As many regular readers are aware, I’m somewhat of an aviation enthusiast and spent some time in my early 20s around airbases marvelling at the technological wonders of warbirds. I could watch all forms of aircraft all day and would never cease to have that wonder as a heavy hunk of metal cuts through the sky. Being inside one is a different story, as my recent trip to Nintendo Live would attest, so flight simulator games are about as close as like to get to flying these days and Aerofly FS Flight Simulator promises to be a highly realistic Flight Sim for casual gamers and enthusiasts alike. What’s It Like? Press your captain uniform, put on your aviators, and “Uhhhh, this is your captain speaking, we are looking to have a good flight” as we review Aerofly FS Flight Simulator for Nintendo Switch.
Aerofly FS Flight Simulator utilises similar technology to Microsoft Flight Simulator, allowing you to pick any point on a map and start flying from there. You do have to be online for this to work, and there is only a small section of the San Fransico that is playable offline. We have seen a similar premise with Aireo Flight Simulator and it is quite an amazing concept to be able to fly anywhere in the world in the palms of your hands. Aersofly FS Flight Simulator has an advantage over its platform-specific competition, offering a range of 31 *hopefully* licenced aircraft and a more structured approach to gameplay with 81 challenges on top of the free flight mode. There are thousands of airports all over the globe where you can plan and plot flights, including time and weather conditions, as well as a real-time day and night system, and have a more “sim-lite” experience thanks to a myriad of assist options that make flying as easy or as difficult as you would like it to be. There are some amazing gameplay features in Aerofly FS Flight Simulator, mainly being the ability to “touch” everything in the cockpit thanks to the touchscreen controls. You can slide the throttle up in handheld mode, select a dial and turn it, and even accidentally shut down aircraft systems mid-flight. Inside of the cockpit, Aerofly FS Flight Simulator does a lot to impress pilots, unfortunately, outside of it… Aerofly FS Flight Simulator is a different story.
Aerofly FS Flight Simulator is a lot of “On this hand, we have something that is great, but on this hand this is awful” and you will hear that a bit during this review. The game either does things extremely well, or absolutely terribly, and there’s no in-between. Let’s start with the graphics.
Aerofly FS Flight Simulator features gorgeous aircraft models, highly detailed interiors, and amazing lighting effects. While considering the technical limitations of the Switch’s aging hardware, its incredibly impressive visuals inside the aircraft made me forget what console I was playing on. The Aircraft themselves are high poly and high quality, showing some incredibly detailed exteriors. But then we get to the scenery, which has a texture resolution to rival the Nintendo 64 Era of games, making anything on the ground almost impossible to discern. Even flying over Sydney City, the engine confuses it for mountainous terrain, and reduces it to a mess of textured hills. The game also has sightseeing tours that you can fly, and I tried to discover the Hoover Dam, only to realise I had flown over it and instead of it being a rendered landmark, was a splotch of white below me. Compared to Aireo Flight Sim, which features a much higher resolution on ground textures, it becomes abundantly clear that Aerofly FS Flight Simulator looks terrible. This is such a shame as a part of the fun of Flight Sims is the sightseeing aspect, and while Aerofly FS Flight Simulator looks serviceable at 15000 feet, the lower your aircraft goes, the lower my graphics score slides. Most Airports have 3D buildings planted on top of these textures, but even looking out on the runway makes you often question what you are looking at.
Then we get to the gameplay, Aerofly FS Flight Simulator has an excellent flight model that feels similar to Microsoft Flight Sim in terms of handling and offers a smooth flying experience, and take-off and landing (provided you can see the runaway) feel rewarding. The touchscreen elements add a deep level of immersion. Each aircraft has a different responsive feel depending on the type, with airliners lazily banking into turns while fighter jets can perform much wilder moves, and gliders ride the air currents peacefully. Then we have the flight guides for challenges and pre-determined flight paths that bring the immersion cracking down. Flight paths and guides often are not achievable on take-off due to them being too high halfway down the runway, or they guide you directly into a mountain by clipping right into them. Sometimes these markers appear underneath the simulated terrain making them impossible to follow. While these guides are just that, a guide, it is the poor level of polish on top of the awful textures that further brings the title down on the Switch platform.
For my pilots looking into accessibility, there are a range of flight assists to help keep you airborne, as well as touchscreen controls and AI co-pilots to help your flight go smoothly. There aren’t really any visual options or accessibility-specific options, so as always, I recommend doing further research to see if Aerofly FS Flight Simulator suits your needs.
At just under $40 AUD, Aerofly FS Flight Simulator doesn’t quite hit the mark when it comes to value for money. While the core mechanics are there, the muddled textures, glitched flightpaths, and overall lack of polish make it hard to recommend for anyone except for die-hard flight sim enthusiasts. There’s no joy in sightseeing as there’s nothing to see, and while the aircraft models look great, there’s no point in flying them over a muddled mess of a low-resolution Google Map. I sincerely hope we get an update for Aerofly FS Flight Simulator which would likely raise it to the best flight simulator on Switch, but until then, it’s grounded by cheaper Eshop options out there.
So, What’s It Like? Aerofly FS Flight Simulator is like Microsoft Flight Sim, but handheld.
