AC 5 is the grandest and longest AC game of the PS 2 era, however it's also the worst one. It's by no means a bad game, it has all the core components of AC - arcade flight controls, slight sci-fi, large plane selection and varied missions, but the storyline and at times bad balancing made it the least enjoyable for me.

Story
Another war in Strangereal, (Yes, that is the name of the alternate universe AC is set in) that continent can't ever get enough. AC 5’s storyline is about a war between two major superpowers that turns out was instigated by a shadowy organization. It doesn't use any unique storytelling methods like others in the series and overall, it's just a save the day kind of story without any of the elements that made the others special. Your character develops the gigantic vocabulary of two words - yes and no. Choosing either has no almost no effect on the story.

Gameplay
Gameplay is mostly okay. The same arcade flight mechanics of the other games with some additional features. These are a progression meter to unlock better planes by playing with a similar one and a way to give orders to your squadron. These orders however aren't very effective. My biggest problem is the low missile count of the planes. I failed multiple missions just because I didn't have enough. Whether or not this will be a problem for you is dependent on whether you play with a keyboard or controller. Since the MG’s (that are much easier to aim with a controller) are the most effective in any AC game.

Graphics and artstyle
The game is from the PS2 era so you can expect some outdated graphics. Unfortunately, the cutscenes have not been spared for this installment. The closest comparison I can make is Toy story 1.

Atmosphere

The hero that saves the day's atmosphere is still there, but it’s weakened a bit by having the whole squadron take the credit, rather than only you.

Soundtrack
Soundtrack is as good as always. “The Unsung War” is for me the best part of the ost.

Final Thoughts
President Harling, we NEED 5 million rockets to bomb Yuktobanian children. PLEASE

Having started the series with Ace Combat 7, I felt rather confident that it wasn't going to be topped. The missions were excellent, the controls sublime... this was what over 20 years of Ace Combat games had been building up to, right? And yet, here I am, reflecting on my time with Ace Combat 5 and simply dumbfounded at the sudden escalation in scope from its predecessors. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War fires on all cylinders, leaving no aspect of the experience in the dust.

As an engine, this just feels like a slight upgrade to Ace Combat 04. I think I noticed some more detail in regards to weather effects, but otherwise this is more AC4, which isn't a bad thing at all! The music of the series has always been a highlight, yet it feels as if they've soared to even higher peaks this time around. The soundtrack is not only one of the series' best, but one of gaming's best. The average level of quality is astounding, with a solid diversity in regards to atmosphere and tempo. Some of the stand outs to me were Ice Cage, White Bird (Part I) and a contender for one of the best 'final boss' themes of all time, the titular Unsung War.

I really enjoyed Ace Combat 04's narrative, yet it was largely disconnected from your protagonist's point of view. I thought it a fresh approach, yet I found myself appreciating this game's direct storytelling far more. You're a silent protagonist still, yet this feels earnt the more you play the game. You are one of the Demons of Razgriz, a moniker to describe the squad that singlehandely pivoted the war. You aren't just a hero, you are a myth to many, both to your allies and your enemies. In this sense, I didn't mind missing out on a voiced protagonist, especially since the rest of the squad did some heavy lifting. Much like Ace Combat 3, this game wants you to be invested in its characters, which is easier given they actually pull their weight during battle. Each and every squadmate was precious to me, and the more secondary characters were also spotlighted to a degree that made me appreciate everyone's involvement.

To dive just a tad deeper into the plot itself, I appreciated how small of a scale everything started on. You get to view the war's escalation in real time from the perspective of a reporter, and by the end it's simple to understand how the game had built up to this point. It's very rare that you get to see a war of this scale through to completion, as the previous games always started you out as an established war pilot. There are twists and turns, missions that purely serve narrative, and many moments that pack an emotional punch, both happy and sad. It's a thrill ride, one without any brakes, and despite having a much longer single campaign than any of its predecessors, I can't say I was any less invested.

Now we come to the series' awkward sticking point: the missions. These games have struggled to find their footing in this regard, with Air Combat being understandably basic, to Ace Combat 2 providing much needed variety, to Ace Combat 3 experimenting yet ending up bloated and repetetive, to Ace Combat 04 finding a strong template that was stretched far too thin. If you've seen the score, it might be no surprise that Ace Combat 5 did it. While there are 3 extra missions I've yet to do, as well as an arcade mode which is separate to the campaign, I can safely say that there was zero filler in AC5. Basic "kill all enemies" objectives were few and far between, outweighed heavily by some incredibly creative concepts. Whether it was escorting a plane through a radar-infested field, racing the enemy to locate your lost squadmate or infiltrating an enemy's base to take damning pictures of their operations, the ideas seemed endless. These more specialised missions were used sparingly however, but the more 'generic' missions often had some twist that set them apart from one another. This usually meant layering multiple objectives together, with missions tending to last a while without dragging. There are boss fights of sorts which work better than anything previously and one of the most exhilarting chase sequences gaming has ever seen (spoilers: you are the one being chased). While I called the story a thrill ride, it would be more apt to give the descriptor to the game's missions, as Ace Combat 5 is akin to a rollercoaster ride that I never wanted to get off of.

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War achives total parity between every element; story, characters, visuals, music and gameplay, all lacking flaws that hampered previous entries. None of this is to mention a streamlined armoury which made your choice of aircraft more impactful, the ability to direct your squad both in and out of battle, as well as the higher level of difficulty which made retrying missions and actually adapting to your circumstances necessary to succeed. Ace Combat 5 is brilliant, alright?

Jumped straight onto Ace Combat 5 after finishing 4 and while the gameplay and controls felt a little bit better, I thought the story dragged on for way too long. I still liked its themes and you definitely feel like you have a closer bond with your teammates compared to the previous entry, but it almost turned it a bit campy and unserious considering what the story is about.

Not gonna lie, the goofiness of the banter despite the sheer horrors happening, all that talk about "demons", the cult-like behavior of the Belkans........ I thought the game was going to pull a Drakengard on me by the end of it and having me fight actual otherworldly demons like some sort of reverse scenario of Ending E, which would have been both funny and incredibly ballsy to pull off but would have made the journey entirely worth it for me. Saddly it wasn't and while it's still a good game with good themes, I don't think it will stick with me like Shattered Skies did.

This game is like watching a K-drama with a third world war setting, has the potential to make you cry and is beautifully scored. On top of that asthetic of war and geopolitical chaos, therein lies some of the best designed mission structure to date. The actual hands-on gameplay is simple; you fly a plane that can shoot way more ammo and missiles than anything remotely real, but narrative and mission structure are so interwooven, that, even though you may be doing the same actions, they FEEL very different.

Good characters, relatable struggles and SO MUCH DIALOGUE, you might actually miss much that is happening your first time through it since you'll be shooting so much stuff you won't be paying attention to what is happening on the radio.

If you are iliterate and can't read or understand dialogue, this action game is not for you.

I was thoroughly unprepared for the excellence of Ace Combat... or at least the impression that AC5 would make on me as my first game in the series. I had been told by people whose opinions I don't... UNCONDITIONALLY trust, that this was "the one with the good story" and that it was generally the most beloved. Going in, I expected the story to be "pretty good", and I expected to play this one, be content that I had pretty much seen all there was to see from Ace Combat, and happily leave the other entries alone.

Ace Combat 5 is the sort of game that inspires such a love in you that staying unacquainted with its siblings feels almost disrespectful, as if you owe it to Ace Combat 5 to meet its parents and treat them with kindness. I have no intention of rushing these meetings, but this desire is so much more than anything Armored Core stirred in me when I first inspected it last year. Ace Combat 5, and I suspect the same of at least a few earlier entries, is a dream realized. It is the dream of every boy who encountered Top Gun in the 1980s, delivered with love, joy, and generosity. It is a dream that pervaded video games as early as Jet Rocket in 1970, and only unmerged from Star Wars in the late 90's. Ace Combat indulges a specific fantasy in ways that cannot be found elsewhere, and that's because Namco Bandai or Bandai Namco or Namcai Bundo or Bonklo Numbdy knows what they're doing.

With as much shit as people give that particular conglomerate for their assembly line anime tie-ins, it's easy to forget that Namco, patron god of Actually Fun Arcade Games yet lives, and the blood remains strong. There is one element of Ace Combat 5 (and I presume, other entries) that surprised me more than any other, and that is variety. I very much presumed that Ace Combat's missions would almost universally revolve around "Kill Enemy Planes Until I Say Stop." In truth it has dogfights, stealth missions, air-to-ground escort missions, survival missions, flight maneuverability challenges and more. At no point did I feel that missions were overly repetitive, or that the mission I was playing did not bring something interesting to the table.

I did, however, experience spikes in frustration. Certain missions do not communicate certain nuances of their objectives in the best of ways, and some defense targets are frighteningly stupid. Sea Goblin, you could fly LITERALLY ANYWHERE that is not along this narrow strip of magically appearing SAMs, and you would be just fine. You are in a helicopter. Also, I didn't experiment with this too much, but I suspect that most of the special weapons just kind of suck? Definitely feels as if there's room for improvement with designing around them or making them more interesting.

In some ways, the story exceeded my estimations, and in others it did not. I played, quite intentionally, with the English dub, and I was not disappointed. I kept expecting the voice acting to tip over into "hilariously bad" or "just seriously actually bad", but that never really happened. Most performances are awkward, yes, as is a lot of the dialogue, but for a video game dub from 2004, Ace Combat 5 has survived the rigors of time surprisingly intact. The awkwardness is endearing, and not particularly distracting. It has a strong soundtrack, good looking cutscenes for its time, and lands some surprisingly emotional punches. I won't act as though there aren't times when it feels like the story stands still a little too long, or like every story beat is explored to its full potential, or like the ending doesn't feel a touch anti-climactic, but the game invests players in its characters and in the concepts of its war story well enough.

Ace Combat 5 has been enough to give me a genuine fondness for a whole new genre of thing. While playing it, I watched both Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick for the first time each. I at once understood that Fantasy Flight Simulators should have always been a video game genre held in at least as high esteem as the racing game. Sooner or later, I'm going to play more Ace Combat.

Amidst the eternal waves of time
From a ripple of change shall the storm rise
Out of the abyss peer the eyes of a demon
Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath

The demon soars through dark skies
Fear and death trail its shadow beneath
Until men united wield a hallowed sabre
In final reckoning, the beast is slain

As the demon sleeps, man turns on man
His own blood and madness soon cover the earth
From the depths of despair awaken the Razgriz
Its raven wings ablaze in majestic light

It's my least favorite of the PS2 era, but it's still a good game. I feel like the pace was a bit slow at times, and it went on a bit too long. I feel like the game could've had about 3 missions removed and still have concluded how they wanted to, but that's just me.

I'm of two minds with the plot. I feel like it contributed to the longer length of the game, but it also hits some pretty high moments because of the set up it does. It could have been done better, but what's there is fine. Can't really go wrong with this game.

The peak of the Ace Combat series, and one of my absolute favourite games of all time. While other games in the franchise surpass parts of this game in individual categories, I feel that none of them, as a whole, achieve the level of quality in gameplay, narrative, mission design, and presentation, that this game does. I have loved this game since the moment I played it, and is the game that made me realize just how much games could achieve beyond simply being a fun distraction.

The gameplay is a pretty standard affair when it comes to arcade flight sims: fly plane, shoot missiles and guns at both air and ground targets, dodge missiles, win. What makes Ace Combat the undisputed master of this formula, however, is how it takes that relatively simple game loop, and combines it with an insane amount of variety in terms of missions, aircraft, and weapon choices. Ace Combat 5 has the single largest roster of planes in the series by my count, and while the choice to make each plane have only one special weapon tied to it is one that the series, thankfully, never repeats, I think that this is made up for with the variety in planes to choose from, increasing the variability of what you take into a mission moreso than other games in the franchise. It's a controversial choice, but I feel this game pulls it off.

Mission design in this game is among the most varied in the entire series, with a great mix of air-to-ground, air-to-air, air-to-sea, and any combination of them, combined with interesting restrictions and narrative scenarios that make each mission stand-out from the rest, a feat that keeps the entire campaign feeling fresh. Some missions are not the equal of others, and while they can be varied, I can't deny that some are just inherently not as fun to play, but the commitment to make each level unique is worth celebrating in a game where mission objectives and context bring the bulk of the variety in gameplay.

The standout feature of this game though is the main story, and the presentation of that story. Whether it is the anime-inspired pre-rendered custscenes, the in-game custcenes that contextualize a mission, or the in-game dialog that breathes life into each and every character, this game is a masterclass in telling an engaging story. It doesn't hurt that the narrative is also a fantastically grand, melodramatic, and emotional tale that takes twists and turns as if it were an anime, all while using gameplay to reinforce that narrative throughout. Ace Combat as a series is basically Gundam with planes, and this game truly feels like an anime series with how its plot weaves a story through the various set piece moments. I truly love the story and characters of this game, and for me, it stands as the most entertaining story in the franchise.

To cap it all off, the game's soundtrack maintains the insanely high quality of the series, really accentuating every moment of action and drama. This game is not just a good plane game, this is just a great video game, one that pushes the limits of its chosen genre, and takes it to new heights that really need to be seen to be believed. I can't analyze this game without bias, it is one of my favourites of all time, but I think it truly does deserve such high praise for how unique an experience it is, and the quality that it achieves within such a niche. Whether you like planes or not, this game is a masterpiece that more people should experience.

If you told me before I played Ace Combat that I'd get this invested into a flight combat series, I would've said you're off your rockers. Nearly a decade later, and I'm obsessed. AC5 is the absolute cream of the crop. I love the way the story is told and paced, I love the set-pieces of the game, many of the plot's hardest hitting moments still live fresh in my mind, and the ending is beyond compare. I don't think I've ever felt so badass playing anything else. This is real special, don't miss out, and don't dismiss it due to preconceived notions like I did.