HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 2025 TRASH DESCENT V: AIRBORNE (IN)JUSTICE
One final glimpse on this twisted side of shmup reviewing.
The horror is about to end in this review.
Final chapter of this helly ride, and this time we will see something a little different. How about a clone of a classic game.
Clones are also prone to trash gaming, and this case if Airborne Justice.
Developed by Seep S.p.A. ("Società per azioni"), yeap, an Italian developer, that's new since most trash shovelware games come from China and Russia, but they have quite awhile around. Remember the "Clonetroid" (or "Indietroid") Cosmos Bit?
I call this menu the "Fisher-Price® Pick and Guess" configuration.
For some reason, looks like Seep fucked up and we hadn't start playing the game already. From what we're looking, the menus are basically identical to those of Glitch Blaster Waifu, making me think Seep used the same "Engine" for Airborne Justice.
Well, let me explain you each "button" in the Main Menu.
"PLAY BUTTON" OPTION: Start Game, you can select any stage and mode you've unlocked.
"SPEECH BUBBLE" OPTION: Instructions, this is where the game explains you about the necessary stuff you need to know about this game.
"PHOTO AND PENCIL" OPTION: Gallery, you unlock images as you clear stages.
"ARROW THROUGH A DOOR" OPTION: Toggle "Scanlines" on or off and language select.
Make your choice!
Once you select Start Game, you can select whatever stage you've unlocked, along with any of the modes available once you clear the 5 stages. You can also select if you want 1 or 2 players, if you have a friend either stupid (or Trophy urged) enough to play this shit with you.
With this said and done, let's go with the gameplay.
Overcrowded with enemies right out of the box.
Well, the gameplay is an helicopter shooter that borrows influences from Toaplan's legendary shmup Twin Cobra as we have weapons like the "Back Shot" and the "Power Shot" along with bombs to fight our way through 5 stages. Curiously, the manual says you have missiles and bombs, but guess what? the Missile IS the "bomb", so the X button does nothing! But guess what? The bomb is activated WITH A DIFFERENT BUTTON THAN THE ONE MENTIONED ON THE OPTIONS!, In the XBOX version, you have to hold the Right Trigger until the "Fuel" gauge fills, that's your screen clearing special attack. Curiously, the PlayStation 4|5 version doesn't have that problem since the Square button actually works as the Thunderflash button. To make things worse, the game's difficulty is absurd as it SPAMS you with enemies on the very first stage. Yeah, the screen is pelted with Zako-type spheroid drones forcing you to burn a bomb or clear your path with the regular shot, unless you know how to use the Thunderflash, but even with the Thunderflash is not enough to clear the constant overflow of enemies since it overheats like the Hyper beam in R-Type III, and you will be relying on evasive manuevering most of the times.
Hypersaturation.
God helps you out there, kid.
In any normal game, you'll face a wave of a few ships so you can get slowly used to the game's mechanics and attack patterns before the pace climbs up. So, we're having unbalanced enemy formations already. Also, this game has the annoying "Take a hit and lose your power up" shit. You know what I'm talking about: Lose 1 hit point and say goodbye to your powerful weapon. Also, there's no spare lives in the game. Die once and you're back to the selection menu.
Naval Threat?
Barely makes its job as a stage boss.
Boss battles are boring and repetitive. Start off with the first boss which goes all easy on you by shooting frontally non-stop, leaving the core exposed. just shoot the glowing core with no challenge at all from the boss and there you go, you win. Stage 2 boss fires a 3-way twin shot with a single missile as backup. Stage 3's is a boat that fires a pattern of two frontal bullet shot, then a triple laser fire and a missile volley, all of them full frontal. Stage 4 tries something different by pitting two tanks that shoot lasers as they move up and down like if it was a mediocre version of the Stage 1 tanks from Raiden, and finally the Stage 5 boss which has a harmless twin three-line missile fire, double bullets with the saddest firing rate ever and the central laser beam with core-covering plate. Once you take this useless behemoth you'll be clearing the game.
Everytime you clear a level, you will start the next one with the default twin shot. Yeah, the same problem from the Atari Lynx version of Raiden. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to take your weapons away for nothing. Taking your power away makes sense when you die, and I understand that (being Darius Twin one of the rare exceptions of keeping your power after dying), also, it resets your score back to zero for no discernible reason but in the other hand, it replenish your missile stock back to 6 which can be both good and bad; Good if you were out of them, and bad when you stocked on a large number.
As if losing your power ups wasn't bad enough, the damage distribution on enemies makes NO SENSE; to begin with, ALL airborne enemies die in one hit, even the middle sized jets that occasionally appear, but the ground targets like jeeps, trucks and tanks take a lot of them, even with the stronger weapons, a clear testmony that nobody tested this game.
Panini presents their new stamp album "American Heroes of World War III".
Each time you complete a level, you will unlock a few images which composes the unlockable gallery, but as a gallery fails since it doesn't seems to have an option to zoom in for a full size image and the feature feels more like a stamp collection. Speaking of unlocking, the trophy progression is fucked. You only need to complete Stage 3, get the items and unleash all your special attacks and that's all. You don't have to play the whole game or its unlockable modes to get everything. I've saw this situation before, and when a game pulls that shit, I can only say "That's pathetic". ¿What's the purpose of a game if it gives you all the rewards before finishing it?
After clearing the game, you will unlock the extra modes. Speed Mode is the same game but twice as fast and the same rule of the original game applies; 1 life, no continues. Remix Mode remakes the stages to create and add new content to the game, and Survival Mode is the same normal game, but it loops indefinitely until you die.
Perhaps the best stage of the game.
Graphically, its pixel art shouts "Homemade" as it looks very simplistic in an attempt to look 80's arcade like, but it looks and feels rushed, something quite common on today's indie shmups "done on the cheap" This is greatly noticed in the first two stages, but things begin to change in Stage 4 as we have a decent looking city landscape However, the player sprites look very Master System-like. The sea level have an unique waving effect despite being a repeated "sea tile" square across the screen. Being a modern military game, it uses jets and helicopters as common enemies despite the "extraterrestrial" orbs and not-so-military-like bosses.
This year's comic book lineup lacks of quality.
While I appreciate the idea of galleries and cutscenes, the overpixelation makes the whole thing look bad as the illustration lose details in a great scale and its a shame since it has some IDW vibes on the artwork implying the artist made an impressive job, but the digitizing ruined it. The music is quite good as it has metal vibes in the style of "garage rock" but rather than the aggressive, fast pace, the music is slow and more "heavy atmosphere" in an attempt to make it fit on the war setting of the game.
AIRBORNE CURIOSITIES
Suspicions of AI art in the air.
- One of the unlockable images shows an AH-64 Apache helicopter, which doesn't appear in the game.
- There's an illustration that spells "Mission" as "MISSSION" on the upper left corner, which might imply a suspicion of AI tools utilized more than a human mistake.
- The "Thunderflash" might be a reference to the F-117's "Thunderbolt" bomb from Strikers 1945 III/Strikers 1999.
Your usual Eda result.
Well, Airborne Justice is the poor man's version of a Twin Cobra clone which tries to emulate what made Toaplan famous, but with dubious results that makes you wonder if this game was made in a couple of weeks or something.
If this review was in spanish I'd call it "Helicópteros de Mierda" (Shit Helicopters). 3 R-9's out of 10:
...and now, closing words from Paimon.
So, mortals, here it ends this yearly ration of videogame terrors that no one shall gaze their eyes and lay their hands upon. While this might be terrifying, you should think of this as a tough-as-nails learning experience for ALL of you. Yeah, because reviewing trash games its not like giving a bunch of He-Man-like morals. Unlike horror villains that strike by surprise, videogame terrors are present in your stores and its up to you if you want to bring them home despite their "generous" trophy offerings and ignoring your trusty reviewer's warnings. Oh, those mortals, they fell for hell just a miserable bunch of worthless points and fictional trophies. Bragging rights can definitely hurt.
If your mental sanity is unharmed, then "Congratulations! You survived Trash-O-Ween 2025". You played fair when Hell didn't, so now Hell plays fair and accepts defeat, and I condecorate you as a "Survivor of Videohell".
All what's left to say is "Happy Halloween" (or "Trash-O-Ween").