ok, I bought it and tried it out. I haven't been that impressed to be honest.
It looks fantastic and it's very stylish, great presentation. The gameplay itself is terrible. But, I only tried using the Touch controllers not the Xbox controller. So I will give it another run today to see if the xbox controller is any better. So with that in mind here is my quick review.
You start off looking down onto your plane like the arcade game. And it looks amazing as the enemy planes fly over you and swoop down. But, you can't shoot the planes while they are swooping in or turning, so there is a limited window to try and shoot them all. Then there is the firing rate. It doesn't seem to matter how fast you pull the trigger, your guns fire at the same rate all the time.
Then when you fly over certain areas you get into another section of the game where you are sitting in the plane. Except it doesn't feel like fighter plane, it feels like a flying tank and you are trying to aim by moving the big tank barrel around.
I quit shorty after trying a couple of those sections.
Now, I was trying both the touch controller options while playing. There is the option to "hold" the flight stick and control your plane that way or there is also the option to use the thumb stick on the touch controller to steer. I found trying to control the plane using the flight stick a little frustrating. The thumb stick was much easier but not great.
The game recommends using an Xbox controller. So I am going to try one if I have time today and report back.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1118070/1976__Back_to_midway/
- aka I was awful using the flight stick to control my plane.