Aero-Cross is an unreleased platform video game that was in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 by Namco Bandai Games. It was intended as a modernized sequel to the arcade game Metro-Cross, and the third released under the Namco Generations series of video game remakes. Players control a runner through each level in an effort to get to the end stage goal before the timer runs out. Levels feature hazards that must be overcome, and there are also power-ups that grant player with different abilities, such as a speed boost or being able to glide over the level.
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I don't think there's a single review of this game anywhere online, sure there's footage and a leaked build, but no review. Let's change that!
A relic of Capcom's prematurely terminated "Namco Generations" remake series, produced by the absolute fucking legend Hideo Yoshizawa who leant his cinematic flair to Ninja Gaiden and then Klonoa, Aero-Cross would've been the third release in the lineup after Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and Galaga Legions DX, remaking the classic Metro Cross, but took two years in development hell before taking a cancellation to the face
Probably should've played Metro Cross before writing this but I haven't, and we're here
I had always been fascinated with this game since years ago when I saw on PSNProfiles it's one of the few games in their trophy database that has exactly one person that achieved its trophies, and that's because it never came out and the single player was a tester, similarly to its other canceled (and still unleaked!) sibling, which was a remake of Dancing Eyes, Namco's mid-90s 3D evolution of the "Qix, But Horny" subgenre (think Gals Panic)
Aero-Cross is decent for a canceled game, basically feature-complete, I like the soundtrack and the vibes of "caffeinated overly-literal interpretation of The Running Man (1987 film)" that it lends, I like the weird hypnotic robot announcer voice saying things like ground trick, jump trick, slipstream ad infinitum, makes the game feel like past-visions-of-the-future ASMR where mankind's problems have been fortunately solved, everything has become fully-automated luxury communism and the only thing left to do for humans is to perform acrobatics on floating strips of anti-grav highway
But it's definitely the kind of game that makes an exhausted executive take fifty (50) tries to beat Stage 2-2, then they beat Stage 2-3 on his first try (this happened to me) and then they shitcan the whole game for having fundamental problems, like not really being apt at teaching somebody how to play it
The official trailer (https://youtu.be/qt00OxDKXb4 is really like night and day compared to former prototype discussion forum Assembler-Games member Protodude's footage (https://youtu.be/i0wPPy1Pbdw)
This fella has put more time into it than I have and he's still falling into pits and running out of time before the stage is over
The timer always runs out too quickly, if you play about as well as a normal human can be expected you will make it with fractions of a second left, and due to the poor depth perception of the side-angle view I'm falling off a lot more than the guy in the trailer who is hitting every jump, somehow
It can't be input lag because some shmup guy did some tests on his favorites and documented the emulator only added like a quarter-frame of input lag, god bless shmup guys
There are these floating orbs that hang over the stage that you're supposed to tap A when you make contact with their hitbox in order to perform a Jump Trick, but good fucking luck triangulating their position in 3D space in order to do that, so you're going to fall into the pit, and then there will be the laborious animation of you climbing out of the pit while the timer still annoyingly ticks down, you knowing full-well that you have already blown the stage before you're even halfway through
Some other details; stage 4 is rainy, which we always love, also there's a customization shop where you can trans your gender and even your race, as well as buy uwu cat-ears, the outfit from the original Metro-Cross, and of course, Pac-Man paraphernalia like wearing his severed head
I wish I could check that succulent checkbox and tell you that I am the only human being on the planet outside of the original dev team who has mastered this game, but I couldn't even get past the third stage, the fact of the matter is that the only people who mastered this game were the people who likely spent a couple hundred hours designing and tweaking its levels
Hideo Yoshizawa could've saved the whole NG initiative from that persnickety executive if he added 30 seconds to the timer on every level, and removed all the bottomless pits, and added some kind of light-up HUD element that tells you that if you press the A button while it's lit up, you are guaranteed in-range to perform a trick and gain air
Here's hoping what with the wheels coming off the whole endeavor, that it didn't immolate the bridge between him and his former employer so hard that they'd never allow him back for Klonoa 3
P.S.: there are two leaked builds of this game, one is the PS3 demo which only lets you play the first stage, and the other is the complete(?) Xbox 360 version which is the subject of this review, and which you can only emulate through Xenia if you extract it out to a folder and boot the .xex file, otherwise it hangs infinitely on load
Presumably the PS3 demo contains all of the content too, as the file size is actually bigger, but nobody has been able to crack it into letting you play all six stages, if that's even possible
Have fun for an hour until you get bored! If you somehow figure out how to master this game I'd love to hear your tips in the replies below, and if I ever figure out how to play it really well I'll do just the same
A relic of Capcom's prematurely terminated "Namco Generations" remake series, produced by the absolute fucking legend Hideo Yoshizawa who leant his cinematic flair to Ninja Gaiden and then Klonoa, Aero-Cross would've been the third release in the lineup after Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and Galaga Legions DX, remaking the classic Metro Cross, but took two years in development hell before taking a cancellation to the face
Probably should've played Metro Cross before writing this but I haven't, and we're here
I had always been fascinated with this game since years ago when I saw on PSNProfiles it's one of the few games in their trophy database that has exactly one person that achieved its trophies, and that's because it never came out and the single player was a tester, similarly to its other canceled (and still unleaked!) sibling, which was a remake of Dancing Eyes, Namco's mid-90s 3D evolution of the "Qix, But Horny" subgenre (think Gals Panic)
Aero-Cross is decent for a canceled game, basically feature-complete, I like the soundtrack and the vibes of "caffeinated overly-literal interpretation of The Running Man (1987 film)" that it lends, I like the weird hypnotic robot announcer voice saying things like ground trick, jump trick, slipstream ad infinitum, makes the game feel like past-visions-of-the-future ASMR where mankind's problems have been fortunately solved, everything has become fully-automated luxury communism and the only thing left to do for humans is to perform acrobatics on floating strips of anti-grav highway
But it's definitely the kind of game that makes an exhausted executive take fifty (50) tries to beat Stage 2-2, then they beat Stage 2-3 on his first try (this happened to me) and then they shitcan the whole game for having fundamental problems, like not really being apt at teaching somebody how to play it
The official trailer (https://youtu.be/qt00OxDKXb4 is really like night and day compared to former prototype discussion forum Assembler-Games member Protodude's footage (https://youtu.be/i0wPPy1Pbdw)
This fella has put more time into it than I have and he's still falling into pits and running out of time before the stage is over
The timer always runs out too quickly, if you play about as well as a normal human can be expected you will make it with fractions of a second left, and due to the poor depth perception of the side-angle view I'm falling off a lot more than the guy in the trailer who is hitting every jump, somehow
It can't be input lag because some shmup guy did some tests on his favorites and documented the emulator only added like a quarter-frame of input lag, god bless shmup guys
There are these floating orbs that hang over the stage that you're supposed to tap A when you make contact with their hitbox in order to perform a Jump Trick, but good fucking luck triangulating their position in 3D space in order to do that, so you're going to fall into the pit, and then there will be the laborious animation of you climbing out of the pit while the timer still annoyingly ticks down, you knowing full-well that you have already blown the stage before you're even halfway through
Some other details; stage 4 is rainy, which we always love, also there's a customization shop where you can trans your gender and even your race, as well as buy uwu cat-ears, the outfit from the original Metro-Cross, and of course, Pac-Man paraphernalia like wearing his severed head
I wish I could check that succulent checkbox and tell you that I am the only human being on the planet outside of the original dev team who has mastered this game, but I couldn't even get past the third stage, the fact of the matter is that the only people who mastered this game were the people who likely spent a couple hundred hours designing and tweaking its levels
Hideo Yoshizawa could've saved the whole NG initiative from that persnickety executive if he added 30 seconds to the timer on every level, and removed all the bottomless pits, and added some kind of light-up HUD element that tells you that if you press the A button while it's lit up, you are guaranteed in-range to perform a trick and gain air
Here's hoping what with the wheels coming off the whole endeavor, that it didn't immolate the bridge between him and his former employer so hard that they'd never allow him back for Klonoa 3
P.S.: there are two leaked builds of this game, one is the PS3 demo which only lets you play the first stage, and the other is the complete(?) Xbox 360 version which is the subject of this review, and which you can only emulate through Xenia if you extract it out to a folder and boot the .xex file, otherwise it hangs infinitely on load
Presumably the PS3 demo contains all of the content too, as the file size is actually bigger, but nobody has been able to crack it into letting you play all six stages, if that's even possible
Have fun for an hour until you get bored! If you somehow figure out how to master this game I'd love to hear your tips in the replies below, and if I ever figure out how to play it really well I'll do just the same