Aero Blasters

n/a

TurboGrafx-16 PC Engine
Aero Blasters
System(s): PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16
Publisher: Hudson Soft NEC Technologies
Developer: Inter State
Developer(s) of original games: Kaneko
Original system(s): Arcade boards
Genre: Shoot-'em-Up
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1990-11-02 ¥6,5006,500 HC90038 US 1991-01 TGX040051
Non-NEC versions Arcade Mega Drive

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Aero Blasters (エアロブラスターズ) is a shoot-'em-up game for the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16.

Story

In the year 2030, Earth is suddenly attacked by the Mega Load Masters. Charles K. Takeda had foreseen this event and prepared for it by moving his family to an island in the Pacific and developing a futuristic weapon called the "Buster System," which is capable of deconstructing matter by amplifying human mind waves. He created two aircraft armed with Buster Systems, Buster 1 and Buster 2, and trained his children, Holly and Mike, to pilot them.

Gameplay

Item spread

The game is a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up where players take control of Buster Fighter starships in their efforts to destroy a mysterious mechanical fortress orbiting the planet. The fighters can equip one of seven supplementary weapons in addition to their normal shot. Two players can play cooperatively by choosing the Dual Scramble! option from the title screen.

The ship moves in any direction with the D-Pad. In the outer space stages, the ship continues to drift in the direction it was last moved because of the lack of gravity. The ship fires its normal shot with Ⅱ, which can be held for rapid-fire. The power of the normal shot can be upgraded multiple times by collecting power-ups. The ship is also equipped with a screen-clearing special weapon called the Buster Flash, which is used by holding Ⅰ to charge the Blaster Meter, then releasing the button when the bar is full. The player must briefly wait for the weapon to cool down before it can be charged again.

The ship is downed when it is hit by enemy fire or collides with an enemy or terrain. It respawns in place as long as the player has an extra life remaining, at baseline weapon strength and without any supplementary weapon. The game ends if the player runs out of lives but can be continued as long as there are credits remaining. In two-player games, both players have separate lives but share credits. After the game is completed, it loops again at a higher difficulty.

Items

	Gun Diche (ガンデッチー)
	Destroy to release a cache of items, which spread out in a fan.
	Power-Up
	Upgrades the power of the Buster's normal shot, up to 8 times.
	Side Swiper
	Equips the Side Swiper weapon, which furnishes the ship with two options that follow it and provide support fire.
	Bumpers
	Equips the Bumpers weapon, which is a pair of shields above and below the ship that protect it from damage from both enemies and colliding with terrain. Bumpers can destroy enemies on contact.
	6-Way Shooter
	Equips the 6-Way Shooter weapon, which fires in six directions in a circle out from the ship.
	Red Missile
	Equips the Red Missile weapon, which shoots red homing missiles straight ahead.
	Green Missile
	Equips the Green Missile weapon, which shoots green homing missiles that scatter.
	Rear Gun
	Equips the Rear Gun weapon, which fires two diagonal shots from behind the ship.
	Heli-Pod
	Equips the Heli-Pod weapon, which is a drone that trails the ship and rotates counterclockwise while firing.
	Bonus
	Awards bonus points.

Stages

	Seaside Front
	Mechanized Cave
	Scramble
	Zero Gravity
	The Borderline
	Death Circus

Production credits

• Program: Tsuyoshi Koyama
• Design: Keisuke Matsuoka, Saeki Kenichi, Naoto Obana, Hiroshi Yokoyama, Masako Yukumoto
• Sound: Tatsuya Watanabe, Tsutomu Ookuma
• Management: Akihiko Utou
• Arcade Advisor: Satoshi Igarashi, Hisanori Takeuchi
• Technical Advisor: Ueyamasan, Kadowakisan
• Special Thanks: Osaaki Satou, Kunio Komatsu, Takashi Yamashita, Takashi Sugimoto, Minoru Yoshida
• Presented by: Hudson Soft, Inter State, Kaneko

Source:

In-game credits (JP)

File:AeroBlasters PCE Credits.pdf

Magazine articles

Main article: Aero Blasters/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

NEC Retro Average
Publication Score Source Excalibur 70 №20, p14

	70
Based on 1 review

PC Engine version

PC Engine, JP
Cover

TurboGrafx-16 version

TurboGrafx-16, US
File:Aero Blasters TG16 US Manual.pdf Manual

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
?	CRC32 25be2b81 MD5 3d3b872d9031fa3227d68f2239b00b82 SHA-1 748ec92246140565d95f6fb727de6167227b85d3	512kB		Card (JP)
?	CRC32 b03e0b32 MD5 b2b62baab5fefafc5db6538720b503c3 SHA-1 23b7da6a6067563af5fdf303d83adeae818cdcdf	512kB		Card (US)

References

Sega Retro has more information related to Air Buster: Trouble Specialty Raid Unit