A love letter to Ace Combat - Printable Version
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A love letter to Ace Combat - Raion - 04-16-2020
So I recently have been playing through the ace difficulty of Ace Combat 7. I've only really played Ace Combat 3-7, main series, none of the spinoff/online games, but I just wanted to take a brief moment to explain what the series means to me:
I remember in 2002 my father got me a PS2 for my birthday, and I remember booting up Ace Combat 4 Shattered Skies, which remains one of my favorite games of all time. You strap into that F-4 Phantom II and immediately down a ton of TU-95 "Bear" bombers and you feel incredible.
The graphics and details of Ace Combat games are incredible, even Ace Combat 3, which I bought a year later and played through (The inferior international version) and still liked.
Not only that, but you become invested in the military conflicts of Strangereal, the alternate reality Earth. Whether you're ISAF, Osea, Emmeria or UPEO, you immediately feel invested in the conflicts and you can see the influences from real-life countries that grew into making these nations:
ISAF is roughly equivalent to the European Union+NATO.
Osea is obviously a United States analogue, with its massive reach
Emmeria seems like a mix of Canada, United States and the Netherlands (I say this because the "gold king" of Emmeria reminds me of a WWII novel I read 15-20 years ago when I was young about a Netherlands resistance movement that smuggled national treasures from Amsterdam to the UK to protect against Germans who would have melted them down).
UPEO obviously is the UN.
Whereas your enemies are close analogues:
Erusea is a mix of Italy, Germany and Hungary, especially with names like Mihaly (which is the Hungarian name for Michael) with its capital Farbanti mixing Washington DC and Rome.
Yuktobania is obviously Yugoslavia and Bulgaria mixed together.
Estovakia appears to be a mix of Russian, Czech, Ukranian and Polish influences especially with names like Voychek and Ilya (A male name)
Overall, the aircraft flying isn't super realistic, with massive payloads of ammo (Hundreds of missiles and bombs) but the arcade feel is quite accurate. Controls, features and storyline all seem to make sense, and the diversity of aircraft that are available is cool, though Ace Combat 5's arsenal is my personal favorite for a few reasons:
1. Lots of naval aircraft like the A-6 Intruder that don't appear in other titles
2. Mix of new and last-gen aircraft.
3. Decent modeling of how some of them actually fly and behave (I've used an F-4 Phantom II and a few others in a flight sim called X-Plane that prides itself on accuracy)
I wish they'd actually show planes like the F-111 Aardvark, B-2 Spirit, etc. Those have never been shown unfortunately.
Overall, I love the series and I'm excited to see where it goes next.
RE: A love letter to Ace Combat - commodorejohn - 04-16-2020
I never got into it myself, but my brother is a fan. Pretty solid soundtrack work, too.