Aero Fighters (known as Sonic Wings in Japan) is a vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up ("shmup") arcade game released in 1992 by Video System, ported to the Super Famicom in 1993 and the Super Nintendo in 1994. It spawned two sequels for the Neo-Geo, one for the Arcades (with ports to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn) and one in 3-D for the Nintendo 64. The first sequel was notorious for multiple instances of Engrish, such as "I never thought I'd be frying over a jungle."
Most of the creative team that worked on Aero Fighters created Strikers 1945 and other shmups for Psikyo.
SNES version[ | ]
The SNES version adds hidden boss attack and time attack modes, and 2 hidden playable fighters, Rabio and Lepus (from Rabio Lepus, known outside of Japan as Rabbit Punch).
This version was released in limited quantities outside of Japan, and is one of the rarest cartridges for the Super NES.[citation needed]
The Japanese version does not use kanji in text as in the arcade version.
Game play[ | ]
Stages[ | ]
There are 8 stages in this game. The beginning stages consists of randomly chosen areas from nations of unselected fighters (assuming those fighters have nations). If Rabio or Lepus is chosen, all 4 rival nation stages become playable. After completing all rival nation stages, there are 4 more stages.
In the SNES version, the are 2 stage loops, and the order of rival nations is fixed. In the 2nd loop, the game's difficulty increased, except in the very hard difficulty, where the 2nd loop is easier.
Player and team-specific endings occur after completing the 1st loop. After completing the 2nd loop, the ending consists of all pilot pairs giving a speech, with the 2nd pilot in the last pair giving a cheat code.
Characters[ | ]
A player can only chose a fighter from the respective side. In a 2-player game, the player that begins the game determines the available nation of both fighters, until the game ends.
| Nation(?) | Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Blaster Keaton (F/A-18 Hornet) | Keith Bishop (F-14 Tomcat) |
| Japan | Hien (FSX) | Mao Mao (F-15 Eagle) |
| Sweden | Kohful The Viking (AJ-37) | Tee-Bee 10 (JAS 39 Gripen) |
| United Kingdom | Lord River N. White (Tornado IDS) | Villiam Syd Pride (AV-8 Harrier II) |
| ? | Rabio (red rabbit) | Lepus (green rabbit) |
External links[ | ]
- Hamster Corporation page
- Aero Fighters at Arcade-History
- Aero Fighters at MobyGames
- wiki Sonic Wings Wiki