Aaero was one of last-gen most memorable rhythm games, combining elements of a shoot ’em up, an on-rail shooter with the precision-based “follow the music” core of said genre. Over 7 years later, here’s a sequel simply called… Aaero2. Can you guess what the 2 stands for?
Better together
Aaero2 is a sequel mainly focusing on two things. Offering a bigger and better package with brand new content, and the other is – multiplayer! While Aaero only used to be a solo rhythm game, with then the leaderboards constituting the actual competitive aspect, this sequel can be played with another player by your side – be it locally or online, be it as a co-operative experience or a competitive one. But more on that later, because what even is Aaero?
“Rebuilt from the ground up” may be one of the most overused phrases in videogame marketing, but I guess I believe it for Mad Fellows’ new game. While the gameplay loop is evidently very similar to the first Aaero, you can definitely feel that everything was, indeed, remade. Much better visuals, smoother controls, new camera and lane styles, even various gameplay changes. But how do you play Aaero, anyway?
Rave on the rail
The player controls a flying ship, in a not better specified slightly low-poly alien ecosphere that wouldn’t feel out of place in No Man’s Sky. The ship follows a predermined path, moving automatically along the rollercoaster the game developer thought up for the level, with the player only having to use use the left stick to move all across a circular play area. As the tubular paths extend in front of our ship, there’s various pieces of lit up rails on whichever side of the playable area, that players will have to move their ship as close as possible to. That is the rhythm game part of Aaero: sticking to these rails with as much precision as possible, all while banging EDM tracks give us the rhythm. Do it well, and the combo moves up to a whopping 8x multiplier, which also increases the size of the ship – the importance of that will also soon be explained.
Indeed, it’s a much simpler formula than most rhythm games, where furious button-mashing is key – but that isn’t to say it’s a simple game. Precision is needed to stick to these rails, that often extend for several seconds and can go all across the axis, even multiple times in a row, all to the rhythm of the beat, often following some nasty raw sound in a killer dubstep track or a banging drum ‘n’ bass tune. The songs, like it was the case for the first game, feature a selection of original tracks and various Monstercat tunes, from quite notable names for EDM fans such as Koven, Droptek, MUZZ and KUURO. Each level’s sci-fi visuals are tied to the melody in excellent ways, with different biomes to traverse, giant monsters popping up to the rhythm and so forth.
Rez me!
But Aaero ain’t simply just a standard rhythm game, as it’s in equal part that and an on-rail shooter, taking cues from minds like Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s, among the creators of classics like Rez and Child of Eden. When the rail-riding stops, often enough flying enemies pop up on the screen, with players being able to use both rockets and a brand new machine gun to take down targets. In the case of rockets, it’s a multi-aim system similar to that of Rez, while the machine gun merely sees the player point the right stick and press the trigger to shoot exactly where the cursor is. Naturally, this being a rhythm game, shooting precisely and to the rhythm increases the score. But get hit a couple times and not only you’ll lose the combo, but the ship could explode, and if that happens enough times it’s game over. And since there’s even boss stages with some real tough enemies, that’s not at all a remote possibility.
As the levels increase in intensity and difficulty, new enemy types pop up, but even segments where the rail-riding and shooting happens at the same time, unleashing some true twin-stick action. But most importantly, every song can be played in 2 players, either locally or online. There’s 3 modes, of both the competitive and cooperative variety, depending on whether you wanna hunt high scores with your pal or just destroy them in a fierce, 1v1 competition, as both players ride rails and shoot enemies on the same path, trying to do better than the other.
I’ve seen this before, but let’s watch it together this time
Back in 2017, I played Aaero – back before its official launch, actually. I absolutely loved it, me being a fan of both EDM and such rhythm shooters. I did go back to it from time to time, trying to beat my high scores, get an elusive secret or two, and try some of the DLC songs that were later released. As such, I have plenty of hours of Aaero next to my name, and this sequel is… a bit thin in terms of notable changes. The ship’s movement feels a bit smoother, there’s new camera angles, the rail design is a bit more varied, and so are the biomes in the sci-fi backdrops. But with a similar soundtrack and a near-identical gameplay loop, other than the addition of a two-player mode, it kinda feels like a large content update, and not a numbered sequel. But I do enjoy the implication in Aaero2’s title, given the focus on the 2 player experience. To go back to the soundtrack a bit, while this sequel’s songs are all very good picks, they don’t quite feel as iconic as the OST from the first game, which featured absolutely iconic songs from Noisia, Flux Pavilion and Katy B among others, whereas this game’s artists are certainly not all that timeless.
In terms of amount of content, Aaero2 offers a similar package to what the first game did. Aside from the aforementioned 2-player multiplayer suite, there’s 18 songs, all with their own paths, over 4 different difficulties, various secrets to find and, obviously, individual leaderboards to climb. Unfortunately, for single player activity, there isn’t much else. There still isn’t something resembling a campaign, other than unlocking the songs one after another. No story, lore, or anything fancy. One of Aaero’s DLCs introduced new ships to use, but this sequel once again does not feature customizeable vehicles. What you see is what you get, and perhaps a bit more player agency would be welcome in the future. There’s customizeable banners with emblems and records, not unlike what you find in a lot of fihgting games, but it’s nothing to write home about.
More Aaero is always a good thing
The addition of 2-player modes and various improvements make a lot of sense, and do improve the Aaero formula a good bunch, but at the end of the day it’s hardly a hugely transformative sequel. Still, I fail to see that as a devastating flaw. Aaero2 brings us more awesome tracks to ride rails and shoot alien creatures on to the beat of the rhythm. Sure, it could have been a slightly more ambitious sequel in terms of game mechanics, progression and variety. Yet, even so, Aaero2 is one of the most interesting music-based games in recent memory, one that will have my grinding rails while banging my head back and forth for quite some time.
Aaero 2
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- More Aaero? Sign us up!
- 2-player modes are exhilarating
- Another banger of a soundtrack
- A handful of small but welcome improvements
CONS
- Limited variety
- Not as iconic of a soundtrack
- 2-player modes aside, a very safe sequel
