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Ace Combat 7

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Any Ace Combat fans here? Ace Combat 7 came out yesterday, and here's my thoughts as a lifelong fan:

I've been playing Ace Combat games since I was 8 years old (I'm 25 now). I was really looking forward to Ace Combat 7. There are some really good things about the game. It looks beautiful, and has some of the feel of the PS2 titles that I fell in love with.

However, AC7 makes some of the same mistakes as AC6, and it's really disappointing in that way. Ace Combat 7 makes the mistake that more is better and shoves tons of enemies on every map. Just get used to the missile alert sound constantly ringing in the background, because Namco Bandai loaded the map with tons of missile-bearing enemies and concentrated them in small areas. This simply wasn't the case in Ace Combat 04, 5, and Zero, where you actually had some time to breathe. A missile alert in those games actually brought a sense of tension. Now, it's constant. Maybe the developers back then realized that constant missile threat doesn't enhance gameplay, or hardware/engine constraints limited the amount of targets on a map. Either way, it's a quality of the old games that has been lost in the new.

This game doesn't evoke the thrill that AC:Zero's B7R levels do, or the tension that AC5's Arkbird missions have. Instead, you're annoyed. You're annoyed that your missile alarm is constantly going off. You're annoyed that your incompetent squadmembers don't do anything. You're annoyed that you can't take a second to appreciate the beautiful scenery the artists constructed or listen to the wonderful soundtrack by Ace Combat staple Keiki Kobayashi. I understand that in real dogfighting you can't take your focus away for even a second. But Ace Combat has never gone for absolute realism. Instead, it seeks to capture the wonder and thrill of flying without some of its real-world impediments. Fortunately, the PS4 version I got came with a copy of Ace Combat 5, which I will likely end up playing more than AC7

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