After playing through Ace Combat 4 and Ace Combat 5 in the past month or so, I finally finished off the ps2 trilogy with Ace Combat 0. What a fantastic trilogy of games honestly. It's very high quality throughout with some of the most memorable moments in gaming. I also appreciate how each of the game has its own distinct identity. Each of these games have their own theme, type of storytelling, mission design and main color. They each have their own strength and weaknesses which makes it easy to see any one of them being someone's favorite. Now, what did I think of Ace Combat 0 ?
When starting the game, I was very stricken by how different 0 was to the previous games. It introduces a lot of new interesting twists on the formula, has a unique story set up and even goes for a different genre of music. The ace style is the main new gimmick of the game and it affects how you approach missions. From my understanding, it affects which squadron boss fights you face in battle and changes some aspects of dialogue. Furthermore, I think it also allows you to play different version of each mission which encourages one to replay the game three times to see everything. In my case, I went for the knight style which required me to be careful as to not indiscriminately destroy everything on the battlefield as you must avoid attacking enemies that can't fight back or civilian facilities that are in the way. This made the game more difficult to an extent, but I like that this system puts in the hand of the player the choice to fight an "ethical" war and what that entails. It's a neat way to tie the story to the gameplay. I look forward to eventually come back to this game and see what the other playthroughs are like.
On the gameplay side of things, Ace Combat 0 really ramps up the difficulty of encounters. In this game, missile tracking is more accurate meaning I had to put more work into evasive maneuvers to survive. Furthermore, enemy AI was better at outmaneuvering my own missiles meaning I had to align myself right to take them out. I appreciate this increase in difficulty since it allowed the game to have some pretty cool boss-like dog fighting encounters. I actually wish Ace Combat 4's Yellow Squadron was as tough as some of the fights in this game. There's some really cool encounters here. In general, the final three missions were extremely hype, but what takes the cake is the final encounter. What a cool final boss, man ! It felt like jousting and dancing with your opponent in the sky as some frankly incredible music played. This game goes for spanish flamenco style music as its main motif which gives the soundtrack its unique identity and made the Zero fight extremely memorable. Definitely the highlight of the game imo:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XAJKqRU9k
However, I want to say that mission variety was not as strong as AC5 in this game. This can be good or bad as AC5 kept things fresh, but at the cost of some stinker missions sometimes. Ace Combat 0's mission mostly focuses on classic dogfighting and bombing missions which is fun enough. Overall, I enjoyed the roster of missions I've played (though, I guess I haven't seen a good chunk of them since I haven't played with Mercenary and Soldier ace styles). With that said, I want to add that while every Ace Combat game has its share of super weapon to take down, this game has the weakest of the 4 games I've played (Excalibur, the Gunship and V2). Mind you, they were still really good and I hella enjoyed them, but I feel like they were missing a little something. Maybe it's just me.
Story is the last point I want to discuss about this game and is the one aspect I wish I liked more. I think what's there is interesting, but it's not fleshed out enough. The documentary idea is solid, but it doesn't come up often enough as you play the game and I feel it's a bit strange since it's a documentary on the player instead of the war. I feel like this doesn't quite work as the player character is just the player which makes me feel there's not much to discover. For this setup, I think playing as a set character instead of a self-insert would've worked better. Obviously, the idea is that the player can decide where the documentary will go since you can affect the kind of Ace you are with Ace Styles. That's neat, but that wasn't enough for me. However, I did like to see interviews with the different pilots you take down. It brings some perspective to your actions in battle, humanizing the enemy similar to Ace Combat 4. I also liked the twist that Pixy ended up the first character being interviewed. I do wonder how much I would get of this part of the game by seeing the three campaigns. Let me know if it changes significantly. Also, while we're on the topic of the documentary side of the story, the presentation of these cutscenes was pretty neat despite being a bit uncanny. I'm assuming they composited real actors performing over digital backgrounds which makes the game seem like it has very advanced graphics. Pretty neat ! Visual presentation in this game is the best it's been of the three ps2 AC games whether it's in-missions or story cutscenes like these.
I liked the story you went through during missions though. The Belkan war doesn't feel very long, but it does provide some motivation and humanity to them beyond the cartoonish villains they were in AC5 (which worked well for what that game was going for imo). The "No Borders" twist is a bit on the nose, but it works well to remind you that even the "good guys" in a war don't necessarily have the interest of the people in mind. Wanting "No Borders" is a relatable goal even if the terrorists went about it in a pretty unhinged manner. It's not the most in-depth story ever, but I appreciated the symbolism of the round table of politicians fighting a war. In general, the Arthurian Legends thematic of the game is pretty neat imo ! I smiled at taking down Excalibur and fighting Morgan at the end.
Overall, Ace Combat 0 is a really good game with memorable moments, but is held back by the story not being as strong as I'd like (8.5/10).
My current Ace Combat ranking: AC5 > AC4 > AC7=AC0. Though, I do have to replay AC7 to see if my feelings hold up. Fantastic series overall ! Play these games people !
