Overview:

You take to the skies to turn the tides of war of the country which has taken you hostage.  You’ll have to go through a gamut of missions with you dogfighting enemy plans, destroying ground to air forces, defending escaping dignitaries, and many more.  The missions are fast paced and full of chatter which progress the story along all the while you’re trying to escape, I think.

Visuals:

This game looks pretty beautiful with all the stuff going on throughout the missions.  When you fly through clouds you get condensation all over your cockpit with the same for dirt when going through sandstorms.  The ground textures look amazing as well but you won’t really see them as much since you’re traveling pretty fast.  The cutscenes also look amazing as well with the characters not being too realistic but the film effects have a nice enhancing look to them.   The main focal point of this game are the planes.  You can tell the developers put their heart and soul into these since they look impeccable with the cockpit looking even more amazing.

Audio:

You know I can’t really tell you about the audio because with all the chatter going on through the missions it kind of gets jumbled with all the action going on.  The voice acting seems ok, at least to the parts that I could pay attention to, but the constant barrage of “Warning” and “Missle” that you’ll hear throughout the game does kind of get grating.  The cutscene narration is kind of lifeless and, I hate to say, sounds like a low grade porno flick.  Like the visuals, the planes sound amazing with everything they do.  

Completion:

I’ve so far done 13 missions and each one of them has been different from the other.  This has been the first Ace Combat game I’ve ever played and I can say it’s been pretty fun.  The flying feels great as does the dog fighting.  I can’t tell you if this story is a continuation of what’s been going on in the previous iterations but I am having a great time.  Can’t wait to see where the game goes!

Update: 12/28/2025

I FINISHED THIS GAME! It was a hell of a game and pretty fun. The story went some interesting places and the end missions were pretty cool. It still is a gorgeous game and I am really looking forward to either the previous installments or the next ones!