Aero The Acro-Bat 3D: Launch to Clownery

Aero The Acro-Bat 3D: Launch to Clownery is the third installment in the Aero The Acro-Bat series as well as the first Aero The Acro-Bat game in 3D. It is a platform video game developed by  Iguana Entertainment and published by Sunsoft.  It was released for both the Playstation 1 and Nintendo 64 in August of 1997. The game follows Aero, a red anthropomorphic bat and the central character of the series, who must stop Edgar's new race of clowns on the planet of Clowyon and to collect stars and cannon parts in order to build a cannon and return safely to Earth.

Gameplay

The objective is to defeat Edgar, and also escape from Clowyon by collecting stars and cannon parts. Players control the player-character Aero, who can jump high, and shoot limited stars, and doing an aerial diagonal drill attack at his target when he is in the air. The player can hold L1 and move the D-pad to control the camera and hold R1 while Aero is running to go faster. Aero can also attack enemies with a spin attack as well.

Aero can now take four hits before losing a life. As an added luxury, Aero can extend his hit capacity by attacking running clams which give three random prizes. The game consists of 40 with three of them taking place underwater; in these levels, Aero uses an oxygen meter that depletes over time and you could refill the oxygen meter, using water tanks. There are also 2 levels which are boss fights; these have no cannon parts to collect. To complete a level (except a boss level), Aero must kill all enemies and touch the goal which is a large burning ring that turns into a portal. In levels, Aero can collect stars and for every 50 stars, Aero can get an extra life. Aero can find one cannon part in each level(with the exception of the aforementioned boss fights); collecting all 40 of them will give the player a better ending.

Plot

After Edgar's plans for domination were previously foiled, Edgar makes a new race of clowns on the planet of Clowyon. Aero learns about Edgar's plans for domination and leaves Earth, using a cannon in order to stop Edgar's plans.

Unused and Unseen Work

Some things were planned or unseen in the game.

Level Select

In the Sound Test, play sounds 10, 15, 06, 08. Now start the game, pause, and press Down + A + L + R.

Energy and Lives

On the Level Select screen, press Left, Right, A, B, C, Up, Down, Up to add additional options to toggle infinite energy and lives.

Unused Text

Starting at address $02C5E4 is a set of strings RECORD and PLAYBACK. No programming was found to load them. They were probably from a removed development feature used to record the demo movies.

Debug Passwords

Enter any one of the following as a password in the "Load Game" screen.

Unused Loading Screen Messages

Whenever the game displays a loading screen, it shows one of several randomly-chosen "humorous" messages. However, the EXE contains a much shorter list, most of which seems to not appear in-game.

1: TESTING DISK PERFORMANCE AERO WILL BE BACK IN JUST A FLY-BYE

2: CHECKING DISK VOLUME: IT'S PRETTY LOUD!

3: CHECKING DISK VOLUME: WHAT DID YOU SAY?

4: FLEAS... RELEASE ME LET ME GO...