AeroWings Review: Playing EVERY Sega Dreamcast Game (1/248)

Chronicling my mission to collect, play, and review every single officially licensed NA Sega Dreamcast game ever released, all using actual original hardware—in order of release date!

Game Title: AeroWings (aka Aero Dancing in other regions)
Developer: CRI Middleware
Publisher: Crave Entertainment (NA)
Release: September 9, 1999 (NA)
Platforms: Dreamcast Exclusive

Welcome to my first entry in my Sega Dreamcast review project! Watch the first review above ^^^

You can see the announcement of the project here:

The Sega Dreamcast Collection and Review Project

I’m collecting, playing, and reviewing every single Sega Dreamcast game in order of release and the first game on the list is AeroWings. You can read more about my process and the project as a whole right here.

The video versions of these reviews, linked above and here, will go into slightly different details as I commentate over the footage. I’m writing these blog versions first, but not reading from them directly, so consider this more of a companion piece to the video, not a script of what I’m reading.

AeroWings is a flight simulation game. What that means, for those unaware, is that the focus is on simulating the act of flying a plane realistically, not on aerial combat or dogfighting. As a result, there’s actually zero combat in this game at all.

The opening video sequences are a montage of footage of real pilots actually flying planes in formation and soaring across the skies. It does a nice job of setting the tone and expectation of what you’re in for. But if you’re like me, someone who only plays flight games casually and usually prefers something more action-packed, it was definitely an adjustment.

My only past experience with flight simulation was dabbling in various entries in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series on PC growing up. I had a friend in high school who was very into that sort of thing so I used to try them out (unsuccessfully) on his dad’s computer from time to time. It never went well.

Perhaps somewhat expectedly, AeroWings didn’t really go well for me at first either. The game is split into a handful of modes and it’s not really clear from the menu what any of them contain or which order they should be played in. And what it doesn’t tell you, is that you absolutely should watch the hands-off demonstration explainer video before you do anything else. Like, it should be mandatory even though it isn’t. You can access it either via the “Training” option at the main logo menu, or in the “Library” section under “Briefing Video” — it’s literally required viewing to get any sort of enjoyment here.

Good luck understanding any of this if you’ve never flown a plane in real life before!

This video demonstration is crucial to your understanding and enjoyment of if you, like me, have never sat in a cockpit in real life and have no idea what any of the onscreen information means. There is a base level of flight knowledge the game expects you to have and even if you read the game’s manual (which I did) there’s a lot of stuff that will just fly right over your head (pun intended).

After watching that video, which is basically a pre-tutorial, you’re ready for the Blue Impulse missions, which are then actual hands-on tutorials. Except, imagine that the tutorial is less about teaching you and more about quizzing you on topics you’ve never learned. Like if you walked into a classroom for a final exam without ever attending a single class.

Each of these Blue Impulse missions is preceded by a lengthy, but highly necessary, briefing sequence that tells you precisely what to do, but doesn’t actually explain how to do anything, which is problematic since precision is key here.

These briefings contain details like the exact throttle power, speed, altitude, turn angles, and so on that you need to hit exactly to pass to the next tutorial. It’s extremely unforgiving and difficult to appease. I did get a few good chuckles when the instructor would scream at me and berate me for not doing well enough, though. The juxtaposition between the upbeat and cheery main menu music and the dictator-esque instructor is a wonderful dichotomy worth studying.

Switching camera angles loses a lot of instrument details and HUD info, but it’s nice to see your plane in third-person.

Once I was tired of this treatment, I moved on to the next set of missions which are confusingly titled “Sky Mission Attack” for some reason. Remember how I said there is no combat in this game? Well, these “Attack” missions are just ring flight courses. They stick you on one of the various maps, place rings in the air, and task you with flying through enough to get a high enough score to move on.

Honestly, I did enjoy these missions though. Thanks to the very meticulous and intricate controls, there is a certain level of satisfaction when you pull off a tight turn and clip through the ring at the last millisecond with the edge of your wing before spinning back to the next one. It feels exhilarating, thanks in no small part to how beautiful and smooth Dreamcast games still look even today, and I caught myself holding my breath a few times in anticipation.

There’s a multi-play mode I wasn’t able to test out partially due to having no one to try it with, but also due to the insanely high barrier to entry. I could havev asked my wife or 7yo son to give it a try with me, but the multi-play mode is all about flying in formation perfectly with each other.

Yeah, no thanks.

Other than free flight around the maps, that’s all there is to offer in this one. You can unlock new planes and complete missions, but I didn’t notice much difference in how they handled. This is the part where a snobby flight sim enthusiast tells me how uncultured I am if they haven’t already started writing a paragraph in their mind.

Good luck!…Because you’ll need it!

Closing Thoughts

Did I eventually get really good and master everything? Absolutely not. Was I eventually able to pass all of the missions, just barely? Also no. But did I get through a handful of them finally before giving up and moving on to other modes? Reluctantly, yes.

I’m not sure if I would ever describe a single moment of my time with AeroWings as “fun,” but I don’t think I regret playing it either. As a time capsule of what one of the very first flight simulators for consoles looks like, AeroWings is actually quite impressive and fascinating.

Visually they’ve done a great job considering the size of the maps and intricacy of its design. I’m not surprised that AeroWings didn’t make more of a splash, but it clearly did well enough to spawn a sequel that added combat and if you pay attention, you’ll notice the game is included in lots of Dreamcast game lots and bundles for sale in stores, yard sales, and online.

As one of the launch titles for Sega’s final game console, people bought it. They may not have loved it, but they did buy it.

Episode 2 will be all about Airforce Delta, the other flight game launch title for the Sega Dreamcast.

For more insight into what I thought about AeroWings, make sure to check out the video above or right here. That’s my full rundown on the game.

Check out the table here if you want to know what’s coming up on the list. The next game in the queue for this series will be Airforce Delta from Konami, a very Ace Combat-like flight combat game.

Let me know what you think of AeroWings, or this series as a whole, down in the comments!