Air Twister Preview – the legendary Yu Suzuki brings surrealism to the on-rails shooter

thesixthaxis.com:

Air Twister offers a unique window into both the future and the past. It sees the return of both a classic genre and an iconic developer, and while it began as an exclusive title for Apple Arcade it’s now making the jump to home consoles. Yu Suzuki stands amongst the most legendary game developers of all time, with a catalogue that takes in all-time arcade classics like OutRun and After Burner through to genre-defining series like Virtua Fighter and Shenmue. Air Twister sees him return to the rail-shooting genre that he arguably helped to create with Space Harrier, and we recently had a chance to catch up with him and go hands-on with the game.

I asked Mr Suzuki why he felt that now was the right time to return to the genre, and he told me, “Part of it was that I wanted to bring out that old-school gaming nostalgia, and another part because it was on the easier side to make.” While I can’t speak to how ‘easy’ game development might be, that old-school vibe is immediately apparent with Air Twister’s score attack gameplay, and instant drop into the heat of the action.

Like Space Harrier, Air Twister finds your character flying into the screen, armed with a laser-toting crossbow, blasting enemies and avoiding the brightly coloured spiralling projectiles heading your way. If you’ve played Air Twister on mobile using touch controls you’re going to find a much more straightforward tactility to playing on console, with single button presses for laser blasts and holding the button for lock-on, a nod to another of Sega’s iconic series, Panzer Dragoon.

One of the things that immediately hits home with Air Twister is the unique and sometimes bizarre art direction that brings eye-catching surrealism to the shooting action. Suzuki told