Red Wings: Aces of the Sky (Switch) Review

Time to take to the skies! The airborne divisions of World War 1 are duking it out amongst the clouds. Fly with the Red Baron, or try and shoot him down. The choice is yours in Red Wings: Aces of the Sky.

Taking place in World War 1, you have the choice of following the campaign of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy), or the Triple Entente (UK, France and Russia). The Alliance has Manfred Von Richthofen, otherwise known as the ‘The Red Baron’, amongst your squadron. The Entente has you as part of the ‘anti-Richthofen’ squad, hunting down the infamous Red Baron. So what does this all mean for the game? Not very much! Outside of the story told through comic book panels, you’d never know.

The story told through the cutscenes is inconsequential to the missions you take part in. Thanks to using the narrator to do all the voices in the cutscenes, it feels a bit messy. It’s a shame because there are some interesting details in there, especially in what appears to be letters written by pilots at the time. Ultimately, the rest of the game and the messy cutscenes don’t do it justice.

When I think of WW1 era aerial combat games, my mind immediately goes back to the 90s with Red Baron, as well as fond memories of flight simulators such as Tie Fighter. Red Wings is very much an arcade take on these games, more in line with games like Rogue Squadron or Crimson Skies. The ‘behind the plane’ view allows you to take in the open skies, which would be nice and scenic if not for all the planes trying to shoot each other down. The game doesn’t bog itself down in simulation, you have unlimited machine gun ammo as long as you don’t overheat your gun. You can become temporarily invincible by doing a barrel roll, and summon allies to add to your firepower.

If the enemy is behind you, there is a button to turn around. And when you’ve shot down enough planes you can even perform an instant takedown on a weakened enemy. All four abilities are mapped to a button, and when used you must wait for a cool down so you don’t overuse them. Three of the abilities are useful; the instant kill is a strange addition to the group. To use it you need to have a plane on the verge of death and close enough to show that it can be activated. Chances are to get them to that point another burst of the machine gun would finish the job, but then you wouldn’t get the bonus little cutscene of the pilot shooting a pistol.  

The bulk of your time is going to be spent in aerial dogfights, but there are also bombing runs, Balloon assaults and checkpoint time trials. You will be piloting a collection of WW1 fighter planes, Biplanes and Triplanes, unlocking different types as you progress in the campaign. The different stats for each plane will enable you to take the best suited plane into the fight – well, once you unlock them. The aerial combat is fun enough, for a few missions at least. If you enjoy dogfighting in a Sopwith Camel then you might get even more mileage. You can even play a survival mode where you face waves of enemies to test your mettle. Unfortunately there is never much variety in the missions. One of the biggest changes is some planes will have regenerating shields, meaning combat will take longer especially with a machine gun that overheats quickly.

But it’s not only attacking enemy planes or airships, but there are also missions where you have to protect airships from the enemy. Personally along with escort missions in games, protecting missions is high up there for game objectives I really dislike. A lot of the time it comes down to AI – you’re not alone with protecting the unarmed balloons, your squadron is also flying around. Yet it doesn’t feel like they’re helping, I’m still having to fly to opposite ends of the arena to hold off the incoming enemies. Someone might enjoy these, I just wish your allies were more useful.   

Bombing runs require you to fly around, dropping bombs on targets while avoiding shrapnel. Depending on the level, the shrapnel can also blend right into the ground colour which makes it more of an obstacle than it already is. Regardless, the bombing runs don’t happen too often and they’re not too hard, just not as fun. The time trial will give you more of a challenge, although most of the time it wasn’t an entertaining one. Running low on fuel you need to fly through every hoop to keep in the air, and you don’t want to go too slowly either. Then the game goes from wide-open areas to a very narrow path. Now you need tight accurate controlling if you want to proceed. Initially, these levels are reasonably easy, then they become unpleasant requiring perfect flying with planes that aren’t the most nimble.     

It’s important that you do well in each mission as the time you take will determine how many stars you get out of three. These stars are then spent as points in upgrades, which will become vital for surviving in the later missions. You can upgrade your abilities, shorter cooldowns or an extra wingman. There are also upgrading your planes capacity, fuel lasting longer, machine gun not overheating as quickly, or having better visibility amongst the clouds. The upgrade system is pretty standard, the only issue becomes getting those all-important stars. The times required to get all three stars can feel a little unforgiving, and if you only get two then you need to beat another level for the most basic upgrades. Now it’s true I could just be bad at the game, although even when wrapping up a level quickly if you miss out by a second, you miss a star. Besides for completion sake, the only other incentives are getting three stars or getting enough points to unlock a new paint job. 

If the story missions aren’t enough to satisfy your sky-based combat needs, then there is luckily a survival mode. While you are facing down more waves of enemy planes, as the title suggests this is all about surviving. It might not introduce any new elements into the game, but if you want to just fly around and shoot at other planes for a while it’s up to the task.

If you’re feeling lonely in the skies you can bring a co-pilot with you on co-op missions. Split-screen multiplayer means that you can both work together in taking down those pesky planes faster for those essential upgrade stars.

There’s a promising story to tell focused around the Red Baron from both sides in the war, but it feels bare bones and it’s never really reflected in the same bunch of missions. I did enjoy flying around and fighting off the enemy early on, but as the game went on it continued being more of the same. I still think that there is an audience for this game, I wish I enjoyed it as much throughout as I did when I first flew around those bright blue skies.

Red Wings: Aces of the Sky is alright, it all really depends on how much you enjoy your aerial combat. If you don’t want to get bogged down in simulation but still want something a little grounded, then there is fun to be had here.

Rating: 3/5