There’s nothing quite like a game that makes no attempt to explain itself. When I was younger, I picked up a sh’mup title called Aero Fighters that let you choose a pilot and then go blast the crap out of things. There was no preamble, no explanation, no real story that unfolded in any way. This might sound inconsequential: after all, with titles like Gradius or Ikaruga, the story is background noise at best and distracting at worst. But Aero Fighters practically teased you with the potential for information. Why was every selectable character from a different country? What are we attacking? Why did any of it matter? Well, decades later, the answer I got came in the form of no answer at all, as I returned to the skies in Sonic Wings Reunion, a remake of Aero Fighters with its proper name reattached.

In all seriousness, Steam pages and product sites now will give you the gist of what’s happening in Sonic Wings Reunion, but it’s still a word salad. There’s an organization called Fata Morgana that’s angling to take over the world through superweapons and bases all over the planet. You are a pilot in the clandestine group Project Blue, which is why you might be an older English gentleman, a Japanese dude whose plane shoots shuriken, or twin girls that both man the cockpit or something. No matter what, you understand that bad guys exist and you are a good guy, and we rectify the balance of the world by blowing up everything in sight. Using bullets or any number of bombs that do wild attacks (time stop, exploding matryoshka, etc) you fight back and reclaim…the skies? The planet? I honestly cannot tell you.

Sonic Wings Reunion has one of the funniest options in a menu screen I’ve seen in a game, and it makes it worth noting. The re-issuance of classic titles now has incorporated multiple versions of the game to let you see the differences, like both the English and Japanese versions of A Boy and his Blob or the OG titles from the Sunsoft Retro Game Collection. Given that Sonic Wings Reunion is a full on remake of the original title, the developers didn’t make two versions for the sake of variety. Instead, in the preferences setup, you have the option to change the title of the game on the splash screen. This is all it does, and it affects literally nothing else other than how the name looks during the startup. I positively adore this small, inconsequential addition and would love to see more of this in the future.

A vertical shooter with plenty of personality and confusing everything, Sonic Wings Reunion puts you in the pilot seat of one of several characters who develop stronger attacks as they pick up floating powerups from defeated baddies. This is not a new thing and you’d be forgiven for assuming you knew how to play the game. Good news: you totally do. Avoid getting shot, shoot other things and get stronger/rack up more points by continuing to shoot and not get shot. The big difference here is whether you choose to go at this solo or as a duet in both single or two player mode. Two player mode just results in more havoc on the screen as you and a buddy destroy every little thing that’s on the map, and can often make the high difficulties a tad easier.

What’s interesting, though, is that two player mode extends to single player as well. Before you pass out in confusion, let me explain. You have the option to choose a second pilot ship to act as a different type of bomb attack throughout the mission. So, for example, if you want to wreck house as the adorable main mascot, Mao Mao, but would benefit from River’s time stopping ability on occasion, you can pick him as an alternate while retaining your main bomb attack. It creates an incredible amount of versatility, and the only drawback is you start with one fewer bomb, which can be easily picked up throughout the play. Unless you’re determined to do a specific “purist” type of run, you should absolutely try a different character in the passenger seat to see how the game plays.

Once you get into it, the difficulty curve and excitement of Sonic Wings Reunion is tempered by some of the graphical choices that went into this remake. On the one hand, the number of mobs that you have to deal with remains a constant source of tongue-in-teeth challenge, and it’s an engaging play approach that players have enjoyed since Xevious. Getting through the waves of bogies is hard enough, but it’s only made worse once you realize some of the landscape is bitmapped, meaning you have to shoot through or dodge around select buildings. By the time you get to the bosses and their carpets of bullets, you’re almost grateful because here, at least, the danger is present and clear.

I use the words “present and clear” because this remake has added some unintended difficulty with the change in the graphics. The new, shiny coat of paint on everything has a doubled edged effect. On the one hand, the sprites look fantastic and the effects, such as the more dramatic bomb attacks, look fantastic, even on the Switch’s cramped screen. You can really appreciate the detail for individual planes and the enormity of the stage bosses, provided you can get that far. However, this also results in overly detailed landscapes that can distract from you being able to identify clear and present danger. Since collision, not just bullets, can result in the loss of life, this can be a major problem. Even on the lowest difficulty, where enemy waves are not the problem, constantly being blinded in city scapes like New York or Tokyo results in death by impact.

Moreover, there aren’t enough modern accommodations in game mechanics to support Sonic Wings Reunion on higher difficulty levels. Many players have gotten used to ideas like graze counters or more generous drops based on your performance, and that just isn’t present within the game. As it’s a beautiful but already blueprinted remake of an existing IP, players who are new to the scene might be disappointed by the fact that it’s pretty bare bones once you strip out some of the bells and whistles. Number of characters, great. Snake as a pilot, love it. Game announcing you must GIRD YOUR LOINS at the start of a stage? Perfection. But those are all distractions from the actual gameplay, which is simple, tough and doesn’t reward players for putting more risk on the line.

Additionally, as a matter of being a stingy buyer, there isn’t a ton to justify the price tag of Sonic Wings Reunion. Let me be perfectly clear: devs deserve to be paid, and there’s clearly a lot of work that went into this. The graphics are solid, but my point above about the background remains constant. The soundtracks offered in both original and the new arrangement are sweeping and enjoyable, though there’s clearly some preferential treatment given to the new tracks. Four difficulty levels gives you plenty to strive for, and there are online leaderboards to see how your attacks did versus others. The online leaderboards have been present in Switch titles since the very early Arcade Classics, so it’s far from novel, but it’s still nice to have and gives you that full “arcade” sensation of competing with people you cannot see and may never encounter in real life.

But that’s really it. Sonic Wings Reunion is operating on the expectation that nostalgia and the rabid shmup community will rationalize the AAA price tag and bite the bullet with minimal hesitation. Yet I would have expected more in order to achieve this same levels of engagement. Things like Castle of Shikigami II  has multiple storymodes, IREM Collection has multiple games, and even things like the Touhou series have a massive fanbase to drive forward each and every punishing entry, but those are all priced far more reasonably. The fact remains that people want the most bang for their buck, and Sonic Wings Reunion delivers a burst of firecrackers instead of a full on fireworks display. It’s still fun, noisy and delightful, but it’s also finished in under an hour without a ton to show for it.

Enthusiasts and collectors will want to grab the physical version of Sonic Wings Reunion, and players determined to make it to the top of the leaderboards first are probably already in poll position when the game goes live on console. But, for the choosier player, the shiny graphics and silly nature of some elements might not be enough to retain engagement, at least not at launch. It’s a decent shooter, but I’ve played dozens of decent shooters, and my memories of enjoying an SNES title isn’t going to keep me hooked into something that’s just “decent.” 

Graphics: 6.0 By turning everything up to 11, you get the pop and fizz of graphical wonderment for the avatars and some attacks. At the same time, you’ve overdone the background and make the landscape too distracting to properly deal with mobs.	Gameplay: 6.5 Standard vertical shmup approach with some interesting bomb mechanics, but not much else. Fully powered shots are great, but single bullet termination makes for a significant challenge.
Sound: 8.5 New soundtrack is dynamic and fresh, giving a lot of majesty to the world and the sensation of flight fights. Bonus points for including photos of the different composers/performers for each track under the soundtrack menu.	Fun Factor: 6.0 Its good, but it’s simply good. I can enjoy it if I’m playing it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find it. It’s like an episode of SVU being on TV when I turn it on. I won’t immediately flip away, but, if I have something else in mind, I won’t hesitate to change the channel.
Final Verdict: 6.5

Sonic Wings Reunion is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Japanese arcades (wait, really?).

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Sonic Wings Reunion was provided by the publisher.