Air Twister review

Once an Apple Arcade exclusive, Air Twister soars onto PC, evoking the pleasures and simplicity of yesteryear’s coin-op classics.

With a body of work that includes hits like Space Harrier, Out Run, After Burner, and Virtua Fighter, Yu Suzuki is one of the medium’s pioneers, helping to propel gaming into the third dimension. But save for the Shenmue series, Suzuki’s finest work has been his coin-op titles. Habitually filled with vibrant visuals and silky animation (he helped engineer SEGA’s Model 1, 2, and 3 boards), as well as soundtracks that could haunt your head for hours, they dispensed euphoria for a bit of pocket change.

Thirty years on, gaming tastes have changed- and an elongated, narrative-driven experience is now the norm. Originally released for Apple Arcade, Suzuki’s Air Twister revisits the auteurs’ arcade era, with a deliberate emphasis on play over plot. Within seconds of starting the new game, you’re sent soaring through its surrealistic and vibrantly colored world. Although Suzuki is reluctant to compare his latest work to Space Harrier, the resemblance is undeniable.

Performance That’s a Lock

Much like SEGA’s 1985 arcade title, you can freely move Air Twister’s Princess Arch around the screen, as she rides a flying creature with majestic wings. Once a game kicks off, you’ll be doggedly dodging any projectiles launched at you. As each bullet heads toward you, they increase in size, assisting the game’s three-dimensional perspective. You’ll also move the rider to trace a over targets, with a trigger press discharging a barrage of lock-on missiles, Panzer Dragoon-style. Like the beloved Saturn game, you can fire shots freely too. Typically, that’s an effective tactic for the boss battles that bookend most of the game’s twelve stages.

For on-rails shooter experts who’ve blasting their way through Star Fox or perhaps even Suzuki’s own Virtua Cop series, it will feel wonderfully familiar. Every time you lock-on to a creature, there’s mild visual, aural, and (provided you have a vibration-capable controller) haptic feedback, all before lilac-colored light trails arc toward the game’s horizon. Suzuki recognizes that velvety motion romances the eyes. And between the trajectories of deployed missiles and the richly textured environments you’re sailing through, Twister is lustrous. On Steam Deck, I didn’t witness a single hiccup tarnish the silky, sixty frame-per-second delivery.

A Moving Target is a Breathing Target

Without the obligation to devour a quarter every few minutes, Air Twister is far easier than yesteryear’s coin-ops. I’m hardly an on-rails prodigy, but even there’s little challenge across the game’s first four stages. Like early entries in the genre, adversaries fire at your position. So, the old tactic of moving around the screen in a square pattern remains effective. Once my ploy to survive in Afterburner, it’s still a functional exploit, especially since Air Twister doesn’t provide many environmental obstructions.

The last quarter of the campaign eventually does intensify the difficulty by escalating the number and density of enemy bullets. Success involves precise positioning and accurate timing, as multiple bursts of munitions zoom toward the quadrants of your monitor. I’d expect anyone who didn’t sink hours into Space Harrier or Afterburner to become discouraged by Air Twister’s concluding stages. Mercifully, playing through the campaign provides currency that can be used to purchase assistive perks like extra health or addition lock-ons. You’ll also unlock new stages, accessories, music, outfits, hairstyles, and face paint. The latter is rather curious, since for the majority of the game, you’ll be looking at the Princesses’ rear.

Long Live (the) Queen

Visually, Air Twister is distinctive with stages that feel like a journey through a child’s subconscious. You’ll begin gliding across a calm ocean where skies are filled with colossal, floating mushrooms. Later, expect to soar through a canyon filled with immaculate roses and fight a boss who’s comprised of watch faces.

Although there’s little connective tissue that connects bright and sunny organic worlds to moody futuristic ones, but it’s all richly textured and wonderfully eccentric. Just as peculiar is Dutch composer Valensia’s soundtrack which delivers a homage to Queen so meticulous, it’s nearly plagiaristic. From the imitation of Freddie Mercury’s vocals to a replication of Brian May guitar licks during boss battles, it’s all dead-on. But it also feels divorced from the on-screen action. Oddly, an end-of-stage synth refrain that recalls Madonna’s “Material Girl” is even more disjointed.

Air Twister isn’t an unlikeable experience, offering mild enjoyment and aesthetic charm as your grind for unlockables. But it’s disappointing that Suzuki doesn’t evolve the basic formula he established over three decades ago. Efforts like Panzer Dragoon and Rez evokes the on-rails shooter with wraparound environments and play than fused sight and sound. But Twister adds little, making for ephemeral enjoyment.

Air Twister was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.