Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 15/Oct 00:01

Sonic Wings Reunion – Review

Although Sonic Wings has been around since the early ‘90s, there’s a good chance that you’ve never heard of it. Not only was the series renamed to Aero Fighters in Western territories, but it has also been dormant since 1998, with the original publisher, Video System, filing for bankruptcy around this time. Seeing the series make its return in 2025 with Sonic Wings Reunion is a surprise to be sure, but is it a welcome one? Story There is supposed to be a story in Sonic Wings Reunion, but it certainly isn’t explained in-game, and we had to piece most of it together by looking at a translated version of Success Corp’s website and the game’s description on its Steam store page. The gist is that an evil organization known as Fata Morgana has hijacked most of the world’s military forces using advanced -possibly alien- technology in an attempt to take over the planet. In response, an elite fighter squadron, known as Project Blue, is formed. Consisting of some of the best fighter pilots from across the world, including a sentient dolphin for some reason, Project Blue fights back against Fata Morgana in an attempt to save Earth. With this overarching premise never mentioned in-game, and what little dialogue there is between characters being mostly played for laughs, you’d be hard-pressed to understand what is going on at any given point. Admittedly, dialogue does change depending on which combination of characters you pick, but it’s all very inconsequential. Ultimately, things just boil down to “everything in sight is evil, and we’re the good guys, so we shoot at it.” Graphics Nowhere are Sonic Wings Reunion’s 90s roots clearer than in its visuals. The game embraces a retro 2D arcade look with colorful, detailed sprites and anime-style pilot portraits. Those portraits in particular drive home the game’s absurdity, as they lean heavily into stereotypical depictions of the corners of the world where the pilots hail from. Of course, Swedish pilot Kowful is a literal viking, horned helmet and all, with Japanese pilot Hien being portrayed as a ninja. With Sonic Wings Reunion taking place all over the world, the stages are set across a wide variety of locations, ranging from generic oceans and deserts to cities like New York and Tokyo. The environmental design showcases fantastic spritework, although the level of detail is distractingly high to the point that it’s sometimes difficult to make out what the backdrop is and what is interactable. Speaking of interactable sprites, while the jet fighters undeniably look good, the real standout here is the boss designs, like the giant robot gorilla, which stick to the game’s overall feeling of over-the-top absurdity. The decision to stick with retro visuals also means that Sonic Wings Reunion isn’t a very demanding game, and on Switch, the game ran smooth as butter, keeping up a steady 60 fps even when the on-screen action reached its peak. Sound Featuring a whopping three selectable soundtracks, music is perhaps Sonic Wings Reunion’s strongest suit. Purists can stick to the original soundtrack from the 90s, while a rearranged soundtrack adds modern flair to the game. Most surprising is Mao Mao Mode, a comedic, tongue-in-cheek musical variant themed after the game’s Japanese pilot mascot. The music does a lot of heavy lifting, infusing the game with arcade energy. The crisp sound effects add a lot of punch too, with explosion sounds in particular being a highlight. Unsurprisingly, the game doesn’t include any voice acting. It’s not a huge miss, as this is something that is typically absent from the genre. Gameplay Over the years, we’ve played through several retro arcade shmups, from Gleylancer to more Cotton games than you could shake a stick at. Sonic Wings Reunion definitely fits in this lineup, although in this case, you’re scrolling vertically rather than horizontally as you pilot your jet. The goal is still the same: blasting waves upon waves of enemies to smithereens, and dodging incoming bullets. At the end of each of the 8 stages, you’ll find a boss waiting for you. Along the way, you can pick up power-ups and bombs for screen-clearing attacks. With its simple two-button control scheme, Sonic Wings Reunion is very accessible. It is also a lot more forgiving to newcomers than the aforementioned arcade shmups: losing a life resets your score to 0 as well as removing power-ups you picked up, but you’re still allowed to continue playing from where you died, with no other penalties. Fifteen minutes into playing Sonic Wings Reunion, we caught ourselves wondering, “Is this it?”. By that point, we had already completed our first run of the entire campaign. Most arcade shmups are fairly short, with the appeal coming from replaying the game over and over again at various difficulty levels while trying to beat your high score. That’s the case here as well, but the campaign was woefully short, even by our expectations as experienced shmup players. The appeal here supposedly lies in experimenting with different characters, as they all offer a unique aircraft and attack patterns. Alongside your main pilot, you can pick a “wingman”, which brings an extra ability to the table, opening up more playstyles, but ultimately, the differences between pilot pairs are subtle. There are multiple difficulty levels, inviting you to return to the game, but unless you’re a shmup diehard, the game feels very light on content. Aside from the main campaign, there is a training mode, but it feels unnecessary: not only does it unlock after you’ve beaten the game, but the playthroughs are so short that there’s no point in not just jumping into the fray. Even so, there simply isn’t enough substance here to keep most players’ attention for more than an hour or so unless you’re really into the genre -and at that point, you probably won’t need anyone else’s opinion to pick this one up anyway. It’s not often that we can outright say that the Switch port of a game is the definitive option, but for Sonic Wings Reunion, we feel very comfortable making that statement. On Switch, the game has the benefit of a vertical display mode, offering both portability and taking advantage of the full screen estate of the hybrid handheld. Not only that, but the Switch and PlayStation ports of Sonic Wings Reunion come in at an RRP of €29.99, significantly cheaper than the frankly ridiculous €58.99 price tag of the Steam version. We’d argue that even €29.99 is pushing it for the amount of content that you’re getting here, but this price point puts Sonic Wings Reunion in the same bracket as G-Darius HD and the Cotton games, so there’s precedent at least. Conclusion There is a good chance that reading this review took you longer than it would have taken you to play through Sonic Wings Reunion’s campaign. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: the game is undeniably short, but it’s also a very polished arcade shooter. The game is both highly accessible and very replayable, hallmarks of any good arcade title, and the retro presentation works well enough. That said, the game misses the depth and substance needed to justify its price tag. That’s without even getting into the fragmented story, but nobody’s going to play Sonic Wings Reunion for its narrative anyway. Shmup fans will like what’s on offer here -though we do recommend they wait for a discount.