Aaero2: Black Razor Edition (PS5)
When I heard Aaero2 was releasing, I was very interested to see how the rhythm game series would evolve its light ribbon riding gameplay. Unfortunately, its release date was in the middle of October, the yearly Haunted Hoard taking priority over checking out how the sequel to Aaero aimed to improve its promising format. Aaero2 has received a special edition with some of its DLC music included a year later though, and since I could fit it into my schedule this time around, I found Aaero2: Black Razor Edition further expanding what might be gradually becoming my favorite style of rhythm game gameplay.
When playing a music track in Aaero2: Black Razor Edition, you find yourself as a little spaceship flying forward automatically. Your left control stick is mapped perfectly to the ship’s movements, your flight path technically a sort of invisible tube where the edges will contain the most important element of the action. Around the outside of this cylinder, ribbons of blue light will appear, your main goal in a stage being to move your control stick to help your ship accurately ride these lines. These lines will only appear in the outer circumference, no lines ever appearing in the center, this an important fact since it makes moving around reliable and smooth. If a line wants to make a large spiral, you move your control stick around the edges, and since it is always around the outside, the only precision you need to account for is the full 360 degrees of a circle that the control stick’s housing will help you trace. The light ribbons can take on many shapes, sometimes coming in rapid small lines, rising and falling in quick succession, and sometimes asking you to trace long moving curves, the player able to see a fair bit ahead and rarely losing sight of the bright lines even in the flashier levels. There is an underwater stage with a lightning strike that does obfuscate it a bit briefly, but otherwise it’s fairly easy to spot what motions are required, even if they will sometimes ask you to be incredibly responsive to keep up with the tunes.
The music in Aaero2: Black Razor Edition is mapped superbly to the light ribbons, either prioritizing the vocal tracks or the strongest melody present. Even if you couldn’t see the lines, the way they are mapped feels surprisingly natural, high notes taking you to the top of the circle and the frequent focus on electronic music on the soundtrack also suits the ribbon format well. The digital synthesizers can create a musical ascent or descent that slides smoothly, this perfectly transitioning into the light lines that your ship needs to stick close to. At the same time, Aaero2: Black Razor Edition will map more frantic moments in the song accurately too, meaning if it is rapidly flitting between notes you will need to get your ship to each little line to avoid losing credit. There are a few songs that push this a bit far, but never to the point of cracking, an attentive player able to keep up even with the high tempo tracks because moving the ship is clean and the game doesn’t necessitate you being 100% accurate in riding the lines.
When playing a song, you’ll be given three lives to clear it, and properly riding the lines is the first possible point for retaining those lives. If you go a bit too long without hitting the ribbons properly, your ship will explode, something that can sound intimidating, but Aaero2: Black Razor Edition handles difficulty fairly well. Once you start unlocking Advanced and Master difficulties, you’ll notice that the ribbons aren’t actually made that more complicated, the game having found a good sense for how accurate and demanding to be on normal and instead finding other areas to be less lenient to provide more difficulty. In Normal and lower, there is a sort of magnetism that helps you ride a line if you’re close enough to it, and even if you’re off quite noticeably, a bit of electricity will extend out towards the line to buy you some time to adjust without losing too much. Your point multiplier does increase as long as you remain consistent on the lines, maxing out at times 8, and points do serve a purpose because each level provides up to 5 stars based on your performance. Stars are used to unlock new stages and the higher difficulties, and rising up through the difficulties serves as pretty good training for consistency even though the rhythms already feel rather natural during play.
The other way difficulties differentiate themselves involve the other consideration during your musical flights. Enemies will appear at set times during a song, your right control stick used to aim your weapons independent of your movement. You have a set of rockets that lock onto the robotic fiends, but they take some time to reload if you do not time their launches right. You need to launch the rockets in time with the beat, but not necessarily on beat. Instead, a meter indicates which beat to launch on, this meter always visible in the top left but also appearing near your targeting reticle so you can try and get the timing down. The fact the meter is involved rather than just trying to land on any beat can make it a bit difficult to get the timing down, but usually enemy placement means fighting them will occur during separate segments from the light lines or during less demanding riding sections. Harder difficulties ask you to mix light line accuracy with attacking enemies during more difficult moments though and increase the amount of foes in general, but if you feel you can’t get the beat well, you are thankfully given an alternative. Weaker cannons can be fired a bit like a machine gun, these great for wiping out little enemy swarms or getting in that last bit of damage if you didn’t have enough rockets loaded. Enemies do sometimes pull you mentally out of the rhythm still even when well placed or having this safeguard against being offbeat, but the three boss battle stages are well handled since they go for something a bit in the middle. When facing the bosses, light ribbons will still appear at times, but the movements of the giant enemies will often be in time with the music track, so if you’re dodging the claw of the giant crab, the rhythm will help you stay safe as you unleash your constant rocket salvos.
The music selection in Aaero2: Black Razor Edition is generally excellent both in terms of the actual quality in the selections and how they map to this game’s gameplay system. In some ways, the levels are almost like music visualizers, the ribbons not only matching the high and low notes well but the locations you fly through are designed to suit the track in different ways. While individual locations may include places like the dark abyssal depths of the ocean, icy tunnels, shattered technological structures in the sky, or even a volcano, the way you fly can involve using the rhythm to help dodge moving barriers or boss attacks. The heavy presence of electronic dance music in the soundtrack can often lead to stretches where you fly through some advanced machinery to match the sizzling electrical sound, but a bit more impressive is how the game can lead up to a boss confrontation with the previous stages without it feeling forced. The crab boss for instance has the previous songs seeing you start by plunging into the water before tracks bring you to different depths, new hazards and enemy types giving them unique visual identities despite the shared theme.
The 18 songs on the tracklist for the main campaign of Aaero2 all existed prior to the game, something that can feel like a bit of a shock considering how perfectly they seem to be mapped to provide the game’s specific style of action. Some tracks were lightly edited mostly to remove things like slow lead-ins or an occasional spoken line, but even listening to them outside the game it’s surprisingly easy to remember how the tracks were represented by the ribbons. The music, despite leaning on electronic, dubstep, techno, and that general genre field won’t end up feeling samey, partly because the range of tracks includes some very memorable and catchy hooks as well as a range of tempos and themes for the lyrics. The first level Rupture is pure electronic sound and it serves as a solid introduction since it suits the gameplay so perfectly, it possibly the hardest to mentally divorce from Aaero2’s action because of it. Elsewhere though you’ve got What’s Going Down with a nice repeated call and response, songs often able to use repeated portions as a chance to complicate the action with enemies flying in since you can learn to anticipate the ribbon layout reliably for such portions. Grit, appropriately by a musician called BOSSFIGHT, underscores the giant crab boss with a unique track that brings together a range of vocal styles and even blade sounds over a powerful marching electronic beat. Savior has lovely calmer vocals between the heavier beat drops, and while some of the later tracks like Warp aren’t quite as memorable or unique, you can still find they work well for providing some tougher final levels with beats that are easy to pick up so you can anticipate what lies ahead.
The specific thing that sets this release apart from the standard version of Aaero2 though are the six new tracks which include some of the best music in the entire game as well as some breaks from the usual format in terms of what tracks are typically included in an Aaero title. While the original set of 18 all came from the Monstercat record label, the actual publisher of this game, Wired Productions, also has a label called Black Razor Records from which they get the new set of six songs. Arcade Paradise and Joystick feels like they’re in good company with the standard tracks of Aaero2, although as DLC they get a bit playful with their backgrounds like Arcade Paradise taking place in a cyberpunk city with building sized arcade machines. When you reach Euphoria though, you get a music track that is primarily just one saxophone carrying the whole level. It has an electronic backing, but your movements need to match a saxophone that does not hold back on rapid short notes at points, and it is actually a rather nice challenge and a shift from regular play as you need to keep up with some fairly involved jazzy licks. An excellent test of how well you’ve really got the ribbon riding down, Euphoria does stand out from DLC that isn’t otherwise overly difficult compared to the main game, but the remaining three songs are highlights as they all come from Lania Kea. One of her songs is almost just a gentle chant, Wakan Tanka taking its name from the Lakota word for divine and providing a more relaxed and contemplative stage. Her other two tracks, One Step Closer and Dig Down, really let her vocals shine. In these dreamy tracks you often get closer to some light beautiful pop than the usual electronica, the lyrics often an interesting contrast with her speaking of sadder subjects and going down while hitting high notes. While other music tracks in the game are definitely worthy of listening to independently, Lania Kea feels like a particularly nice find for the soundtrack and for watching as a general artist.
Aaero2: Black Razor Edition does have one more element of particular note, one that hopes to provide some longevity to an experience that might otherwise be a bit easy to clear in a night or two since even with the full set of 24 tracks, you might only need two or so hours to play everything. Multiplayer is an option for every song in Aaero2, this possible in co-op play and in a more competitive form. The new ship joining you as player 2 rides orange lines instead and they are positioned differently, still matching the songs superbly and in fact sometimes the sight of both players playing well can feel like a special dance. Competitive play does the double line idea better since you’re always competing to be more accurate and kill enemies, a song divided into a few sections where you want to win more portions than the other player to get the overall victory. Co-op play can sometimes relegate the second player to enemy shooting duty while the other person is doing the more exciting line riding though. Since there isn’t much room for interference or new content that requires close cooperation, it can feel like you’re just playing at the same time as someone else rather than playing together, but it is a novelty with some satisfying sights and it’s the only place where the game’s other unlocks, elements for your player card that display online, have any use. It’s hard to say what a more direct form of player interaction for the multiplayer in this gameplay format could be, but it is a nice option to have and a reason to return beyond just setting new level high scores.
THE VERDICT: Aaero2: Black Razor Edition provides an excellent gameplay style for riding the rhythms of electronic music, the light ribbon system feeling so natural and satisfying while managing to perfectly match the music without becoming too demanding. The enemies do sometimes throw things off a touch with the way the beat system is handled, but they add some appreciated difficulty and bosses in particular can sync up with songs in impressive ways. The new songs from the Black Razor catalogue are some of the best in game in terms of quality and they break a bit from the norm for some more unique experiences. Whether you play it solo on varying difficulties or in multiplayer, Aaero2: Black Razor Edition has some enjoyable rhythm game action despite the clear room to grow in terms of being a longer experience or one with some more direct multiplayer competition.
And so, I give Aaero2: Black Razor Edition for PlayStation 5…
A GOOD rating. It does feel a little weird to not rate Aaero2: Black Razor Edition higher after I lead in saying the ribbon system may be my favorite way of mapping music to a playable game I’ve encountered thus far, but the reason is twofold. The ribbon system is done excellently here to be sure, but many rhythm games do reach a point where simply mapping the music well has reached its limit. A game like Dance Dance Revolution for example can only throw the four arrows at you and would need some new idea to carry it higher, and the other reason we’re still only Good with Aaero2 comes from what the game tries to use to break through the ceiling to the next level of quality. The enemies are an important injection of difficulty that makes you consider the music differently, trying to launch rockets on beat a brief little challenge and something that can shake up the action so the line riding isn’t the only thing determining your success. Even though some hostile environment parts do try to add some danger, they’re still mostly tied to movement and easy enough to figure out, so moving foes add something less predictable, but breaking you out of the flow state necessary for the ribbons is a disruption that will always sit a little sour even when it is done properly. The bosses feel like better breaks, especially since their line riding is segmented away from the more focused battle bits, and more bosses in general could have done Aaero2: Black Razor Edition some good. It’s a bit of a shame the six extra tracks didn’t contain a new boss, but they are well-selected and designed around and even show where maybe another Aaero game could take things. Expanding the genre breadth even further would add some appreciated variety and Lania Kea’s excellent music shows the play style can work with softer tracks and ones that don’t even feel close to EDM. Multiplayer was maybe meant to be a next step as well, and while it has few actual issues since it maps songs well, it is more score comparison or working on the same track rather than a true shake-up to core design.
Aaero2: Black Razor Edition is worthy of more attention than the original Aaero and even the standard release of Aaero2, the added tracks a truly appreciated supplement that maybe shows a new path for a gameplay style that works well and hopefully can keep evolving or exploring new approaches. The ribbon system is clean, intuitive, and now better handled than the original Aaero in terms of mapping being accurate but not overly stringent, and while the combat bits always feel a little out of step, they do add some extra challenge without actually breaking what works. Hopefully there will be an Aaero 3, maybe called Aa3ro even, that shows where this series can keep going to break through the barrier into greatness, the pieces already there once it can find the next step to push the concept higher without losing what makes it so satisfying as is.