After Burner Climax: An Arcade Swan Song
- T.J. "Millie" Archer
- Aug 13
- 5 min read
It’s clear that I have a penchant to review and speak of games far past. What can I say? I’m drunk on synthwave, Frutiger Aero wallpapers, and badly-normalized voxels.
But perhaps the greatest challenge of creating these reviews is determining whether these dinosaurs are actually worth playing today. So often I’ve found myself having to put an asterisk next to what would otherwise be a glowing review, because it would be dishonest to not point out how much the playing field has changed, and even the greatest of innovations are quickly superseded by something better.
Sometimes though, the game still just… works.
It’s rather amazing how well After Burner Climax still works, and how well it shamelessly takes the high-energy, rapid-paced, score and time attack arcade rail shooter into the 21st century for what may be its last hurrah.
Honestly, I don’t think the original After Burner aged well. I have nostalgic feelings for it of course, but as it and I have aged, it’s not something I would be willing to show off as a jewel of the rail shooter—if I want that on a console, I’d point someone to Star Fox way before After Burner. And where Star Fox’s upgrade from its SNES debut to Star Fox 64 remains legendary, Afterburner’s generational uplift resulted in After Burner II, which pushed on into the realm of the Sega 32X but didn’t really result in enough innovation or, frankly, affordability to keep one of Sega’s self-proclaimed stars afloat.
And it’s pretty clear that they knew it. Over ten years had to pass before they decided to bring it back for one more explosive, penultimate release.
So… I wanted to approach it as faithfully as I could without getting my hands on the arcade cabinet itself. That took the form of taking, ripping, and hopefully emulating the actual Sega Lindbergh media disc for this review. I had hope for this; a Lindbergh emulator does in fact exist, but it’s been unsupported and incomplete for some time, so I gave up hope in getting it emulated…
…right up until I was literally looking for a picture to demonstrate this lack of support and discovered that a new emulator called Lindbergh Loader was released just one month ago and apparently supports After Burner Climax pretty well. Well... dang. I already got the CD back to its rightful owner. I guess we’re going to move forward with the next best thing: the Xbox 360.
This is truly where I’ve played this game the most anyway. After Burner Climax made a wide home release four years after it dropped into arcades and was downloadable on both the 360 and PS3 for a very approachable ten dollars.
Bringing in two new aircraft alongside the F-14D, you can also select the Super Tomcat’s successors (Or contemporaries depending on how you feel) in the form of the F-15E Strike Eagle and F/A-18E Super Hornet. Immediately its clear the game is a more than faithful port of the Lindbergh disc. It adds earnable cheats and the ability to have a console-style constant play mode that keeps the quarters (dollars?) in your pocket where they belong.
Pressing start after an in your face title screen that transitions into an attract mode/ranking screen blaring with an awesome modern update to the After Burner theme song, you are given a selection of the three aircraft above with a set of different paint schemes and 20 seconds to make up your mind. The game literally explodes off the deck/flight line into a fantastic guitar riff and never lets up. Story? Z is preparing a nuke. Stop them. That’s all you need to know. Get to it!
The game’s feature claim to fame is the “Climax Mode”, which functions as a bullet-time slow down and reticle widener that allows you ample time to maximize score and damage on the level for a short time. The meter is refilled as you destroy targets and is depleted as you hold down the triggers. This is still the score attack game we had all those years ago, and as you progress through levels, you want to keep that score up along with attempting to destroy special objectives to change your trajectory on the level select map. It’s very easy to trigger Climax Mode in the panic driven flying you’ll be doing though. There’s a learning curve to its operation, but that adds to the skill-building you’ll be doing to master the traditionally twitchy After Burner flight model.
The graphics were top-notch, and honestly still are. Not that you’ll have much time to admire them with how fast the screen comes at you. You’ll occasionally catch glimpses of the who’s who roster of enemy aircraft, which includes F-4’s, F-5’s, F/A-18’s, B-52’s, and many others, all of which are easier to observe once you’ve inevitably gotten yourself blown up by a wayward missile or twenty.
As the terrain blows by you’re being constantly yelled at by your invisible teammates who just won’t stop talking; and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is a prime example of the in-your-face never shut up 90’s arcade energy that ports itself so flawlessly into the 21st century that I can’t help but take it seriously. The way your two teammates make off-color remarks about the terrain you’re flying over on or the over-the-top bogey calls or the panicked odd sentence structure in their radio-crackled voices when you get hit by a missile just keeps the balls-to-the-wall atmosphere flowing. Oh, and have I mentioned that they call enemy aircraft by their actual model names? What’s your excuse, Ace Combat 5?
But I have to emphasize that this is an After Burner game. You’re going to get yourself blown up over and over again until you get good and start recognizing the patterns to dodge the missiles and down enemy aircraft efficiently. Thankfully the aforementioned console-exclusive EX Options (cheats, if we were to be honest) will make that easier for you, and the more you play, the more you earn, so if you want to eventually just finish the games, these options should get you there in short order.
This is a short game—it’s 14 or so levels blow through as rapidly as you might think, but the replay ability is through the roof. By the end you’re clearly getting some traditional flight-shooter inspired tunnel and canyon chases. The monotony is also broken up by pursuit or friendly-fire challenges to keep you on your toes. Wait ‘til you get to the laser fences.
It truly is refreshing to revisit this game every so often and enjoy it more and more each time I play it.
Honestly, I’m not much better at it now than I was back then, but it gets the blood pumping and keeps your attention front and center. I love this game so much; it flies in the face of changing tides in game design and defiantly drops itself into an era where game length and story complexity was rearing its head. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun flight romp and an escape back to the simplicity of arcade gameplay with a modern veneer.
…
TOO BAD YOU CAN’T BUY IT ANYMORE!
About the Writer
A Life-long realist and aviation enthusiast. Once the co-founding Administrator of the Electrosphere.info English Ace Combat Database. In the present day he is freelance, roving the internet in search of the latest aviation news and entertainment. Read Staff Profile.
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