Great Revival of an Arcade Classic, But Not Long-Lasting
As a nostalgia play, this game does quite well. It hits all the notes of the arcade classic and makes you remember sitting in the cabinet flying at top speed with your friends yelling as you flew between missiles and rolled back and forth. But as a modern game that costs ten bucks, it probably isn't worth it for the time it'll give back to you unless you have a deep love for the series.
For those that don't know, After Burner puts you in the seat of a modern jet that flies over various stages in a linear path, dodging missiles and shooting down opposing fighters along the way, with almost no plot to speak of. This isn't Top Gun and there's no dogfighting - you mainly attempt to stay alive as you swing back and forth avoiding obstacles and firing off your own payload. In fact, despite the game having licensed actual jet designs from government contractors, the game bears little resemblance to the capabilities of those fighters or reality, though the arcade nature of the game makes that perfectly fine.
As you fly through the stages you primarily make use of a lock-on system with regenerating missiles, though your jet also comes equipped with an machine gun that can fire head on at targets. Imagine Star Fox on speed with some of the lock-on rhythm elements of a game like Rez and you get about where this game is going. You have the ability to lock on to multiple targets and can store dozens of missiles at one time, so you'll often be rolling left and right firing off missile after missile at whoever you manage to target as you dodge what they send back at you. The "climax" in the title references an ability to go into slow motion and fire off multiple missiles at as many targets as you can lock on to, and is something you need to make good use of to get higher scores.
In standard play, you travel through 14 stages of increasing difficulty, with some branching stages at certain points. There is a significant amount of variety among the stages, with some played at more a moderate pace requiring you to swing in and out of obstacles, or even into enemy bases akin to a Death Star trench run, and others taking place in an open area at a much faster pace and only putting enemy fighters and their endless missiles in your way. The only necessary objective for each level is to survive, though destroying certain percentages of enemy fighters or completing specific objectives can unlock additional options or extra levels as you run through. Abundant amounts of continues mean that it's not all that difficult to make through, though the game gives you the option of making it more challenging by limiting these easy outs.
Looking at the good, the graphics are amazing. The game only functions at hyper speed and manages to keep up with that high pace for the most part. There are graphical glitches here and there as the game attempts to throw you through the various stages at incredible speeds, but you won't notice that much as you're just trying to survive missile after missile being thrown at you. It doesn't have the same feeling as the old arcade game, but having it upgraded to your HDTV is a fairly good trade off. In addition, you're given the option of using the old school sounds, and for the most part the music and sound effects still fit in well.
But where the game fails to live up is in how much you get for your ten dollar price tag. It's a great arcade game which you'll have blast playing for a few times, but a single playthrough will take you around 15 minutes, and you can most likely reach the ending after two playthroughs. The life is extended through a series of unlockable bonuses that will allow you to achieve higher totals, secret stages and additional endings, and a score attack mode which challenges you to try to perfect your runs, but none holds as much attention as just flying through the game for the first couple times and being amazed by the speed and the adrenaline rush the game provides. Once the adrenaline fades, you're left with a fairly fun but fairly short game that doesn't really leave a mark, and isn't something you'll play with any regularity, if ever again.
For achievement-minded folk, you can probably unlock everything in a couple of hours. If you want to unlock everything else the game has to offer in terms of extra bonuses, it'll take a few more hours after that. But in the end, you've got a 15 minute adventure that is great to play through a few times, but grows thin after a while, especially when you realize you're not playing it in the arcade setting with your friends nearby. In fact, if I actually added up in quarters what I would have spent had this been an arcade game, I probably would have paid less than the price tag, and so it's really hard to recommend it outright to everyone. It's a fun short game that's easy to S-Rank, but beyond that it's probably not the best use of your ten dollars for what you'll get out of it.
