that in Aero. This whole game is trial and error only because of terrible game design choices.
The way you complete levels in Aero the Acrobat is pretty random and cryptic. The first stage you have to make 7 star platforms disappear. They didn’t even tell you how to make them disappear. Not one tutorial or cutscene. It took me at least a half hour of playing to figure out I had to stomp on those star platformers 3 times in a row. The next stage you have to look for a key and unlock Aero’s buddy from a cage. You see exploring wouldn’t have been such a problem if Aero did not move super fast. Just by how fast you move you are so prone to receiving cheap hits from enemies and worst case scenario landing on the millions of spikes placed on each level. The worst parts are the ones where you have to jump on those super tiny balloons. I had to use save states constantly to get past that part. It took me 10 minutes for finally accomplish that insanely difficult scene!
The music in this game if you even call it that is just flat out horrendous. This is the worst kind of circus music ever made in the history of people coming up with circus music. If anyone dares to tell me that SNES has much better sound than Sega Genesis I will most definitely show them Aero the Acrobat’s SNES soundtrack. It’s that bad. Whoever made the music must be even more deaf than Ludwig von Beethoven. Seriously.
The graphics are okay. I mean its a 1992 platformer, but I seen better looking games that came out before Aero. It looks very Euro, and what I mean by that is that it looks very Commodore Amiga. Colorful but just plain average looking and nothing to write home about.
In conclusion Aero the Acrobat is the best example of what I call “Eurojank”. LJN back in the NES days put out a lot of janky poorly designed European games. Sunsoft before SNES used to put out amazing games like Blaster Master, Batman, Journey to Silius, Gimmick, Uforia, etc. Then they put out this mess on 16-bit consoles. Simply put Aero the Acrobat in my opinion was the very game that almost killed Sunsoft.
It puzzles me why they agreed to let Ratalaika Games put this out along with the sequels on next gen platforms. Sunsoft’s western developed Looney Tunes games on SNES were bad too. I’m glad we are spared from those because of Warner Bros. Please save your $5.99 from the eshop. This is one of the worst SNES games ever. If you want GOOD Sunsoft games I recommend Gimmick Special Edition, Trip World DX, and the Blaster Master Zero series. Now those games are the real Sunsoft!
Disclaimer: A reviewcode was given for this review.
David Medina is a hardcore gamer and Japanese import collector owning dozens of systems and games from Famicom to Nintendo Switch. He has an active YouTube channel called "The Karnov Jr Show" and posts retro gaming content there weekly showing off collections, random store tours, and gameplay clips.