God damn this game absolutely rocks, HUGE step up from Ace Combat 1 and 2. Make absolutely sure you play with the Japanese version patched into English.

I do feel like it falls to it's ambition sometimes, like having the mission design kind of crumble towards the end of the game, and I do also feel like the game handles worse than Ace Combat 2. I don't know if it was just a me problem, but enemies would LOVE to either speed past me forcing me to make an hour long turn, or go so slow that I can't slow down in time and I pass them, which really lengthened the time it took to defeat most enemy aircraft. On a gameplay level, I would say it isn't as good as Ace Combat 2.

But man, the story here absolutely rocks, I can't believe a series of 2 simple plane games lead up to a branching narrative full of twists and amazing themes, the ending especially will probably live in my mind rent free for the coming weeks with how absolutely insane it is but also how much sense it makes in the context of the game.

Overall, it's an absolutely fantastic game that falls to its ambition and scope in some areas, but I truly believe it's amazing.