There’s a tendency to label video games as the most “immersive” medium due to their ability to be able to put the player in direct control, an active participant in the world they ask you to occupy. This “immersive factor” hinges on how well the game can pull you inside of itself, and how well it manages to keep you close, so as to not break the illusion otherwise it’ll risk breaking itself. I think the issue with this line of thinking is that it doesn’t take into account just how fluid the medium really can be, that in these endless discussions of how the mechanics take advantage of the medium we tend to miss when other aspects of a game can do the same. Ace Combat 04 is unique in that regard, where the strength of its narrative isn’t derived from how well it’s able to keep you close but from how far it can distance itself from you, trying to find the perfect balance.

There are no heroic speeches that tug on your heartstrings, no third-dimensional complex characters you can chew on. It’s the opposite, all of the characters remain enigmatic. You don’t get to know these people, you’re not allowed to, and that’s precisely why it works. Shattered Skies strips them down to less than the bare minimum, it’s all still pages narrated by a man reminiscing on a time long forgotten; people who history erased from its own books. All that remains from that era are melancholic memories as you hear the emotions layered around each word spewed by the narrator.

It’s precisely because of this aspect that the actual gameplay part of Ace Combat 04 feels like such a letdown. As the hours go on each mission feels less and less like it’s complementing the narrative and more like it stands separate, as the lines between each mission blur in my head and it all becomes a big giant mashup of all the score attacks the game throws at you. The repetitive “get X amount of points in a given time” approach to mission design can only stay fun for so long, and it just feels like I’m going through the motions until the next cutscene.

It just feels disappointing coming from the previous entry, Electrosphere, a game that just barely managed to balance its massive scope. Shattered Skies is simpler, it’s shorter, and by all accounts it should be more varied, yet I’m struggling to remember what Mission 10 of Ace Combat 04 even was. Despite that, it’s been months since I finished this little game and every once in a while I’ll remember it and start thinking deeply about it, the only reason I’m writing this is because it’s made a place in my head. I feel like the narrator with all my memories going hazy, and the only thing that remains is an inkling, as I remember what I once felt.

𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙊 𝙄 𝙒𝙍𝙄𝙏𝙀 𝙏𝙊 𝙔𝙊𝙐...