Developed and published by All in! Games, Red Wings: American Aces is a brand-new WW1 aerial fighting game that might look familiar to players who have already played the previous title Red Wings: Aces of the Sky. Red Wings: American Aces is a new game set in the WW1 era which brings its own campaign and missions along with more online modes and new fighter planes for you to fly and destroy enemies with. This is our review of the Nintendo Switch release of Red Wings: American Aces in which we fly some iconic WW1 warplanes and shoot down enemy planes in intense battles.
Red Wings: American Aces is really easy to play, and it took me hardly 5 minutes to learn the controls of the game. You have four dedicated keys for advanced tactics which include Barrel Roll, Squadron Call, Turning Back, and Finisher. They perform the same action as they sound and each of these comes with its own recharge timings. You can zoom in with ZL and shoot with ZR. The left joystick is used for movement while the right joystick allows you to increase and decrease your speed and this is pretty much all that you need to know about playing the game.
Red Wings: American Aces is strictly an arcade dogfighter and comes with mission objectives that reflect its arcade nature. Apart from the normal enemies that you will shoot down in the air, you will also come across special enemy types as well which are more threatening to you than normal enemies in the game. These range from the War Gas Warplane or what I like to call fart plane which leaves behind a green gas that is deadly for you if you stay inside it. Other enemies include the much tougher kamikaze planes known as the Killer Warplanes which slam into you to destroy your plane and many others.
Red Wings: American Aces has plenty of modes for you to enjoy. For starting off, you have your single-player campaign which offers you 30 WWI missions, and you get to experience what aerial combat used to be when there were no modern jets or fighters at your disposal. You unlock additional fighters as you complete story missions. The real fun of Red Wings: American Aces lies in the Online player modes where you have more aircraft at your disposal and more fun modes to play. The single-player story missions are divided into four chapters and as you progress in the missions, sometimes you are also treated with cool comic-style cutscenes as well.
The campaign also supports 2 players so you can jump with a friend or family member as well. I played the game solo, so I did not really check out the co-op feature of the game. Apart from this, there is a Local mode as well where you can play against bots or team up or play against with friends or family members in different modes such as Score Battle, Time Battle and Hide n Seek. Online Multiplayer mode offers a Free-For-All tier and a Squad tier.
While both offer the same level of modes, the player count is different for both. Free-For-All allows you to fight against 9 random players from around the world in various modes such as Last Man Standing, Score Battle, or Time Battle. If you decide to become a part of a squad, you can jump into squads formed of 5 players and take part in events like Elimination, Time Team Battle, and Score Team Battles. The matches are fairly quick but sometimes I was unable to find matches at odd times, so I guess this is something to look out for in the coming months if you love playing online.
As you complete missions and take part in various battles, you will earn stars based on your performance and you can use these stars to unlock new Skills in the detailed Skill Tree. The Stars earned depend on the time taken or high score The Skill Tree is divided into three additional tiers which include Ace Perks, Dogfight Perks, and Mission Perks. Ace Perks are simple upgrades for your active skills, Dogfight Perks are upgrades that increase your weapon efficiency during combat while Mission Perks unlock passive bonuses that grant you bonuses in various scenarios. One thing that I liked about Red Wings: American Aces is that the skills are not locked once you assign stars to them.
Depending on the mission, you can always reset and then assign stars again to have a complete build for another mission. For example, one mission has clouds, and you have limited visibility. You can invest Stars in the Eagle Eye Perk which gives you normal visibility even with clouds. Now after completing this mission, you do not have clouds and want to go for a mission that is much longer, and you need more fuel so you can go for the Fuel Control perk which increases your fuel capacity. In this way, you can always have customized builds to suit your missions. As far as my gameplay went, re-assigning helped me massively during certain missions.
You complete these missions in one of the 15 officially licensed warfighters from the WWI era. After jumping into the game, I absolutely loved the fact that the developer actually went as far as to include the official licensed WW1 fighters in the game. You have fighters ranging from Hansa-Brandenburg D.I which was used by Germans during World War I to the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 Biplane which was used by the Royal British Airforce during the same war. Other notable warplanes include the British Bristol M1 and the French Nieuport 17. Each of these fighters has unique strengths and weaknesses and they all come with a unique skin as well. These fighters differ from each other in three key aspects which include Speed, Endurance, and Heat Resistance. Depending on your playstyle, you can go for the airplane that suits you and is better for the mission as well.
Red Wings: American Aces also does not disappoint with its visuals as well. While the visuals may look like a cartoon but the animations in the game are really well detailed and I loved the little details that the developer has put in the game such as the airlines at the end of the airplanes, dense black smoke coming from damaged airplanes and how the gun bullets rip off the enemy fighters as you shoot them down. The special effects really make the game beautiful to look at and it runs at fairly decent frames on Nintendo Switch as well making it a stable launch for the portable console.
Final Verdict:
Red Wings: American Aces offers a great perspective into what WWI dogfights were like back in the day. While the visuals are cartoonish, they do not lack luster, and I loved how simple controlling the planes really is in the game. With its low learning curve, licensed WWI fighter planes, fun gameplay, multiple online and co-op modes, and a brilliant story, I can easily recommend Red Wings: American Aces to all Nintendo Switch players. For fans of aviation and dogfighting games, Red Wings: American Aces is a dream come true with its satisfying dogfights and great gameplay.
Final Score: 9.0/10
