A game about the horrors of conflict and how automated warfare will lead humanity into endless wars and despair. I think it's easy to read this game as being about how amazing fighter pilots are but I interpreted the game as being about how with human conflict, there is always a chance of peace. With automated warfare, there is no hope, there is only an algorithm that continuously destroys as programmed. I think it was genius to have the final boss be two highly intelligent drones with no fanfare. No tragic enemy ace backstory, just two murder machines that are mimicking the protagonist's flight skills.
The gameplay is at its most interesting in the series, too. It's directly not about enjoying flying your jet. You are constantly thrown into situations with weather interrupting your jet's flight systems or targeting systems gone awry as the war is thrown into chaos. You actually feel the anxiety and fear of being a jet pilot better here than ever before. I think the mission "Lost Kingdom" portrays conflict at its rawest in the AC series, with the player being tasked with destroying any opposition from a peaceful newly established country just so your allies can get supplies and food from them. It's some real anti game design type shit and i loved it.
I do think the game romanticizes jet pilots to a degree. It has motifs that play on tales of chivalry with knights, mythologically named drones, princesses needing to be saved in a grand tower, etc. But i think the game does this to allude to heroism. The protagonist ends up being a representative of humanity against the eldritch horror that is automated drones. Does this glorify war in some way? Maybe, but I think the horrors this game's mechanics and moments show provide a good counter argument to the idea that heroism is something "desired". The protagonist's actions end up being futile as well, because we know that despite the optimistic ending all of this leads to AC3.
The best AC game imo, it has the strongest anti war themes and the strongest gameplay. It does have some narrative problems in the cutscene but overall i really enjoyed this game and it was a nice capoff after playing the rest of the other games this year. Also Daredevil is better than ZERO don't @ me
The gameplay is at its most interesting in the series, too. It's directly not about enjoying flying your jet. You are constantly thrown into situations with weather interrupting your jet's flight systems or targeting systems gone awry as the war is thrown into chaos. You actually feel the anxiety and fear of being a jet pilot better here than ever before. I think the mission "Lost Kingdom" portrays conflict at its rawest in the AC series, with the player being tasked with destroying any opposition from a peaceful newly established country just so your allies can get supplies and food from them. It's some real anti game design type shit and i loved it.
I do think the game romanticizes jet pilots to a degree. It has motifs that play on tales of chivalry with knights, mythologically named drones, princesses needing to be saved in a grand tower, etc. But i think the game does this to allude to heroism. The protagonist ends up being a representative of humanity against the eldritch horror that is automated drones. Does this glorify war in some way? Maybe, but I think the horrors this game's mechanics and moments show provide a good counter argument to the idea that heroism is something "desired". The protagonist's actions end up being futile as well, because we know that despite the optimistic ending all of this leads to AC3.
The best AC game imo, it has the strongest anti war themes and the strongest gameplay. It does have some narrative problems in the cutscene but overall i really enjoyed this game and it was a nice capoff after playing the rest of the other games this year. Also Daredevil is better than ZERO don't @ me