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Trio of Aero Dancing Titles Are Back OnlineLate April saw the return of online capabilities for not one, not two, but three Dreamcast, console-exclusive titles, all belonging to the Aero Dancing franchise. The Dreamcastlive.net announcement is here . Prolific server developer Shuouma has revived online play for Aero Dancing F: Todoroki Tsubasa no Hatsu Hikou (or FSD) , Aero Dancing i , and Aero Dancing i: Jikai Saku Made Matemasen (or iSD) , whose original servers closed in March 2003. Aero Dancing FSD introduced online multiplayer to the series with two-player combat. This was expanded to four players in Aero Dancing i and iSD . That’s not all! In addition to the private server built by Shuouma, pcwzrd13 , the force behind Dreamcastlive.net, has translated all of the online menus of Aero Dancing iSD into English, similar to his previous Sega Tetris and Golf Shiyouyo 2 patches. Notably, this is the first time either version of the third entry in the Aero Dancing/AeroWings franchise has been playable, even if only partially, in English. This should help Western players get into the cockpit quicker as online play was exclusive to the Japanese releases of the series. Patched versions of the games are available on Dreamcastlive.net in the Downloads section.  Gameplay showing English patched menus.
 pcwzrd13 demonstrates online multiplayer in Aero Dancing iSD.
Shuouma has been one of the most active developers focused on Dreamcast server revival for nearly a decade. It is thanks to him that ChuChu Rocket!, Daytona USA, Maximum Pool, Monaco Grand Prix, PBA Tour Bowling 2001, Planet Ring, POD SpeedZone, SEGA Tetris, Starlancer, Toy Racer, Worms World Party, Quake III Arena, and others are playable online, on your Dreamcast today. 
The Dreamcast Aero Dancing trilogy, which includes Aero Dancing: featuring Blue Impulse , Aero Dancing F , and Aero Dancing i , along with supplemental disks “SD” (enhanced) releases of all three titles, was developed and published by CRI Middleware in Japan between the years of 1999 and 2001. The first two titles, Aero Dancing: featuring Blue Impulse and Aero Dancing F , were published worldwide as AeroWings and AeroWings 2 : Airstrike , respectively, by Crave Entertainment. The Aero Dancing series of fighter jet combat games took a different approach to the genre than many of its console contemporaries, most notably Ace Combat , choosing to focus more heavily on accuracy and immersion instead of moment-to-moment arcade thrills. This flight simulation-oriented gameplay tasked the player with not only dogfighting and squad management, but also more mundane routines like refueling. The Aero Dancing series was a relative commercial and critical success in Japan, with the three main releases selling in the top third of Dreamcast titles, and the trilogy as a whole scoring an average of 31/40 with Famitsu Magazine. The series was notably more popular in Japan than in North America with each release outselling their AeroWings counterpart — see sales table below.
Japanese numbers sourced from here and North American sales sourced from here . The series would ultimately end on the PS2 with the SEGA-AM2-developed sequel, Aero Dancing 4: New Generation, released in 2002 in Japan, and in North America as Aero Elite: Combat Academy in 2003.
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