: Sanritsu Denki
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 1990
Aerial Assault feel like a bit of an outlier among 90s Master System games. It came out within a year of the Master System’s end in America. Many of the games released around this time were ports of Genesis and NES games with much more familiar counterparts. I already wrote about Sonic the Hedgehog, and there would be several others such as Golden Axe and Castle of Illusion on the horizon. Aerial Assault is certainly one of the least famous later releases. There is a version on Game Gear, but that doesn’t raise its profile much. It’s just a low-key horizontal shooter, and that’s part of the charm. It feels like a game that should’ve come out in 1986 instead of 1990. I don’t mean that as a criticism either. It just feels so familiar. Of course I’ve played thousands of video games at this point, so probably every game I review is going to feel somewhat familiar. But Aerial Assault is one of those games that brings back memories even though I never played it until a couple years ago. It’s so familiar that it’s a little hard to write about. I feel like I’ve written this review before.
Actually, despite it being a side-scrolling shooter it reminds me of Contra. They both have a vaguely military setting that starts out at least somewhat realistic and then builds into something sci-fi and alien. Aerial Assault also has a couple of similar bosses where you hit the red spot and blow them up piece by piece. A closer influence would probably be Gradius though. Of course what side-scrolling shooter wasn’t influenced by Gradius? I might as well say a platform game was influenced by Super Mario Brothers. Still, the horizontal waves of enemies and frequent power-ups will probably ring a few bells. It also shares the previous games’ difficulty. Aerial Assault lured me in with a false sense of calm with the relatively easy first level, but each level adds more and more enemies until it almost becomes ludicrous. I enjoy intense difficulty in shooters though, and I think that I could at least finish this one on easy mode if I practiced. There are seven continues available, but it still wasn’t enough to get through the whole game.
Actually, my main criticism is also similar to Contra. Aerial Assault has a ton of power-ups, and while this is typically a good thing, all the icons on the screen can mess you up. My strategy with Contra was to find a spread gun and keep it the whole game. All the other power-up icons were downgrades. This can happen in Aerial Assault as well. There will often be clumps of power-up icons appearing at the same time. It’s hard to learn what’s what, so it’s easy to end up with a weapon that you don’t want. I’m not very good at memorizing visual symbols in the first place, so I found it especially confusing. I couldn’t remember which ones were extra ground missiles or pea shooters. There are also a few instant death icons out there. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea, but there are a bunch of old games with instant death power-ups, and nobody liked them. I don’t know why they kept doing it. It’s not like there weren’t enough things in Aerial Assault to kill me.
I should try not to start ranting too much. Aerial Assault really is an enjoyable shooter. The power-up situation can be a little annoying at times, but it also keeps the game from feeling hopeless. Even completely powered down I never felt like I couldn’t still win. I usually didn’t, but at least I knew I could. So here we have another Sega Master System game that’s going into the good column. I know it’s starting to look like the Master System had the best quality control in history, but I am cherry picking a bit. I have mostly been focusing on games I already know are good or games I’m not as familiar with over my decades of playing. I’ll get to the bad ones, but it’s hard to play a game I already know I don’t like. It still might have one of the highest quality percentages, but that’s because I don’t imagine any console having that high of a good game count. Also I’ve been trying to review all the games that start with “A” and I ended up liking all the Alex Kidd games. Speaking of Alex Kidd, I’m going to rate Aerial Assault just the same as I rated High Tech World. It’s now #66 right behind Lords of Thunder. I wonder how many SMS games will end up in the lower half of the good section? Only time will tell.
Sega Master System Quality Percentage: 7/9 or 78%
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