Black Aces of Gladioul (Ace Combat & Arcade Flight Thread)

[Yuuni Anno]

Hey Hey!

Ace Combat 8 is releasing like next week, and I've recently started replaying AC7. So I found it appropriate that now of all times was it right to open up an Ace Combat thread.

I find it interesting how Ace Combat has managed to get such a massive leg up in recent years, while it had a very good run in the 2000s with the original PS2 Trilogy, it slowly faded out entering the 2010s as CoD shifted gaming culture (For the better and for much, much worse.) With the last generally well liked game being Ace Combat 6 in the 2007 before basically going dark after the end of Ace Combat Infinity, seeing a resurgence with Ace Combat 7 in 2019 which paved the way for the game that's coming now.

In that void between the end of Infinity and the release of 7 though, it seems like a small flame has ignited in indie developers to work on arcade flight games outside of Ace Combat; while staying respectful of the series, signaled by the release and success of Project Wingman in 2020.

With all that said though, my fellow Lab Members, Black Knights, and Right Siders. How does it feel? To fly the open skies so freely? Answer below!

See ya next worldline! <3

[Yuuni Anno]

Hey hey!

Recently finished Ace Combat 8 and I want to share some thoughts about it on here, beware of spoilers for Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve!

Spoiler

Before the game came out I brushed up on what the last game, Ace Combat 7 was like just so I could refresh my head. That said, while fun, Ace Combat 7 was understandably very lackluster in story. It made up for it in great gameplay but even that was held down by the campaign's hit or miss mission design, with some of the games best missions being relegated to (a good) DLC.

Trailers for AC8 were very promising and I'm just gonna put it out there now, yeah, imo. It very much lived up to the hype, Ace Combat 8 just from a gameplay standpoint feels much more fun and challenging that AC7, while I'm not the type to fly blindly into Ace Difficulty, I think the new weighty flight model adds a lot of challenge while retaining most of AC7s skill expression, like flying fucking backwards.

They improved guns a lot, I think compared to AC7 and the small bits of the other AC games I've played I used the Guns way more often. Hell, for the Shadow 22 Fight in M28 it was borderline necessary, which brings me to a sad point about AC8. The enemy Ace Squadrons, while I (like literally everyone) am a big fan of them bringing back Ace Combat 0's Enemy Ace Squadron Intros, I think they're unfortunately kind of wasted on enemies like the Shadows. Most weren't particularly difficult save for the ones in higher end crafts near the latter half of the game.

The only Shadow fight that imo was of any challenge was the Shadow 20th Unit fight, I mentioned prior, but even then, that was less difficult and more annoying as Shadow 22 in particular has become infamous for his bullshit limitless flare dispensers shoved far up his ass. Though, if you asked me I would take this than the scripted sequences of AC7 against Mihaly.

As for the missions though, I think that while not as diverse as AC7, remained consistent in quality aside from some missions which were just a type I didn't like, like the escort mission in and around the midpoint of the game, which is followed by an evasion/ace-combat-equivalent-of-a-stealth-section, which I just wasn't a fan of. Other than that, the game was fucking solid to amazing all the way through. I especially like how they managed to make good use of the infamous Ace Combat: Assault Horizon's Dogfight Mode for cinematic moments.

Speaking of cinematics, the in-game cutscenes were great but holy shit I have on major gripe and its so fucking annoying I have to get this off of my chest. Why the fuck are the camera controls for the cutscenes so shit on PC everything moves slower than a snail I feel like even more of a cripple than the main antagonnist and she's in a wheelchair for 98% of her screentime, its genuinely ridiculous. I know this game is best played on controller but holy shit Project Aces c'mon.

Nitpick out of the way, I do wanna talk about the story which is of course another major improvement from AC7, gone is the borderline schizophrenic and scatterbrained Lighthouse War and now comes the Sotoa-Usea War at the turn of the Decade. The story had a strong start even before the game came out with the pre-release miniseries that they put out in the weeks leading up to release. That while a bit mediocre at points, esp. with the acting, overall acted as a solid introduction to the nature of the games conflict.

For some background, Sotoa is a nation state located on the Western-end of the Verusan continent (the same one that the nation of Yuktobania from AC5 is on). Sotoa is a nomadic culture a la the Mongols and modern day Mongolians of the Steppe, or at least, were, as following a conflict with the Yuktobanians that they lost. Sotoa rapidly industrialized which led to the rapid erosion of their vast prairies in the following years, causing the nation to build massive artifical islands (known as Megafloats) to send their people to as it was rapidly becoming clear life on the Sotoan mainland was becoming rapidly unsustainable.

This in turn, led to the nations military hatching up a plan to invade and settle the Usean continent. Which leads us to the ingame events.

Following a horrific opening barrage where they threw six kinetic penetrators with the force rivaling nuclear weapons at Expo City, and the deployment of its Land Battleships the FCU is on its last legs with a retrofitted Essex-Class Carrier from the 1940s that's barely holding on acting as the nations last capable fighting force. Onboard, is the player squadron, Joker Flight. Led at the beginning of the prologue by a mysterious yet friendly man, Jan Cope. He is the current holder of the mantle of "The Wings of Theve", a fake ace made up by the ships local chud, D.D, as a beacon of hope for the Usean people in this time of great loss.

Which leads us to the one thing I wanna note, is that this game's entire premise was like written up during the start of the 2023 Russo-Ukranian War, when the rumor of the Ghost of Kyiv surfaced following the initial Battle of the Capital. There's also another moment here I speculate was added because of the Artemis 2 mission earlier this year, but I won't be covering that here.

With that primer out of the way I wanna talk about how much I just fucking love the evil Turkish Indonesian Mongols that stand as this games primary antagonist. The Sotoan Military is straight up evil, they're not like the Erusean military who are split on Drones taking over the battlefield, or the Belkans who maintained a sense of knightly honor, or the Estovakians who knew their country was committing suicide and just wanted to be done with it. No, the Sotoan Military kills thousands of people for the love of the game, straight up. They DECIMATED Expo City, AIMING SIX OF THEIR THEIR KINETIC NAILGUN ROUNDS WITH PAR-NUCLEAR DESTRUCTIVE POWER AT THE CITY'S POWERPLANT AND AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL and their top aces actively GUN DOWN EJECTED PILOTS.

In the prologue we see those same top aces SHOOT THEIR OWN DOWN TO PREVENT THE ENEMY FROM BEING CREDITED WITH KILLS. Against one of the Land Battleships the vessels captain OPTS TO BOIL THE CREW ALIVE AND WHOM ALL BEG FOR THE PROTAGONIST TO KILL THEM AND END THEIR SUFFERING AS YOU BOMB THE LANDSHIP. The Sotoan military is genuinely evil which makes them so satisfying to kill—yet, even as you do, there are still people within its ranks like the rookies and vet squad that accompanies them in one mission.

As well, the citizens aren't happy with the war and in the final mission cheer you on as you destroy an automated submarine hijacked by the Anarcho-Capitalist Blockchain Techbro Illuminati as one of their ex-employees livestreams the fight on Twitch, Instagram, and Youtube. Hell, Cope himself, the guy entrusted with the title of Wings of Theve in the beginning of the game is a Sotoan himself, with his family having moved to the FCU following a chance encounter with the main antagonist, who is a daughter of a Tribal Royal Family. Who contrasts with Cope, who was just a regular Nomad peasant.

And they do this——all without justifying or absolving the Sotoan Military, or Sotoan Government, and its great. Sotoa by far in my opinion is both the most nuanced Villain the series has gotten. The Belkan Conspirators from AC5 were very flat and one note, and Schroeder from AC7 pulled him being a Belkan out of his ass, and stand as my favorite villain nation from the game, rivaled only by the Estovakians from AC6.

Anyways, I think that's all I'll say for now, maybe I'll be able to dump the rest of my thoughts on this game at a later date, but that aside I highly recommend it if you can run it. That's all for now.

See you in the skies!
El. Psy. Kongroo.