I wanna fly high

If you had told me that the next game from Yu Suzuki, the famed developer of titles like Virtua Fighter and Shenmue’s next game would be an homage to titles like Panzer Dragoon with mobile game trappings, I would have said…I can believe that. Air Twister was originally released on mobile phones back in 2022 and is now making its way onto all the modern consoles. It transfers over with minimal upgrades outside of modernizing controls and manages to be an interesting take on the genre.

From the start I was enthralled. The opening cinematic is full CGI with a fully-voiced song that sounds like a mash up of Japanese pop and Queen, which works as well as you would expect it to. The soundtrack was actually done by a composer named Valensia. It is weird and doesn’t really fit the game, but I loved it. It gives the game this awkward vibe that translates into its inconsistencies.

MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $12.99

At its core Air Twister is a fairly simple game. Being a port of a mobile game, this should come as no surprise. There are 12 stages to play through and it is intended to be a one and done run. It takes less than an hour to complete and each run is designed to earn stars and learn the patterns and enemies in the game. Each stage ends with a boss fight and little has been done here to expand this offering for console players.

The attacks are done with one button while movement is on the analog stick. This works better than the traditional phone controls, but still leaves a little to be desired. There just isn’t a whole lot of strategy involved. Runs are used to collect stars to power up your character and of course earn new cosmetic items. Each run feels more and more familiar and while there are score challenges and boss rush modes to unlock, the meat of the game feels sparse.

There is a giant map of unlockable abilities within the game and grinding for them all takes a hefty amount of stars. These include passive abilities like more damage and armor, but after a few hours I found myself simply losing interest. Some new modes or add-ons would have gone a long way for console players as what is here just feels lacking.

The visuals are nice with some great colors and enemy design. I enjoyed the large boss characters and the stages all feel unique in their own way. The music continued to be fun even if it didn’t fit the tone of the game. There are a ton of cosmetics to unlock, but a lot of them feel like afterthoughts.

The biggest crime Air Twister commits is that there just isn’t enough interesting stuff here. The stages feel boilerplate for the most part and it really never ramps up the difficulty until almost halfway through the game. With it being so short, this really drags down the experience and makes grinding out the stars for more powers feel tedious. I feel like with a few more modes or options this could have been a decent console outing, but instead it ends up feeling like a quick mobile port with little thought put into it.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.