Yu Suzuki has a strong reputation for his game direction, so when Air Twister was announced, I was instantly curious about how it would turn out. It initially came out for mobile phones in 2022. I don’t play many games on my iPhone, so I was willing to wait until it was released on consoles, which has finally happened. But how does Air Twister on consoles and PCs compare to its initial iPhone and Apple Arcade debut?
Game Name: Air Twister
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Publisher(s): ININ Games
Developer(s): YS NET games
Release Date: November 6th, 2023
Price: $29.99
Air Twister starts with a beautiful melody accompanying a small cinematic of our protagonist, Princess Arch, spending time with some creatures. She then gets up and starts flying, and the very next scene is when gameplay begins. The goal is to save the Earth by defeating various types of enemies in an on-rail shooter game. At the end of every numbered level, you will join with a friendly animal to help defeat a giant boss. Each level increases in difficulty, requiring more precision and skill to keep up with the new rounds of enemies and bosses.
The Good
Right out of the gate, Air Twister has some of the best music released this year. Considering the range of games released in 2023, that is quite a bold claim. As you enter a normal area, I tend to just vibe to the music at times, which caused me to lose health more quickly than I should have if I were just playing the game normally. Honestly, I don’t blame myself; this music sends such an earworm into my head, and I will be listening to it for years to come. I am so happy that this game includes an in-game location to just listen to the music.
Air Twister has an addictive gameplay loop of flying, locking on, and shooting. It doesn’t do anything crazy, but it is fun to play and adds a lot of things to unlock in the game. It also has missions you can accomplish to get more unlockable outfits and weapons. This gives an old feeling of playing the game to unlock more things that the game has to offer. You unlock extra stages, missions, and modes by playing the normal story mode. The better you do, the more currency you get to obtain more unlockables in the game. If you’re thinking of this as a simple game on rails, it’s much more and retains the magic of Sega’s earlier games, such as Space Harrier and Panzer Dragoon.
It is not a very long game, and the price reflects that. It has a lot of replay value due to the scores and difficulty modifiers, as well as all the various game modes. Air Twister has a very stylistic approach to its character models and creatures. Even though it doesn’t have as detailed models as bigger-budget games, the game still looks polished.
The Bad
The maps get pretty repetitive in Air Twister. When you lose your last continue in the game, it sends you back to the main menu that houses your extra features. Unfortunately, when you want to go back to the story mode, it constantly makes you start from the first stage and play through the entire mode linearly again. It’s more of a cycle: start up, do your upgrades, do a run of the story mode to get more stars, and then turn it off once you finish the game or die. Trying to play for too long gets super repetitive and sometimes frustrating, especially if you are attempting higher and higher difficulties on Arcade modes or harder challenges.
You can tell that this game was mainly developed with mobile gaming in mind. There is so much to unlock and so many additions to what you need to unlock and challenges you need to accomplish that it can seem a bit overwhelming to complete. Luckily, the story isn’t affected too much by the unlockable content, but due to the small size of the story mode, the extra modes become the main reason to return to the game once you have completed the story.
Worth Giving A Try
Air Twister is a game worth purchasing. I would say it is worth buying for the music alone. It does get repetitive and can be frustrating at times, but overall, it is a pretty solid experience. The big thing I would recommend is not to blaze through the game in one go, or you might feel done with the game after the fourth story mode playthrough in a row. It’s honestly a perfect mobile or Nintendo Switch experience for when you don’t want to get too immersed in a story, but still want to have a fun time playing a game with a killer soundtrack.
Air Twister will be available November 10th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Review Disclosure Statement: Air Twister was provided to us by ININ Games for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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Summary
Air Twister is a fun arcade-feeling game directed by Yu Suzuki that has a great soundtrack and a decent gameplay loop. Though, it can get very repetitive if you are trying to play for long spurts of time.
Pros
- Music is incredible
- Gameplay is polished
- Simple and easy to understand and maneuver
Cons
- Repetitive
- Doesn’t have the feeling of a console game
