I liked this game despite its efforts to get me not to like it...
My thoughts are mixed. It has what has to be one of the worst stories I have ever seen in a video game. It's poorly written from a macro and micro level. The characters are all stupid and unlikeable and say stupid things, stupidly. The cutscenes are largely dreck.
What I really wanted from this game was a newer, prettier Ace Combat 6. I would not have minded if they had tried to amp it up, juice it up a little in keeping with the Assault Horizon approach to the game. As far as arcadey, non-sim flight combat games go, AC6 is relatively tame. Assault Horizon is completely bug nuts. I was hoping 7 might kind of split the difference, but it doesn't, really. Which is okay I guess.
It's definitely gorgeous to look at, but what's crazy is that its core components do not look demonstrably better than AC6 looks, which again is like 13 years older. That's less an indictment of AC7 looking bad and more a compliment for how remarkable AC6 looked back then.
The environments here are better and the weather is impressive, namely the clouds and lighting. The surface textures look better too, although honestly, not by a lot. The bottom line is, the things you'll spend most of your time looking at are the planes, and they pretty much look as good as they ever have...oh and explosions. The explosions look stupendous here.
The gameplay is mostly familiar territory. I found the fighter movement a little disorienting here, but now I forget why. Something about the way the camera either does or doesn't roll in sync with your aircraft. I don't remember exactly, but it was counter to what I'm used to and it felt weird as a result.
One other thing they introduce to spice things up and keep them interesting is a couple sections where you encounter thunderstorms and it screws with your controls and flight path. I thought this was......fine. It was fine. Whatever. I'm glad they're trying to keep innovating, but I wasn't sure what to think of those sections. They're kind of annoying more than anything else.
Once I beat the game, I put it away promptly. It was oddly long and oddly not-endearing. It's hard to mess up an Ace Combat game when the core gameplay and graphics are so good, and I guess they didn't really do anything to ruin it. If I replayed it without the story and more casually, I might come away with higher regard for it.
Oh, parting note: the upgrade tree kind of sucks. I get it, but it kind of sucks. And it's not presented very well. Could seriously benefit from some visual streamlining.
My thoughts are mixed. It has what has to be one of the worst stories I have ever seen in a video game. It's poorly written from a macro and micro level. The characters are all stupid and unlikeable and say stupid things, stupidly. The cutscenes are largely dreck.
What I really wanted from this game was a newer, prettier Ace Combat 6. I would not have minded if they had tried to amp it up, juice it up a little in keeping with the Assault Horizon approach to the game. As far as arcadey, non-sim flight combat games go, AC6 is relatively tame. Assault Horizon is completely bug nuts. I was hoping 7 might kind of split the difference, but it doesn't, really. Which is okay I guess.
It's definitely gorgeous to look at, but what's crazy is that its core components do not look demonstrably better than AC6 looks, which again is like 13 years older. That's less an indictment of AC7 looking bad and more a compliment for how remarkable AC6 looked back then.
The environments here are better and the weather is impressive, namely the clouds and lighting. The surface textures look better too, although honestly, not by a lot. The bottom line is, the things you'll spend most of your time looking at are the planes, and they pretty much look as good as they ever have...oh and explosions. The explosions look stupendous here.
The gameplay is mostly familiar territory. I found the fighter movement a little disorienting here, but now I forget why. Something about the way the camera either does or doesn't roll in sync with your aircraft. I don't remember exactly, but it was counter to what I'm used to and it felt weird as a result.
One other thing they introduce to spice things up and keep them interesting is a couple sections where you encounter thunderstorms and it screws with your controls and flight path. I thought this was......fine. It was fine. Whatever. I'm glad they're trying to keep innovating, but I wasn't sure what to think of those sections. They're kind of annoying more than anything else.
Once I beat the game, I put it away promptly. It was oddly long and oddly not-endearing. It's hard to mess up an Ace Combat game when the core gameplay and graphics are so good, and I guess they didn't really do anything to ruin it. If I replayed it without the story and more casually, I might come away with higher regard for it.
Oh, parting note: the upgrade tree kind of sucks. I get it, but it kind of sucks. And it's not presented very well. Could seriously benefit from some visual streamlining.