I very rarely suffer from motion sickness in video games, but Aero Fighters Assault was so nauseating that I got a pretty bad headache as a result. The game has a very choppy framerate and the levels are so bland that they’re extremely disorientating. These are things that you need to take care of in an aircraft fighting game like this.

While this is the first jet game on the N64, it’s important to note that the PlayStation had received two Ace Combat games to set an example of what this genre should be offering, with some solid campaigns. Aero Fighters Assault has an extremely bare bones plot that doesn’t give you much of a clue of what is going on, even with the manual. Phutta Morgana (not sure if it’s a person or organisation) has melted the ice caps and flooded most of the world and has “totally immobilized the world’s ground units”. With the navy focused on rescuing people, it’s up to a squad of four pilots to save the world (even though it seems like the world has already lost).

There are seven main levels to play through (plus a couple of bonus ones). In most of them you have to destroy a massive boss vehicle. The biggest challenge is finding it due to the game’s terrible radar, but you can ignore other enemy craft for the most part – they present more danger to your teammates and you’ll miss out on a bonus star if they’re shot down (although good luck finding them when they’re in trouble, they don’t appear on the radar). One level has you defending a space shuttle from ground units and one you have to kill all enemy aircraft. There’s no actual dogfighting manoeuvres, so if an enemy gets behind you, your only real tactic is to just fly as far away and hope they give up.

The final mission gives you the intel “Lar has been sent to Earth to destroy all humanity”. After flying through an ice cave, you enter a spaceship and destroy an alien eye. Was this eye leading the organisation? It’s never explained, but with how awful the game is to actually control, the lack of actual story is probably the most entertaining part of the game. There’s also not much excuse for such a dreadful feeling flight game as the developers worked on Pilotwings 64. Another thing that I noticed was the poor hit detection for collisions – many crashes seemed like I missed the object I blew up on.

Aero Fighters Assault is a bare-bones game and didn’t do anything special when it came out – other games in the genre had already set much higher standards. Time has also done the game no favours and it comes across even worse now than it probably originally did. For me, it was an utterly horrible experience, and that isn’t even counting how it made me feel physically ill.

Worst

You’re only allowed to be shot down once before you have to restart the level. Other than that, though, you can crash your aircraft as many times as you like, so boss disposal is simply a matter of firing as many missiles as you can, then crashing into the side of the lumpy metallic beast before you take too much damage. You then reappear next to where you ‘died’, and can repeat the process until the boss explodes. In fact, crashing as soon as you take a hit is the best method of survival.

Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #16. Review Score: 58%

Remake or Remaster?

The earlier games in the series had a good reception, so having a collection would be quite nice, with this included just for the sake of preservation. The third game is currently available on Switch.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Aero Fighters Assault