During the game’s 50 levels, you are tasked with eliminating your enemies in the air after jumping out of the plane. Many action games included freefall sequences during the 2010s. God of War 3 And dead space 2) and became popular again thanks to recent battle royales Fortnite And top legends. Whatever your frame of reference, the setup here is simple: use your finger gun to shoot at targets before they completely pass you (or punch them when you’re close enough), with the help of the occasional explosive or magical dragon egg. You don’t have to shoot everyone to complete a level, but your score depends on how many you shot, your remaining bullets, and how long it takes you to reach the designated drop zone.
At first glance, this seems like the simplest type of shooter, but the game throws various curveballs to keep things tasty. You only have 10 bullets (which are reloaded by attacking balloons), and without an ironsight target, a shot only hits when the reticle is perfectly lined up. as in never yield Series, forward momentum is the name of the game, so if you miss, you can’t completely turn around to try and shoot again. You should also avoid colliding with fields spread across the sky and slipstream or dive at a moment’s notice – the latter gives you extra speed, but can easily lose a target (or your life) if you’re not careful.
Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot Doesn’t ask much of the player, but does want them to get into a particular rhythm over long periods of time. At its best moments, landing a shot feels gratifying, especially when it happens before leaving the slipstream or before the enemy is out of sight forever. And during some boss fight against a dragon or a tank as they try to blow you out of the sky, you can feel the entire scene come into focus. But when you miss something, it can be hard to figure out whether it’s your fault or the game’s. When a shot hits a target, the distance between them is not strongly defined, and without the slipstream, your character’s fall will feel slower than it actually is.
The speed of your landing (or lack thereof) really comes into play during certain races where you are tasked with capturing a dragon egg before it is snatched away by your enemy. In these combat-free sections, you fly through slipstreams and point multipliers add speed, but they don’t fully match the rest of the game or require much in the way of challenge beyond charting a mental course between rings and tunnels. It never feels like the other racer is using different tactics when you first meet them, and with neither of you having any way of harming the other, you can possibly forget that they’re even there at all until one beats the other.
Where the gameplay is inconsistent, the vibes and aesthetic are often excellent. drop shot The visuals and color palette give things the charm found in the PlayStation 1 and 2 games, and director Neil Jones drew on ideas from his youth. This is most evident in the game’s lead Smoke Wallace, who gets his finger-gun powers after being bitten by a radioactive dragon (as one does). Whether he’s jumping out of a plane or striking a victory pose at the end of a level, he radiates the same kind of coolness you see from an OC whose creator loves them and wants everyone to know about it.
Equally winning is the game’s soundtrack, which gets you in the right mood to get out of the plane and hit shots. It is the last music by composer Daniel Wilkins, who died in 2024. Jones and Wilkins were friends and collaborators for years – the latter did never yield Music, which is screamed during the final series of levels – and they came up with the initial concept for this game. Finally with a tribute to Wilkins, Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot I can’t help but want this to be the studio’s most personal game yet. Even when it’s not in top form, there’s an earned enthusiasm that allows it to land successfully, even if it’s not perfect.
Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot Will be released on February 17 for PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X|S.
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