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.
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.