Stereo Aereo Review

For someone who wasn’t born when they aired, I do love a game that apes the corny animations from the 80s. I remember the first time I ever started Awesomenauts and heard that theme tune and I closed the game so I could hear it all over again. So it is with Stereo Aereo, a rhythm-based arcade shooter where you control the titular band as they race across the galaxy to get to a gig.

The gameplay consists of dodging various obstacles in five lanes to the beat of a song. As with most rhythm games you get a bonus for being in time with the beat, and building up a combo can regenerate your hit points. This is really necessary because of how some of the levels are designed and the absence of free time to recover from a mistake, meaning losing one life can lead to you losing multiple all because you dodged the wrong way once.

The music is really good, and when you do get in time with the song it feels really satisfying. It also gives you a great guide to when you should be moving as the beat is very consistent and you tend to move on the beats of the song, so destroying something adds to the song. The audio balance is rather inconsistent however, with the sound effects being way too loud and often drowning out the music and dialogue.

The game is very responsive, and when you get into a groove on a well designed section it feels so satisfying. Unfortunately, a lot of what I saw didn’t feel especially well designed and some sections feel purposefully cruel. There’s one particular obstacle that sits halfway between two lanes, and I assumed that you can pass either side. I assumed incorrectly, and this makes the level these feature in complete guesswork as to where the developers wanted you to go.

That level was especially egregious for this game’s biggest crime: it is so visually busy sometimes it can be hard to tell where you need to go. The space around the stage is fully animated, often with flashing lights and objects that either looks similar to or literally are obstacles in that level. On some levels you can be shot at from a specific point with a spread of lasers and these can be exceptionally hard to read, particularly when you need to focus on dodging other objects.

Past the story mode, you have an endless mode to build up as big a score as you can on any level you’ve completed in the story mode. I don’t really get anything out of those endless runner modes but I can certainly appreciate it being included because there’s only a couple hours in the campaign and this can stretch out the better levels so you get more time to appreciate their soundtracks.

Stereo Aereo is another game this year that I want to own the soundtrack for, and when it’s at its best there is little else as satisfying. Unfortunately, I think that there’s too much going on and too much visual inconsistency, so this game is rarely at its best. The campaign is very short and cheesy, but the inclusion of the endless mode will give those who can forgive the visual mess a lot of hours of satisfying fun.