New Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters game by SUCCESS

[Lemnear]

https://x.com/gosokkyu/status/1844353194987749734

"from tonight's Hamster ACA stream: Sonic Wings (Aero Fighters) is coming back with a new game, produced by Success & with music by series composer Soshi Hosoi the announcement/reveal's scheduled for November 8"






https://www.gematsu.com/2024/10/new-aer ... r-27-years

Release Date: 25 May 2025 (PS5/Switch/PC/Arcade)

[EmperorIng]

Potentially exciting, though I hope this doesn't end up being Sonic Wings 2020. Success has a better track record of actually making and finishing games, or at least farming them out to appropriate devs. Let's hope and pray for no ZeroDiv or CityConnection involvement.

Also, this will be a major disappointment if the game style is more like Sonic Wings Limited (slow bullets, sloppy levels) and not like the fast paced mayhem of Sonic Wings 2/3, though since those types of games are so rare these days I will not hold out hope.

Maybe if we're lucky, an alternate scenario is that some of the Saizensan devs from Cotton RnR can cook up a wacky score-focused game with the Sonic Wings branding, ha.

[Steven]

New Sonic Wings WTF? This is about the least expected thing that could have happened today, and here it is.

At least they got Hosoi back. I see a certain dude all the time at random old game events but only a few months ago did I learn that that dude is Hosoi. I don't think I've actually talked to him yet, but I'll ask him about this the next time I run into him.

Anyway, yeah, hope they do a good job on this, and getting whoever the hell has been doing the recent Cotton games to do this would be glorious. The last thing of theirs that they did in-house that I bought (as far as I'm aware, anyway) was the new HD versions of Akai Ito and Aoi Shiro and those... had some problems. They fixed them, but it took about a year and a half, over the course of which they made a bunch of small improvements in a series of patches that eventually and very slowly brought back all of the features that were in the PS2 versions that got cut from the HD versions. Pretty sure everything's back, at least. Heard the English translations are trash, but I don't care about that lol.

[Lemnear]

Potentially exciting, though I hope this doesn't end up being Sonic Wings 2020. Success has a better track record of actually making and finishing games, or at least farming them out to appropriate devs. Let's hope and pray for no ZeroDiv or CityConnection involvement.

Also, this will be a major disappointment if the game style is more like Sonic Wings Limited (slow bullets, sloppy levels) and not like the fast paced mayhem of Sonic Wings 2/3, though since those types of games are so rare these days I will not hold out hope.

Maybe if we're lucky, an alternate scenario is that some of the Saizensan devs from Cotton RnR can cook up a wacky score-focused game with the Sonic Wings branding, ha.

Since the rights to the Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters series are currently held by Hamster, I believe Hamster will be the publisher and Success the developer (I think so)

[Bassa-Bassa]

At least they got Hosoi back.

Seems it's the other way round, according to Famitsu - Hosoi got them back.

And it's a Success production/publishment, Hamster is just licensing it out, so it's unlikely we're facing a Strikers 2020-like case, where everything was in-house.

[pablumatic]

Hoping its pixel art, but if its 3D I hope it has a decent polygon budget and doesn't look like its a port of a 2005 era PSP game.

[Daytime Waitress]

Announcement was wholly unexpected, so I'm gonna remain cautiously optimistic until we've actually seen anything.
Hosoi's involvement points at something positive.
But modern, blobbed up Mao Mao has already given me a greater appreciation for her relatively sleek and realistic original designs.

[To Far Away Times]

This game better have Spanky in it or we riot.

[jehu]

This game better have Spanky in it or we riot.

Wish granted. You get Spanky, but it’s the monkey, not the dolphin.

[Lemnear]

Hoping its pixel art, but if its 3D I hope it has a decent polygon budget and doesn't look like its a port of a 2005 era PSP game.

In my opinion, a Radirgy cell shading style would be perfect for a new Sonic Wings...although it will more likely be "Cotton-style" .

[Daytime Waitress]

This game better have Spanky in it or we riot.

So help me, I know it only exists in the roughly translated overseas version, but I'd kill for the intermission screen before the jungle stage to be that sonofabitch hitting autopilot and breaking out the skillet and a carton of eggs.

[D]

Really excited for this. Praying it will be 2D pixel art.
Even more heavy and hard praying in an actual church right now it will have TATE.
And please release a physical version and even a limited edition and also a collectors edition with alot of stuff.
Huge Sonic Wings fan here. Shut up and take my money.

[Bassa-Bassa]

The Famitsu article also reminds us that this is a thing. I don't think it'll be a deviation like that this time, but expecting pixel art from the Japanese these days for a series with semi-realistic aesthetics and that never really had too remarkable pixel art is way too much to expect. I'd love to be proven wrong, anyway.

[DietSoap]

The Famitsu article also reminds us that this is a thing. I don't think it'll be a deviation like that this time, but expecting pixel art from the Japanese these days for a series with semi-realistic aesthetics and that never really had too remarkable pixel art is way too much to expect. I'd love to be proven wrong, anyway.

I might just be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I always thought the Sonic Wing games looked quite good.

[Jeneki]

I enjoyed Cotton Rock n Roll so I'm willing to be optimistic for now. Hope for the best on November 8th reveal.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Wasn't there a promised Strikers 20XX stg as well some time back -- what happened with that particular stg title anyways (with X-Nauts developer)?

Awesome to hear another Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters stg release down the road -- will it be released during the upcoming 2025 timeline?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Bassa-Bassa]

The Famitsu article also reminds us that this is a thing. I don't think it'll be a deviation like that this time, but expecting pixel art from the Japanese these days for a series with semi-realistic aesthetics and that never really had too remarkable pixel art is way too much to expect. I'd love to be proven wrong, anyway.

I might just be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I always thought the Sonic Wing games looked quite good.

We'll agree that they weren't quite at Air Duel's, or Donpachi's, or Raiden II's, or 1941's, or Varth's, or Strikers 1945's, or Rapid Hero's, or Fire Barrel's (to mention only stuff previous to SW3) level, right? That's what I meant.

[Herr Schatten]

Very unexpected, but I do like Sonic Wings a lot and Cotton Rock'n'Roll is ace, so I’m optimistic this might actually turn out well.

[Lemnear]

The Famitsu article also reminds us that this is a thing. I don't think it'll be a deviation like that this time, but expecting pixel art from the Japanese these days for a series with semi-realistic aesthetics and that never really had too remarkable pixel art is way too much to expect. I'd love to be proven wrong, anyway.

I might just be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I always thought the Sonic Wing games looked quite good.

We'll agree that they weren't quite at Air Duel's, or Donpachi's, or Raiden II's, or 1941's, or Varth's, or Strikers 1945's, or Rapid Hero's, or Fire Barrel's (to mention only stuff previous to SW3) level, right? That's what I meant.

Is Air Duel considered "graphically high"? Yes it is very detailed but there is not much "motion" in the images. Varth on the other hand, really moves a lot of stuff at once.
Isn't Donpachi from the same year as SW3?

[Bassa-Bassa]

Donpachi is exactly 5 months older than SW3.

As for on-screen "motion", we're discussing pixel art, not coding skills or technological leaps.

[Lemnear]

Donpachi is exactly 5 months older than SW3.

As for on-screen "motion", we're discussing pixel art, not coding skills or technological leaps.

maybe the Sonic Wings series has never been spectacular neither in gameplay (well done but nothing new) nor in pixel art (well done but nothing memorable).
But they certainly know how to give character to the characters, they demonstrated it with the Sonic Wings series, and then as Psikyo, with Gunbird.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Yeah. More precisely, they copied the formula from Parodius and Area 88 for Sonic Wings (after practicing a bit with Rabio Lepus) and it worked so well that Nakamura hired a reputed artist for Sengoku Ace's characters, which worked even better so they made him repeat it for Gunbird.

[Shatterhand]

Really excited for this. Praying it will be 2D pixel art.
Even more heavy and hard praying in an actual church right now it will have TATE.
And please release a physical version and even a limited edition and also a collectors edition with alot of stuff.
Huge Sonic Wings fan here. Shut up and take my money.

I hope this is pixel art indeed

[Lemnear]

Sonic Wings New Press Conference
Friday, November 8, 2024
Whoever is around there, come and stop by!

[Steven]

Holy shit it's an arcade game. Home versions will exist on May 29, but there is apparently going to be an arcade version.

[BIL]

Encouraging!

[Steven]

Yeah, it was super unexpected to see a Sega ALL.Net P-ras MULTI logo in the presentation slides, but it's there.

Title is SONIC WINGS REUNION. PC, PS5, and Switch versions out on May 29. 8 stages, and with multiplayer, but arcade version is 1P only. Lol they skipped PS4? I thought there was a PS4 announcement, but it looks like I was wrong.

Website's up: https://swr.success-corp.co.jp/

Okay, now I am confused. The presentation slides indicated a PS4 version that isn't anywhere on the website.

Spoiler

[EmperorIng]

I have much higher hopes now that it is also revealed to be coming to arcade. That -should- mean some level of quality control. It seems to me to be pointless, or self-defeating, to have a Sonic Wings game on arcade, with a big roster, and NOT have 2 player though. That's the point of the big roster!

Perhaps APM3 just can't do multiplayer without massive stutter or slowdown? Cotton Rock n Roll didn't get 2P support until Exa swooped in and released their own version later.

I just hope that it isn't braindead easy. It would be great if it looped, but that's asking a lot in this day and age. I kind of want fast bullets instead of bullet hell. This, however, just feels the most unlikely of all. Who makes fast bullet shit outside of MOSS these days?

"Roster" is
-Mecha Keaton
-The Blazers
-MaoMao
-Hien
-Kohful
-Chaika and Pooshka
-Lord River
-Spanky/Whity/whatever new name dolphin they can come up with

Keeping it safe, though that's to be expected. Did anyone want the baby back? Where do you go from the baby?

EDIT: kind of looks like different artists drew different portraits, doesn't it?

[DietSoap]

EDIT: kind of looks like different artists drew different portraits, doesn't it?

I thought the same thing when I first saw that. Looking at the credited Character Designer's Pixiv page, though, you can see his artstyles are all over the fucking place. I could absolutely believe he drew all of those characters.
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/646340/artworks?p=1
Interesting to note that he has worked on every single Sonic Wings game.

[Jeneki]

Good old Sonic Wings. Yes we're really going to wear this flying jets.