aeroboto is a 1984 horizontally scrolling shooter developed and published by Jaleco. The arcade release was distributed by Williams and known as Aeroboto outside Japan. It was later ported to the MSX and to the Famicom (by Hect), the latter being included as part of Jaleco Collection Vol. 1 for the PlayStation.^[2] More recently the Famicom version of the game was made downloadable via the Wii‘s Virtual Console download service in Japan.

Plot – aeroboto

Taking place in the year 2701, a robot named Ixpel which can transform into an aero fighter is sent on a mission to stop an alien super weapon from reaching the Earth.

Gameplay

The player controls a robot with the capability to transform into a jet fighter. The robot may move forwards, backwards and jump but cannot fly, and the fighter may travel anywhere on screen but has limited fuel in which to do so. Fuel status is indicated at the bottom right of the screen presented as numbers from 100 (fuel full) to 0 (fuel empty) which proceeds to decrease while playing as jet. When run out of fuel, the jet will fall but if the player is fighting where the ground is present he can revert to robot to avoid crashing (flying too low an altitude will still cause crash, however).

If jet is above an ocean on the other hand, it will crash and the player loses a life. Also the fighter cannot revert to robot when it is flying too high an altitude. (on the center top of the screen directly below the top score indicator will tell the player whether he can revert or not) The combination of two performances must be used to avoid obstacles, as well as to destroy any on-screen enemies for extra points. As with typical arcade games, the robot/fighter will die in one hit from anything.

Release

The game was re-released on the Nintendo Switch in the Nintendo eShop by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series^[3] and also on the PlayStation 4 on 19 March 2020 as part of the same series.^[4]

Reception

According to the Japanese magazine Game Machine, Formation Z was only a moderate success in arcades.^[5]