Aero Fighters - SNES

Year: 1993
Developer: McO'River (!?)

First Glance
Top down flying shooter!  First one I've done so far, so hopefully this will be fun.  Demo scenes are pretty short, but it seems pretty standard.  I have no idea who the developer is, but I do see a lot of Japanese names in the credits.  Not much else to say except it's top down, airplanes, bullets and bombs.  Here we go!

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Played for:  15 minutes

Hm, wasn't bad.  Was actually more Bullet Hell than I was expecting.  I think the biggest problem is just that Bullet Hell only works so well on SNES digital controls.  I'm sure more than just this one game exist, and I'm sure with practice, it gets better, but it's just really hard to maneuver between those tight spaces with a digital 4-way pad.  Looks like you can play 2-player simultaneous though, and I bet that's fun.  Otherwise, it's so standard that there's not really much to talk about.  Shoot the other planes, don't get hit, use your bombs, upgrade your weapon.  But the upgrades aren't anything special.  Actually, I will go try a different plane and see if I notice anything.

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Played for:  Another 20 minutes

Alright, looks like one time through for only 15 minutes wasn't quite enough to give this game justice. I can't say I will always take every game from every angle, but this one slipped through.  The different planes do have different types of shots.  They aren't really game-changing different, but the bombs definitely have different attack styles.  Also, playing as different planes alters the order in which you play the levels, which keeps it interesting.

Hit it or Quit it?
Well, I already did go back for seconds on this one, but I would still hit it again.  I'm not sure I would have after the first round, but the second round definitely showed it had some interesting bits to it, and that with a little practice, it did get easier to handle the d-pad.  I don't know how much more I would go back for, since there are a billioon Bullet Hell/Top-down shooters to play, but I could already feel myself getting better enough at this one that I could at least take another run at it.