This is directly related to survival time, bomb stock and power-up level. Preserving the series trademark of fast paced action and gigantic bosses, Sonic Wings 2 pumps up the challenge by adding progressive difficulty to the game. ![]() There's absolutely no way to figure out in advance which one you'll face, so be prepared for anything. The last stage is in another dimension, guarded by a returning monkey boss from the first game and three random occurrences for final boss: an evil eye, a giant ghost from Video System's Rabio Lepus or a very rare giant fish. ![]() Stage 6 takes place in Australia, stage 8 in Mexico and stage 9 in Hawaii. Stages 3 and 7 are breathers and can be considered bonus levels, in that there are no bosses and the only enemies you'll face are easily destroyable choppers and missiles that release power-ups and other items. Starting out in Japan, the journey proceeds through the US, France and Brazil, the randomized countries. There's a total of ten stages, and in the first half of the game levels 2, 4 and 5 might appear in any order. The music is also marginally better, ranging from picturesque themes to the same haunting tunes in the final levels. While there are still some dull graphics in this sequel (France stage) they're far less frequent than what was present in Sonic Wings. However, seeing all of them is a lot harder than before because Sonic Wings 2 received a substantial boost in difficulty. It gives more freedom and leads to different interactions and endings for multiple character combinations. The good news is that there's no more attachment to the nationality of the first ship if a second player joins the game. Take note: in Japan Spanky = Whity, Bobby = Arthur and Steve is actually a woman named Angela! All these names refer to the English language version of the game, and a few of them are different in the Japanese version. ![]() Silver is an older flight captain from the US, the slowest of them all and quite useless to be honest. A punk rocker named Steve fights for France and a baby (!) defends the UK flag. Young Cindy and her tutor Ellen fly the same aircraft, and just like Spanky are attached to no real nation. Spanky is his name, and bullet-blocking mines are his surname. All other characters are new to the roster, including the first dolphin pilot to have ever flown an aircraft in any shooting game. Mao Mao and Hi-en, the Japanese team, are back, as well as a robotic version of the US pilot Keaton. It seems the job wasn't really done the first time around. Only a few characters return for the sequel, which has the same alien race emerging again to threaten the world. This brought the arcade experience home, proving that the series was kept in great shape with a few unforgettable tidbits of weirdness to the formula. What matters for us is that Sonic Wings 2, known in the west as Aero Fighters 2, was also released for the Neo Geo AES. Blame it on both companies for being so lazy. ![]() Yet it still retains everything that made the first game a shooter hit, often being confused as a Psikyo-developed product due to the strong similarities in gameplay to later Psikyo titles (I guess the people who were behind Video System must get really annoyed when their game is labeled as another Psikyo shooter). That's why the follow-up Sonic Wings 2 is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio and doesn't bear the common vertical orientation of the arcade games of its time. Following the debut of Sonic Wings in 1992 and the disbanding of part of the staff that developed it (they left to form Psikyo), Video System pledged allegiance to the Neo Geo hardware for a while.
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