You've never played anything quite like Air Twister. While the game belongs to an ancient genre — rail shooter — and leans on a gameplay loop established decades ago in arcades, it really has no analogue, past or present. It feels neither retro nor modern. Indeed, thanks to its throwback mechanics, otherworldly visuals, bizarre premise, and progressive rock soundtrack, it seems to operate outside the normal continuum of video games. For that reason, and the fact that it comes from the mind of legendary creator Yu Suzuki, it's worth checking out.

Air Twister takes place in an extra-dimensional space called AIR, recently invaded and conquered by the Needles, an army of animals, objects, and monsters. Into occupied AIR flies Arch, a descendant of the royal family. Together with four "Winddy", giant guardian mounts, Arch pushes back at the alien invasion.

The story in Air Twister is alright. Arch is an appealing heroine and the creatures of the AIR — winged elephants, wandering dragon skeletons, and fighter plane-sized swans — are fascinating, but the narrative never takes off. In fact, it never truly reveals itself. Only by poring over the game's surprisingly substantial index was I able to provide the plot summary above. To be fair, though, rail shooters are not a genre known for their deep, involving stories. Like most scrolling shooters, they simply need to tell the audience who's the bad guy and where to fire.

Firing at bad guys is the name of the game in Air Twister. It's a behind-the-back rail shooter where Arch uses her weapon to blast rank-and-file monsters and bosses that fill up the screen in front of her. The basic commands couldn't be simpler: with the left analog stick, players move Arch left, right, up, and down, as the game carries her automatically forward, and with the ZR trigger players fire projectiles. If you hold your cursor over an enemy formation and wait for lock-on, you can take out several enemies at once. That's about it.

While accessible, these mechanics don't lend themselves to a nuanced or surprising campaign. The biggest problem with Air Twister is that it can get repetitive and samey, despite the frequent changes in scenery. For the majority of the game's running time, you'll blast formations of floating jellyfish, orbs, and metallic octohedrons while gliding forward on rails. It's just not enough. While Air Twister experiments briefly in later stages with obstacles, it's insufficient to break up the monotony. The game really needs more power-ups, more varied stage designs, more paths, and more interactive elements to become a great rail shooter.

When Air Twister does shake things up, as it does during most boss fights, it starts to show its promise. Boss battles are by far the best part of the campaign, for a couple of reasons. For one, they enjoy an impressive sense of scale. In each encounter, the camera pulls back to show Arch, atop her Winddy, silhouetted against the massive frame of the monster. For another, they rely on mechanics and ideas that don't appear elsewhere. The Stage 11 boss might be the best. Players must chip away at the protective armor around the giant robot's joints before they can do damage. At the same time they need to avoid homing rockets and a deadly blue laser.

Fail to avoid those incoming attacks and you won't last long. That's the point, of course. While Air Twister starts easy and inviting, it ratchets up the difficulty rather swiftly. By the time you hit the final three stages, it's no joke. With limited lives and only two continues, you'll have to retry the game more than a few times. This is ultimately good news, since it extends Air Twister's short running time: a straight shot through the campaign should last less than 60 minutes. 

This ever-increasing difficulty isn't the only thing that extends the game's value. Unexpectedly, considering its genre and arcade sensibilities, Air Twister arrives with a large amount of ancillary content — enough to keep you busy for hours. The most significant piece is the Adventure Map, a top-down map with hundreds of nodes, each one representative of some piece of unlockable content. By spending stars earned in the main campaign, players can purchase cosmetic items like hair styles and outfits, and also new weapons, health bonuses, and armor pieces that make the game more beatable.

In addition, Air Twister arrives with several extra modes, including the score-chasing "Stardust" mode, the lightning-fast Turbo mode, a stripped-down Arcade mode, a boss rush mode, and a tough-as-nails Extra Stage. There are also two oddities: Fluffy, which turns the game into a slow-paced 2D side-scroller; and Tap Breaker, a simple number-tapping mini-game. Not every additional mode is worthwhile — Tap Breaker is eminently skippable — but together they add significant replay value to the experience.

Regardless of which mode you try, you'll encounter some lackluster graphics. Perhaps due to its Apple Arcade origins, Air Twister is not an especially pretty title. The models and textures are on the simple side, and there's a certain plasticky artifice to several of the stages. On the plus side, many of the locations and background elements have a dream-like, fantastical energy to them.

Adding to the game's fever-dream vibe is a progressive rock OST from Dutch musician Valensia. The soundtrack, which gradually transforms Air Twister from rail shooter to rock opera, is very much a love-it-or-hate-it affair. As for me, I adore it — both for its auditory ambition and for its fearless incongruity with a game genre typically paired with electronic or synth tunes. Anyone enamored by the music of ELO, Kate Bush, and especially Queen should find something to enjoy here. The only downside: several of the tracks repeat ad nauseam throughout the 12-stage campaign.

Air Twister is an oddity. Hailing from a dusty genre and filled with alien sights and sounds, it's neither old-school nor new-school. Even its graphics, modern but far from cutting-edge, place it in a weird limbo. Yet, despite its strangeness and incongruities, it mostly works. While the game's core mechanics are rather shallow and its visual assets unimpressive, it succeeds in replay value, boss battles, and music. Fans of rail shooters and Suzuki's early arcade work should give this oddball a chance.