SONIC WINGS REUNION Steam Charts & Stats

Great shmup release, an obvious labor of love. Looks way better in game than in screenshots somehow. Also... Sonic Wings Special for the Sega Saturn Original JPY price: ¥7,800 Equivalent in 1996 USD: ~$72 Value in today’s dollars (2025): ~$147

As a big fan of the originals, and someone who still plays Sonic Wings on the Sega Saturn; I can recommend this to both veterans and newcomers. The gameplay is excellent, fun systems and powers, pitch perfect music, and Naomi/Dreamcast era graphics that just simply work in every way possible. Thank you for this release!

the gameplay itself is pretty decent, but the price is pretty steep, when you charge people 80 bucks for a shmup game, people expect something "wow" from the game that makes you think, it's worth the price, unfortunately i didn't quite get that, graphics and 3d models are very low quality for such price

I beat two loops of the game on Hard! Pretty chill game, my clear clocked at around 4.7 hrs. I honestly laughed hard the first hour playing the game due to how gimmicky animations and models are. Not sure what to say gameplay-wise, it was pretty fine. Death penalty and lack of powerups can sometimes suck though. The weakest part of the game is easily graphics, they're blurry and kinda meek. Inconsistent animations too, as much as I found them to be funny. The strongest part is music, I really enjoyed it. Some sort of beat tracks? The gameplay, I think it's in the middle. It's fine. You do kinda need to time when to pickup powers since max shot and 2x score powerup are time limited. Pretty tactical. The bombs are AWESOME though. I'm not really a fan of sponge enemies at low power shot though... Hien, River and Mao Mao are among the most ridiculous characters there in terms of gameplay lol. Please do your best to reach final boss of each loop! They're really funny.

It's a real shame that the price on steam is so extortionate , as it prices out alot of people frrom what is a very competent shmup with alot of QOL features that shmup nerds enjoy like decent leaderboards 2 loops, rank,tate, several soundtracks etc whilst remaining very accessible to newcomers and more casual players.. The graphics remind me of Dreamcast which is no bad thing in my nostalgic eyes. Hope the price comes down cause it's an enjoyable,well deisgned shmup.

Aero Fighters Reunion is something I didn't know I needed. An airplane shoot'em up where you can play as a ninja, a sentient dolphin, a viking and a Bri'ish gentleman while shooting down a spaceship that emerged from La Sagrada Familia and tries to hit you by throwing its spires. [spoiler]AND THE FINAL BOSS IS A MONKEY![/spoiler] As someone who lost countless dimes on AF2 cabinets in Italian arcades when I was a kid, this game is just PERFECT for what it wants to do. [h3]Pro[/h3] [list] [*]Gameplay as good as the originals [*]Difficulty select and infinite continues for casual players [*]Training mode [*][b]EVERY COMBINATION OF CHARACTERS HAS A DIFFERENT ARCADE ENDING[/b] exactly like in Aero Fighters 2! EVERY! SINGLE! ONE! Every character gets a solo ending and 8 team endings! This is bonkers and I love it! [*]You can play as a dolphin [*]The Wingman System is an intelligent way to complement lackluster or utility main bombs [*]Full support for vertical displays [/list] [h3]Contra[/h3] [list] [*]I'm not sure it's worth its full price, honestly [*]The character selection is great, but I miss some of the classics [*]In some stages, enemy bullets are hard to discern due to the visual clutter [*]I wish it had a theater mode to watch the endings again... [/list] [h3]Miscellanea[/h3] [list] [*] The soundtrack contains a selection of rearranged old Aero Fighter songs (mostly from AF2 and AF3) [/list] Aside from that, I cannot gush enough on how much I loved the silliness of this game. If it cost 30€, I would have absolutely, immediately, surely considered it an insta-buy. As it stands, though, it might be a hard sell for those who do not have any attachment to this legacy series. Still, if you find it on sale, PLEASE give it a go and unlock as many arcade endings as possible!

TL;DR: If you're not a Sonic Wings super fan, wait for a steep sale. The game is good but the price is ridiculous. It's a fun SHMUP and a decent entry into the Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters series, but the price is absolutely absurd for what is clearly a budget title. There's plenty of replayability, and you could probably sink endless hours into the game trying to perfect it, but that's true for most SHMUPs, and most SHMUPs aren't $60. The 3D graphics are a significant downgrade from the older 2D entries, although it's easy to understand why they made the change (see: budget restrictions.) Readability is decent enough despite the change, though, and I never felt like the game was hiding threats under visual clutter. It still looks and feels like Sonic Wings - just a bit uglier than the older entries. Some other quick notes -Music seems decent but the # of tracks is small -Turbofire is baked in, unlike most older Sonic Wings games (meaning you can hold the fire button instead of having to press it rapidly, which is a necessity for old farts like me to prevent hand or wrist injuries) -Mao Mao's eyebrows belong to me.

After so many long years we finally get a new Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters game because Aero Fighters 2 is my favorite STG and I'm estatic we get a new game in the series tl;dr it plays and feels like how an Aero Fighters game should which is the most important thing and you should get this game at some point whether full price or not but make sure you get it This is the more in depth part of the review People will have an issue with the graphics and how it looks kind of generic, it's valid but the reason I don't give it a negative on this game is because the Aero Fighters games were never graphical powerhouses even in their prime in the arcades so I don't think it's a major issue against this particular game But what I will not give a pass on is the music, it's generic and not memorable pretty much at all while the other games in the series had good and catchy music, the character portraits look modern anime which I feel is a step down from the character portraits of past Aero Fighter games so another flaw but not as big as the music due to that being more subjective the last thing I feel is a big flaw is I really wish they had only let bullets kill you like in most Psikyo games esp. because the guy who helped form Psikyo also helped make the original Aero Fighters game was involved in this game and was a major step in the right direction but it's gone now which is a let down Now 60 dollars is a lot of money for an STG game I understand because at the end of the day 60 dollars is 60 dollars and I know this review won't change some people's minds I get that but if you're still open to my opinion by the time you get to this part of the review, get this game at some point it won't disappoint I assure you If you've been looking to get into STGs, this a good option, all you have to worry about is shooting and bombing crap when things get pretty chaotic and with high bullet visibility makes it an excellent starting STG game Now bring over ports of the other Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings games to Steam

I cannot in good conscience recommend this game, or at least not at this asking price. I've played my fair share of shmups (including previous Sonic Wings games), and 60$ for this one is absolutely crazy. I could forgive the middling graphics if the readability of the screen wasn't so bad in action. At least the game is easy (went through a playthrough on normal). I don't know if the music in arrange mode has more tracks, but the normal music track variation was disappointing low. Nothing like going through 3 different levels in a row and the same track starts playing. It's not even a particularly great song. There's a fair amount of characters at least, I'll give the game that. And the character art is nice. It would also be a decent entry level shmup with its more simplistic gameplay and shot patterns (this is not a bullet hell for sure). But again, that price... I have other minor grievances with the game (getting BLINDED by the snowy stage, bosses giving hardly any feedback on bullet hits), but really, the big issue is the price. Even just here on steam, there is a plethora of great shmups available for under 30$. As excited as I was at the idea of a new Sonic Wings, this just doesn't cut it for me.