Took me a little bit to settle into Project Wingman: Divided into two halves, the conquest and campaign feel like they contain the missing element of the other mode- conquest is a rougelike, with a constantly rising alert level and a stingy economy forcing you to consider if it’s worth it to fight tougher and tougher enemies for the sake of a better payout at the end of a mission, but the maps are massive and barrain. The campaign has a number of massive and well-produced battles, but it doesn’t have any kind of meaningful scoring system that could force you to rethink your approach to old levels: clear something once and you're done, a far cry from the nice balance of the two the Ace Combat titles are generally able to strike. While I don’t think it would’ve been as easy as merging the two sides into one to fix some of my broader problems with the game, it’s still striking to see the two appeals acknowledged, but not combined.
Gets a lot better with time though- was going to write a lot more about the flatness of the early levels in the Campaign, but the transformative quality of the unlockable “Mercenary” difficulty addressed a lot of my problems, serving as the best kind of New Game +. You keep your fleet of planes and fight through remixed enemy placements, doubly addressing the slow pace and bog-standard engagements that dragged out the action of the early levels. Think that Project Wingman is most in its element when it’s dialing up the scale of the battles, cutting through armies of fantasy weapons-platforms, the screen crammed with sky-carriers and super-tanks and an absurd number of fighters.
It’s surreal imagery and a great threat, your missile warning constantly blaring out, and traces of railgun fire making for a distinct threat, their presence further complicating your ability to break line-of-sight with enemies. This increased difficulty also addressed one of my other initial problems with the game, which is the lack of resource-management compared to Ace Combat. You’ll pretty quickly have access to a surplus of missiles and special weapons, and the only limits on flares are a 10-second cooldown. It ends up being pretty easy to play thoughtlessly against the standard enemy arrangements, but the scope and length of the fights in this new mode made me much more conscious of my loadout and ammo supply. I knew I was going to finish the Mercenary mode when I had to really start experimenting with weapons on the fourth mission, forced to optimize and consider how to best use the newly-finite resources against lethal super-tanks that require you to destroy all their weapon emplacements first. Trying the pick them apart normally ended up being too dangerous, and I ended up refining my loadout to successfully incorporate heavier bombs over a number of failed attempts.
Good changes overall, but still wish the mission structure was more varied- would never have guessed I’d pine for the filler sections of Ace Combat 4, but being tasked to “kill everything” gets understandably old after 20 missions with no break in sight. The few times where it does break from the norm, like one mission where civilian planes are interspersed with enemies and shooting them down will fail the objective highlight how slight the modifiers could’ve been to transform the action. It’s a seemingly minor consideration, but it means you can’t fire away with your surplus of multi lock-on missiles and have to factor these neutral planes into your angle-of-approach. A time limit on a mission, some radar jammers that would impact your mini-map, or a few objectives you needed to protect could’ve similarly gone a long way as pace-breakers.
On the mind because it affects the game narratively too: An early-game mission where Cascadian forces are retreating from a major city is never able to land with the weight the presentation clearly wants, this supposed tactical failure preceded by gameplay where you’ve just spent the last 15 minutes annihilating every enemy on the map. Same goes for a solo mission which is framed as a smaller op before a larger offensive, but sees you clearing an enemy force that’s as massive as any of the regular encounters, and doubly annoying when you don’t have your Wingmen to chip away at some of the scattered emplacements.
Don’t want to be too dour though: haven’t had a chance (or the means to play it) but the Frontline 59 expansion seems to address a lot of the pacing issues I had with the main campaign of Project Wingman, and the strongest moments here make some of the more repetitive missions here easier to overlook. “Cold War” is the obvious highlight, a massive, mission-long dogfight that highlights the tenacity of the enemy pilots AI, and caps off with a great rematch against Crimson 1, your main rival throughout the game. Also one of best examples of how the great the energy of the presentation can be when everything here is firing on all cylinders: lively radio chatter and an inspired setting really managing to sell what a turning point this is for the world (and not to mention what a stellar opening this is). Could even see the somewhat lax mission design being a strength long-term, only rarely having to spend time hitting your marks in a choreographed set piece.
Rarely want to hit someone with the “It gets good X hours in,” but that’s exactly what happened here- really comes into its own over the course of the campaign and ends up being a great challenger to the normally uncontested throne of arcade flight-action.
Gets a lot better with time though- was going to write a lot more about the flatness of the early levels in the Campaign, but the transformative quality of the unlockable “Mercenary” difficulty addressed a lot of my problems, serving as the best kind of New Game +. You keep your fleet of planes and fight through remixed enemy placements, doubly addressing the slow pace and bog-standard engagements that dragged out the action of the early levels. Think that Project Wingman is most in its element when it’s dialing up the scale of the battles, cutting through armies of fantasy weapons-platforms, the screen crammed with sky-carriers and super-tanks and an absurd number of fighters.
It’s surreal imagery and a great threat, your missile warning constantly blaring out, and traces of railgun fire making for a distinct threat, their presence further complicating your ability to break line-of-sight with enemies. This increased difficulty also addressed one of my other initial problems with the game, which is the lack of resource-management compared to Ace Combat. You’ll pretty quickly have access to a surplus of missiles and special weapons, and the only limits on flares are a 10-second cooldown. It ends up being pretty easy to play thoughtlessly against the standard enemy arrangements, but the scope and length of the fights in this new mode made me much more conscious of my loadout and ammo supply. I knew I was going to finish the Mercenary mode when I had to really start experimenting with weapons on the fourth mission, forced to optimize and consider how to best use the newly-finite resources against lethal super-tanks that require you to destroy all their weapon emplacements first. Trying the pick them apart normally ended up being too dangerous, and I ended up refining my loadout to successfully incorporate heavier bombs over a number of failed attempts.
Good changes overall, but still wish the mission structure was more varied- would never have guessed I’d pine for the filler sections of Ace Combat 4, but being tasked to “kill everything” gets understandably old after 20 missions with no break in sight. The few times where it does break from the norm, like one mission where civilian planes are interspersed with enemies and shooting them down will fail the objective highlight how slight the modifiers could’ve been to transform the action. It’s a seemingly minor consideration, but it means you can’t fire away with your surplus of multi lock-on missiles and have to factor these neutral planes into your angle-of-approach. A time limit on a mission, some radar jammers that would impact your mini-map, or a few objectives you needed to protect could’ve similarly gone a long way as pace-breakers.
On the mind because it affects the game narratively too: An early-game mission where Cascadian forces are retreating from a major city is never able to land with the weight the presentation clearly wants, this supposed tactical failure preceded by gameplay where you’ve just spent the last 15 minutes annihilating every enemy on the map. Same goes for a solo mission which is framed as a smaller op before a larger offensive, but sees you clearing an enemy force that’s as massive as any of the regular encounters, and doubly annoying when you don’t have your Wingmen to chip away at some of the scattered emplacements.
Don’t want to be too dour though: haven’t had a chance (or the means to play it) but the Frontline 59 expansion seems to address a lot of the pacing issues I had with the main campaign of Project Wingman, and the strongest moments here make some of the more repetitive missions here easier to overlook. “Cold War” is the obvious highlight, a massive, mission-long dogfight that highlights the tenacity of the enemy pilots AI, and caps off with a great rematch against Crimson 1, your main rival throughout the game. Also one of best examples of how the great the energy of the presentation can be when everything here is firing on all cylinders: lively radio chatter and an inspired setting really managing to sell what a turning point this is for the world (and not to mention what a stellar opening this is). Could even see the somewhat lax mission design being a strength long-term, only rarely having to spend time hitting your marks in a choreographed set piece.
Rarely want to hit someone with the “It gets good X hours in,” but that’s exactly what happened here- really comes into its own over the course of the campaign and ends up being a great challenger to the normally uncontested throne of arcade flight-action.