This is obviously not on the level of earlier titles in the series (coming from someone who has only played Electrosphere and 4), but it accomplishes too much on an aesthetic and gameplay level for me to truly dislike it. They don't make AAA games like this anymore! We have to savour the few we get! Ace Combat 7 has compelling arcade gameplay that never falls into repetition through a huge variety of mission objectives, an incredible soundtrack that, while weaker than the rest of the series, hasn't declined to nearly the drastic degree of something like modern Fromsoft scores, and it's all tied together with great visuals and real use of colour that goes far beyond the muddy grey palettes of most modern AAA slop. I'm about to go on a bit of a tangent here, so bear in mind I do really enjoy this game. I think it's great, and absolutely worth playing. But still...
You'll notice I didn't mention the story. That's the major aspect that pushes me to reconsider giving this four stars. Again, I think it more than makes up for the messy narrative with all the other aspects (which are, of course, far more important to a videogame), but it's worth mentioning just how confused this game's story is. It almost feels unfair to criticize because it's clearly not all there, and what is feels tied together from multiple unfinished drafts. There are at least three stories here that alone could and probably should carry their own games. If you ask me, the penal unit should have been the entire game. In the final game it only lasts like five missions, but it's the most fun and fleshed out section and the side characters you fly with there are more interesting than any of their later replacements. You could argue about how "realistic" it is, but that would be silly both within the context of the game and frankly art in general. Who cares, The Dirty Dozen with planes is a fun idea. There's so much potential to take that idea further that it kind of astounds me how quick the game drops it. Have Spare Squadron defect to the Eruseans, or have them go rogue coinciding with the satellite stuff (I guess this kind of happens but Trigger should still be with them). Hell, expand Shilage Castle into a full final mission to get that real war adventure movie vibe.
As is, everything past the halfway point is a complete mess. Wiseman is like the only likeable character in the new squadron you join and he goes out way to early for the player to ever get invested in the rest of the new side characters. The IFF failures should have led to more serious examination of the political landscape of the war but the game mostly just tries to distract you from the fact that it really doesn't care to take an even remotely nuanced approach to the war. It's hard to tell where the story went wrong, or even which of the numerous ideas here was the original concept for the game, but the biggest letdown for me is the role of the space elevator. The ending of the game positions it as a sort of ultimate representation of humanity that rises above the ultimately purposeless war (see the Yggdrasil connection with the names of the two final bosses), which is a cool, if melodramatic idea. It even fits with the whole drone thing, which also seems to boil down to "Humans are cool so they should pilot planes instead of AI" ( I don't think the game should be pro-drone or anything, it's just weird that the main theme of the game is barely fleshed out at all. Besides, Top Gun Maverick executes this exact same idea way better lol). But none of that works when the game also implies that the war was intentional and directly instigated by the evil Belkans who I guess are just conspiratorial sleeper agents waiting to start wars across the globe in the name of revenge now? It's such an awful moment made more annoying by the fact that you could fix it so easily, just make it so Schroeder was acting alone, and his drone project combined with existing tensions between Osea and Urusea led to the war. It wouldn't magically fix the game, but it fits with the otherwise entirely pro-humanity ending a lot better than randomly implying that all Belkans are actually evil villains.
Ultimately it feels like the game is constantly in conflict between wanting to do the everyone gets along happy ending and this awful political intrigue Belkan conspiracy angle. There are so many loose ends and unfinished storylines that feel out of place, a moment that comes to mind is when Osean fighters fire on the Space Elevator early on and everyone briefly reacts to how weird it was before never mentioning it again. They mention "Babel", in fact the mission is called Babel, which is like the exact polar opposite of the later comparison between the Elevator and Yggdrasil. Weirder still, the later satellite destruction actually IS a tower of babel moment, and no one comments on it! Was the communications breakdown initially going to be caused by the destruction of the Space Elevator before that plot point was changed? Did the Belkan conspiracy initially expand to include rogue Oseans as well? There are, as far as I can tell, no answers.
I'm not invested enough to do real research on this, but maybe someone smarter than me knows what went wrong with this games story. All the ideas are there, too many ideas, to be honest, and the presentation is really stellar. The cutscenes are effective enough on an audio-visual level that you can almost ignore the fact that they have nothing to do with the player character. I'd even say the story has enough thrilling moments and interesting ideas that it managed to be completely palatable, even pretty compelling at it's best. Mihaly is a great rival character, the first dogfight with him in the valleys with lighting flying around you like something out of a Wuxia film is one of those great gaming moments that's stuck with me since the first time I played it. The radio chatter is always fun, in fact all the character interactions are fun, and there's no shortage of memorable lines. All the big moments they put into the missions like Spare Squadron forming up around you in 9 or taking down the Arsenal Bird in 19 are great. And again, the gameplay is really incredible. It's nothing new, but having Ace Combat with this level of polish and variety in the mission design finally available on PC has got to be worth something. I went through the DLC missions for the first time as well and they're some of the best the game has to offer. Torres is a great villain and maybe one of my favourite characters in the game. (don't like the implication that the two secondary villains in the DLC are working for General Resource from AC3 though... maybe that's a topic for a different review). I'm not sure if it's worth the full 33$ for the season pass, but still.
The story is never great, and maybe I was just more lenient with it this time coming from the abysmal Project Wingman, but that absolutely shouldn't distract you from how fun this game is.
You'll notice I didn't mention the story. That's the major aspect that pushes me to reconsider giving this four stars. Again, I think it more than makes up for the messy narrative with all the other aspects (which are, of course, far more important to a videogame), but it's worth mentioning just how confused this game's story is. It almost feels unfair to criticize because it's clearly not all there, and what is feels tied together from multiple unfinished drafts. There are at least three stories here that alone could and probably should carry their own games. If you ask me, the penal unit should have been the entire game. In the final game it only lasts like five missions, but it's the most fun and fleshed out section and the side characters you fly with there are more interesting than any of their later replacements. You could argue about how "realistic" it is, but that would be silly both within the context of the game and frankly art in general. Who cares, The Dirty Dozen with planes is a fun idea. There's so much potential to take that idea further that it kind of astounds me how quick the game drops it. Have Spare Squadron defect to the Eruseans, or have them go rogue coinciding with the satellite stuff (I guess this kind of happens but Trigger should still be with them). Hell, expand Shilage Castle into a full final mission to get that real war adventure movie vibe.
As is, everything past the halfway point is a complete mess. Wiseman is like the only likeable character in the new squadron you join and he goes out way to early for the player to ever get invested in the rest of the new side characters. The IFF failures should have led to more serious examination of the political landscape of the war but the game mostly just tries to distract you from the fact that it really doesn't care to take an even remotely nuanced approach to the war. It's hard to tell where the story went wrong, or even which of the numerous ideas here was the original concept for the game, but the biggest letdown for me is the role of the space elevator. The ending of the game positions it as a sort of ultimate representation of humanity that rises above the ultimately purposeless war (see the Yggdrasil connection with the names of the two final bosses), which is a cool, if melodramatic idea. It even fits with the whole drone thing, which also seems to boil down to "Humans are cool so they should pilot planes instead of AI" ( I don't think the game should be pro-drone or anything, it's just weird that the main theme of the game is barely fleshed out at all. Besides, Top Gun Maverick executes this exact same idea way better lol). But none of that works when the game also implies that the war was intentional and directly instigated by the evil Belkans who I guess are just conspiratorial sleeper agents waiting to start wars across the globe in the name of revenge now? It's such an awful moment made more annoying by the fact that you could fix it so easily, just make it so Schroeder was acting alone, and his drone project combined with existing tensions between Osea and Urusea led to the war. It wouldn't magically fix the game, but it fits with the otherwise entirely pro-humanity ending a lot better than randomly implying that all Belkans are actually evil villains.
Ultimately it feels like the game is constantly in conflict between wanting to do the everyone gets along happy ending and this awful political intrigue Belkan conspiracy angle. There are so many loose ends and unfinished storylines that feel out of place, a moment that comes to mind is when Osean fighters fire on the Space Elevator early on and everyone briefly reacts to how weird it was before never mentioning it again. They mention "Babel", in fact the mission is called Babel, which is like the exact polar opposite of the later comparison between the Elevator and Yggdrasil. Weirder still, the later satellite destruction actually IS a tower of babel moment, and no one comments on it! Was the communications breakdown initially going to be caused by the destruction of the Space Elevator before that plot point was changed? Did the Belkan conspiracy initially expand to include rogue Oseans as well? There are, as far as I can tell, no answers.
I'm not invested enough to do real research on this, but maybe someone smarter than me knows what went wrong with this games story. All the ideas are there, too many ideas, to be honest, and the presentation is really stellar. The cutscenes are effective enough on an audio-visual level that you can almost ignore the fact that they have nothing to do with the player character. I'd even say the story has enough thrilling moments and interesting ideas that it managed to be completely palatable, even pretty compelling at it's best. Mihaly is a great rival character, the first dogfight with him in the valleys with lighting flying around you like something out of a Wuxia film is one of those great gaming moments that's stuck with me since the first time I played it. The radio chatter is always fun, in fact all the character interactions are fun, and there's no shortage of memorable lines. All the big moments they put into the missions like Spare Squadron forming up around you in 9 or taking down the Arsenal Bird in 19 are great. And again, the gameplay is really incredible. It's nothing new, but having Ace Combat with this level of polish and variety in the mission design finally available on PC has got to be worth something. I went through the DLC missions for the first time as well and they're some of the best the game has to offer. Torres is a great villain and maybe one of my favourite characters in the game. (don't like the implication that the two secondary villains in the DLC are working for General Resource from AC3 though... maybe that's a topic for a different review). I'm not sure if it's worth the full 33$ for the season pass, but still.
The story is never great, and maybe I was just more lenient with it this time coming from the abysmal Project Wingman, but that absolutely shouldn't distract you from how fun this game is.