Mountain Devil

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

This may surprise the reader, but I think planes are pretty cool. Luckily, Bandai Namco agrees with me. After finishing our trip to the Flinders Ranges, I was finding it hard to get back into Lies of P and needed something different. The confluence of these three factors led to me purchasing Ace Combat 7 one cool September afternoon.

I’ve previously played Ace Combat 6 many years ago on Xbox 360, so pretty much knew what I was getting myself into. A lite arcadey air combat game with a veneer of a dramatic story and enough planes shot down that the value of Trigger’s (the protagonist) kill count would rival the GDP of a medium sized European nation.

The story is set in a fictional continent that has just tipped over the precipice to global war. Unfortunately the countries are named similar enough and referred to in confusing ways that even now, having finished the game, I couldn’t tell you if I was on the side of Erusea or Osean or something else… The plot takes an interesting turn about 2/3 of the way in. Off-screen the global satellite network is destroyed and you lose comms with your nation. After this point, there is an eerie apocalyptic tone as your crew tries to figure out what they should be doing. This includes a mission flying around a city at night having to manually ID targets as a civil war breaks out between previously aligned factions and a mission where it is heavily implied you are borderline committing war crimes to secure an airfield in a fledgling nation state that seized the initiative during the chaos. It all culminates in a dramatic finale where you all gang up against the true drone threat (the message here is confusing other than robots = bad and scary. The fighting is noble as long as it’s against other people who are also dying?).

Kudos to one of the early levels as well which ends when you accidentally shoot down the president (there is some rationale provided later on, but I couldn’t follow it or didn’t pay attention). This happens organically as you manoeuvre and try to protect him and you genuinely feel like it is your fault.

The core gameplay loop is pretty simple, manoeuvre, lock on shoot heaps of missiles, hope some hit, repeat. Air combat in particular is very repetitive. Regardless of the plane you’re fighting 95%+ of the time you end up in a turn fight and just spin chaotically around the sky trying to point your nose and get a missile lock. Missions often add some novelty around this to keep you engaged. In addition to the examples from before, you have to fly at low altitude and dodge enemy radar, provide laser guidance to bunker busters to blow open missile silos or pursue oil trucks hiding in the sandstorm.

The game is pretty nice to look at from a distance and luckily that is where you do most of it from. The locations are always nice to fly through. However air combat means you are never really looking at anything for half the game, but instead just nauseatingly spinning your camera around to find planes instead.

Music is good, not great. There are a few tunes in particular that get you hyped up, but it lacks some of the more subtle ambiance that I enjoy in other games. It tends to err on the extra side and has a distinct flair and tone that it maintains. Ace Combat 7 doesn’t have much in-mission down time, so maybe that is intentional. If I heard some songs out of the game, I think I would recognise them, but I suspect only a few of them would tug my heartstrings.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4jJRwZWoyPHLVKF7BiSNo2?si=xkuU8pcpSDa97Io1jadYag&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A2ndgY2fSlqdB92W0JjxE1o – One of the more memorable mission background themes (listen to it all, it has a few building sections). They all feel similarly passable with a few good bits and are distinctive as Ace Combat music, but a bit overly dramatic.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1kH2qu8vrD9xgSTn1e5LZP?si=ITFvdICLSJmiK1_Gb2y4bg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A2ndgY2fSlqdB92W0JjxE1o – The briefing menu theme. I don’t know if I ever heard all of this.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3R7K1Ei9ALOpE0FaTtd0CB?si=jU-KHngdRP6QQeVdI7eRvw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A2ndgY2fSlqdB92W0JjxE1o – This is the capstone track of the game according to the online zeitgeist. It’s got a cool yelly part, but overall I don’t think it is amazing. I can’t actually remember when it played in-game though. If it was right at the end while trying to fly out of the space elevator, I was probably too annoyed at continually crashing into the walls and restarting to appreciate it.

This all sounds fun and it generally was. The missions are about 15 minutes each which is the right length. However, nearly all of my deaths were from flying too dramatically and ploughing right into the ground, which was annoying when you then have to restart the level. The total game was done and dusted in around 10 hours and I don’t think there is anything left for me to get out of it. The best missions were those I played once. Whenever I died and had to redo parts of them, they lost their charm. By the end I was getting bored of it and looking for each mission to wrap up. It’s worth a single playthrough, but I think I get more bang for my buck with that time spent in other games.

Rating: 4/7 AMRAAMs fired head-on into opposing drones.

Fighting obscenely large planes is a staple of the Ace Combat series. This games iteration is the Arsenal Bird drone carrier.
This game is far from a simulator, but the plane models are all carefully detailed and look pretty neat.
I had a lot of fun with the two naval strike missions. They are different enough to feel novel. Also, the Super Hornet with the LRASM is massively OP for this. Every ship goes down in one or two missile hits.
The voiceless protagonist of Trigger has a satisfying story arc. From novice fighter to convict pilot to saviour of the free skies. The radio chatter is the main way this character arc is established and it works well.
Not Pictured: My plane yelling MISSILE MISSILE MISSILE warnings continuously as these planes all futilely try to shoot me down.

Posted by:

Dek

8 responses to “Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown”

  1. Cr Avatar
    Cr

    This is a game that is difficult to enjoy by watching, and not playing. I think it’s important to mention this game was purchased heavily discounted. It was not expected by either of us to be a masterpiece. It’s sort of like when I read a popular fiction book that is 300 pages long. Light entertainment that reminds us of the craft of better artists.

    I’d like to watch a documentary about the making of this game. Is it entirely designed to sell units, or is there a group of passionate people behind it like there is in Last of Us.

    This was a good, honest review. It does make me question why we entertain ourselves with media that is medicore, but that is a more existential question that can be applyied to much of my life. For example, why did I watch any of Emily in Paris?

    I’m glad this game is over.

    Reply
  2. Dek Avatar
    Dek

    This is actually a bit of a cult series and this one is widely considered to be a welcome modern revival that still keeps what people like about the old one. It is Japanese plane nerds who make it, but they are focussing on what they think makes planes cool (boom, crash, bang!), rather than the complex and probably monotonous (from a game perspective) reality (pressing a lot of buttons, flying in circles for hours, looking at a tiny screen).

    There is also extensive lore that goes over multiple games going back to the PlayStation 1. In that regard, I respect their commitment to the cause.

    I’m happy it’s over, but it was something a bit different and that is always healthy.

    Reply
  3. CK Avatar
    CK

    Enjoyed your review. I think we share a lot of similar sentiments. This was my first Ace Combat series game which I happened to buy on sale. But overall, it was enjoyable and would recommend the campaign to anyone (perhaps that’s not already playing a game like DCS). I also thought it was also probably suitable for any beginners to these types of air combat games.
    Storyline: Agree, hard to keep up especially taking long breaks in between my sessions. The graphics in the cutscenes were nice though.
    Missions: I think we agree that sometimes (or most times?) it’s repetitive and too chaotic. I definitely enjoyed more novel missions with more targeted objectives as opposed to those where it’s a destruction grind to a time limit.
    One of the gripes I had was how some missions force you to multi-role, but your special equipment is really either for ground or air, not both. I think there was a few occasions where I was sold a ground heavy mission in the briefing then was left to dry with an A-10 when the mission suddenly had other plans to go dogfighting. I did replay some missions to see how other planes / special equipment combinations would have fared.
    Teammates: Not sure about you but I didn’t figure out whether there was a tactic to make use of your teammates? I did not sense the teammates making a noticeable impact on the missions apart from just adding more to the chaos. They were only good at banter and moral support at times.
    Replay feature: I see you hadn’t mentioned this. I love a replay feature in any game. Good to see this one had one for fast jet combat. Seeing the 3D flight path, maneuvers and missiles firing from different camera angles was satisfying. Definitely, would have used this more often if there a faster playback speed control (not limited to 2x).
    Game Controls (Although I do have a gamepad, I’m oddly better with the keyboard): My favourite view in other games is the cockpit view but the lack of an option to “look around” with the mouse or a key bind for quick rear view made this view less playable. I ended up playing with the HUD only view for this reason. Wish there was more key binding config options.
    Learning to fly: The closest game I’ve played prior is the Battlefield series (many many hours) which of course has air combat as an element. I was able to get used to flying the way I wanted pretty quickly. I found the speed control took a bit more time learning to keep monitoring the HUD speed indicator with the lack other sensations I was used to (e.g. extra camera shake at high speed or sound variation). It was cool to see the game allows you to perform post stall maneuvers, though I never quite got to masterly using this technique.
    PvP: One thing you didn’t mentioned is the existence of PvP in this game! Maybe you mentioned you don’t care too much in this space, but I think it’s completely another layer. I’ve only played a couple of open lobbies where I was out of my depth with the players but immediately realised there is much to learn. While it could be easy to class this game as a shallow, arcade-style game, I suspect there is a lot of depth in dogfighting strategies, mind games, and advanced flying techniques to master just like any other similar air to air combat games.

    Reply
  4. Dek Avatar
    Dek

    Thank you for your comment CK. You are the first commenter who has actually played one of the games I have reviewed. Responses to your considered points below:
    – Definitely agree the missions with some novelty were the best. Shooting down a bunch of other fighter jets tended to be the most boring part. The missions were actually pretty good in this regard and most of them had a few interesting tidbits throughout.
    – Agreed with the plane selection limitation. It felt like basically the right choice to always go with the closest thing to an air superiority fighter you could get. I think I went F-16, F-14, F/A-18 (my favourite with the LRASM equivalent), F-35 (one mission only) and F-22. I should have gone YF-23, but I think the F-22 had marginally better stats.
    – A mission where, for example, an F-117 or B2 was the plane could be a change for example, but I suspect would actually be boring. I never replayed a mission with another plane. I feel like I could imagine how it would go and there wouldn’t be that much change. I admire your curiosity in exploring this aspect though.
    – Every time the replay feature came up it was time to spam the skip button. The wireframe replay just made me see how similar my play style was, fly in a straight line, shoot a bunch of missiles, do an Immelmann, then repeat (this strategy didn’t work for the boss planes though). It was too effective to do anything else.
    – I played on PS5, so used a controller. The game works well with a controller as you get good camera and plane control separated with the two sticks. Any more complicated flight sim wouldn’t work with a controller though I think.
    – Agreed HUD only view is OP. The cockpit view was a fun novelty and I appreciated that detail, but it was too much of a handicap to use on an ongoing basis.
    – I don’t think I ever worried about speed control. It was either full afterburner or maximum speed brakes as far as I am concerned unless some special mission needed me to fly slowly.
    – I wanted a mode with a bit more realism in the flight models, but maybe it just wouldn’t work. The minor penalty for completely stalling never made it a disincentive to avoid. It was more just an annoyance that you now had to turn out and wait a bit longer before getting missiles on target. I played a lot of Il-2 in high school and that had some brutal flight models. You turn too quick and boom, wing rips off. You go too slow and whammo, you are in a flat spin. Very stressful, but more rewarding as a result.
    – You are correct. I never played the PvP (player versus player for other readers not familiar with the lingo). Multiplayer stresses me out and I don’t like the competition aspect in games. It’s interesting that there is such a skill curve. I had assumed the skill cap was not that high from the single player (everything was just a turn rate fight). It’s the type of game where I imagine there are some people playing with a few thousand hours somehow. Well beyond what I could feasibly imagine as the limit of fun for the game.

    Thanks again for the comment and remember, stick with trigger and you’ll make it.

    Reply
  5. Dad Avatar
    Dad

    Gaming has certainly evolved at an exponential rate since pac man which was the only game I ever mastered.

    Enjoyed the review as it provided a balanced view of the pros and cons of the playing experience.

    As I have aged I find that I’m not able to absorb fast paced graphics so I feel this would overwhelm my senses.

    Had a chuckle when Declan decoded pvp for readers not familiar with the lingo. I needed that assistance for the whole review.

    I know that Caitlin donates her books upon completion. Does this also happen for finished games.

    If both Caitlin and Declan were banned from reading and gaming respectively who would crack first and collapse from withdrawal.

    Reply
  6. Dad Avatar
    Dad

    One more thought.

    What is the best use of $100

    One game or 10 second hand books.

    Reply
  7. Dek Avatar
    Dek

    Thank you for your kind comments Paul.

    Games do not get donated when completed, I typically try to sell them at a reduced rate on Gumtree or EBay. There is no real independent secondhand game stores, it is all online. It doesn’t really make sense to donate to EB games and they don’t sell them at a bargain to other people. An interesting fact is Caitlin (often, not always) buys the games, but I am retain the funds from the selling of the secondhand games.

    Caitlin would definitely collapse first. There is no question. I routinely go months without playing games. In fact, I haven’t played any games in at least 5-6 weeks as of typing this comment.

    The second question is tricky as I would never pay $100 for a game. I get all my games a little bit old and much cheaper, so that would be at least 2 top-quality games for me. I think as I am much more selective with my game choices, they would be more impactful than one of Caitlin’s many books. In fact there are games that I know Caitlin and I would absolutely love to play/watch that we just haven’t found a good deal on yet (Alan Wake 2 or Silent Hill 2 Remaster).

    Reply
  8. Dad Avatar
    Dad

    Declan, you should work in finance.

    You have managed to find a counter party where you can consistently make easy money from them with no risk to yourself.

    What is the maximum amount that you would let Caitlin spend on a game.

    If Caitlin plays a game do you charge her a user fee.

    Reply

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