Sonic Wings

Sonic Wings (Aero Fighters) is a 1992 vertically scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Video System. Players select from international fighter pilots, each with unique aircraft and weapons, to battle alien invaders. Known for its humorous endings and tight gameplay.

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Release Date

January 1, 1985

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This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( November 2022 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) This game uses basic shooter mechanics of the SHMUP genre of video games.

Pressing button 1 fires normal weapons; this can be upgraded by collecting P or the rare F items, though the maximum power level has a hidden ammo count, after which the player will return to the previous power level. Pressing button 2 launches a powerful special attack; uses are limited to how many B items the player has collected (every life starts with two). Some ground enemies will drop score items when destroyed; they appear as the currency of the selected character's nation. By default, players start with three lives, and can acquire one more at 200,000 points.

Aero Fighters is famous for its large cast of characters, unheard of in 1992. Each pair of characters represents one of four nations. The two-player sides may only select the four characters given (one for each nation). In a two-player game, only a single nation can be chosen.

Country Player 1 Player 2 United States Blaster Keaton ( Boeing F/A-18 Hornet ) Keith Bishop ( Grumman F-14 Tomcat ) Japan Hien ( Mitsubishi FSX ) Mao Mao ( Mitsubishi F-15 Eagle ) Sweden Kohful The Viking ( Saab AJ-37 Viggen ) Tee-Bee 10 ( Saab JAS 39 Gripen ) United Kingdom Villiam Syd Pride ( McDonnell Douglas AV-8 Harrier II ) Lord River N. White ( Panavia Tornado IDS ) The game has seven stages divided into two parts. The first three stages are selected randomly from a group of four, with one for each character's nation; however, a character will never go to its nation's stage. The other four stages are fixed.

After beating all seven stages, the player sees the character's ending, then play much more difficult versions of those stages, after which the game truly ends. In the Super Nintendo version, a special code can be used to play with the spaceship from Rabio Lepus .