It takes a pretty good game for me to get excited about finishing it nowadays; either the game is too easy, I don't care about the characters, the plot is boring, or I am unpleasantly surprised to find that game is ending so abruptly. Well, I just beat Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War an hour ago, and I attempted to sit down and write this review. I had to stop because I was too jittery after beating the game, and I needed to unwind before assembling my thoughts. It's been a long time since a game got me all revved up like this. Time for a return to Namco's skies.
Story
You're a fighter trainee stationed at Sand Island Base, with the call sign "Blaze". You fly in a squad of 4 planes, known as "Wardog" Squad and you fly under Captain Bartlett, whose call sign is "Heartbreak One". The day before you're assigned to Wardog Squad, Bartlett and the other instructors got jumped by a bunch of planes, and all of them ended up getting shot down except for one, 2nd Lt. Kei "Edge" Nagase, who looks like she gave up her career in the fast paced world of auto racing to fly aircraft for the Osean Air Force. The fourth member of your squad is Alvin Davenport, whose call sign is "Chopper". Chopper accounts for something like 75% of the in-game radio chatter.
You start flying patrols when the attacks become more frequent, and eventually a full declaration of war from the Yuktobanians comes through. Capt. Bartlett takes a missile headed for Nagase and doesn't come back. You get a new pilot to fill in the spot vacated by the Captain "Grimm" and together you will become the single most powerful force in this Unsung War.
Gameplay
If you intend to enjoy this game in all of its splendor, seek out a store that carries the Ace Combat 5 bundle with the Hori USB PS2 Flightstick2 and Throttle. I played through Ace Combat 4 with just the controller, so I didn't imagine the stick would make all that big of a difference. I was totally wrong. While the PS2 controller has plenty of space for everything the flight stick does, the flight stick blows away the controller in every aspect. It's not cheap, and it's really not that good of a value considering the only other game its compatible with is Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies and it is unlikely that the stick will be compatible with the PlayStation 3, but damned if it doesn't add a whole other dimension to flight combat on a console.
The incredibly sparse manual doesn't tell you much, but here's the important stuff. On the Dual Shock, R1 and L1 accelerate and decelerate respectively. L2 and R2 will give you left and right yaw, unless you're flying in Novice Mode. X fires the machine gun (which has unlimited ammo, at least in Normal Mode), and O will fire whichever missile hardpoints you have selected. Select will change your hardpoints, Triangle changes targets, and Square will give you a near or far range map, depending on how hard you press it.
The D-Pad will let you give your wingmen instructions. Left will tell them to "break and attack", down will tell them to cover you, up will tell them to attack your target and right will toggle whether or not you want them firing their special weapons. Mind when you're doing this, because if it is in the middle of a speech, they won't pay attention to you.
If you're expecting a flight sim, you're in the wrong place. Why you would expect a flight simulator on a console using a non flight-stick controller is frankly absurd to me, but if that you, well, here's a heads-up...not a sim. Ace Combat 5 and all the other Ace Combat games are not simulations; they're flight combat games. You should know that you won't find Jane's seal of approval on it as soon as you see the option for "Arcade" mode. Get that idea out of your head, and you'll have the proper expectations for the experience at hand.
The game's flight physics are a simplified model. Stalling doesn't occur quite so frequently, and pretty much any aerial maneuver is performed with minimal difficulty. You also won't find yourself blacking out (or redding out) on high-speed banked turns. The game's meant to be fast, quick and enjoyable. This is further emphasized by the fact that most enemies in the game will explode after two missile hits, but no matter what plane you're piloting, you can take three. The enormous number of missiles you're carrying, and the fact that you actually use the machine guns in dogfights should also be a pretty big indicator, too.
For the most part, flying in Namco's skies is a pretty lively, target filled experience. You'll engage in a lot of quick turning battles to dump your missiles when you've got good tone, and head for the next enemy. You're always going to be up against a vastly larger enemy force, but you and your wingmen will generally dispatch them with little difficulty. You'll also frequently not only do battle with the enemy but with the surrounding terrain. Skyscrapers, mountains, mammoth fortresses and castles are some of the things you'll be dodging while battling it out.
Arcade mode will have you carrying a more believable missile load of 24, but will also allow you to regain missiles for shooting down cargo carriers, and you also have a timer that is counting down. Kill a plane and get 20 seconds put back on the clock, so you can meet your quota of kills. Just like the main game, the arcade mode comes with four different mission branches.
Graphics
Visually, not too much has changed from the skies of Ace Combat 04. Namco's added a lot more detail and texture to the ground, but quite honestly, you're really not looking at any of that stuff because you're busy blowing things up at over 1,000 mph. The models of the planes in hangar are pretty nifty, but unless you're flying in 3rd person mode, you aren't going to see the planes in full glory in any other place.
The cutscenes look pretty nice. The times when I was about to protest the lack of color in a character's face were always due to them being in some intense situation, and there were plenty of other times when they would look normal. Aside from recycling Nagase, who is just Rena Hayami from R: Racing Evolution, everything else in the cutscenes looks pretty nice. The menu system is also done well, except for these random red blinking lights that show up. I think they were initially only supposed to be a layer underneath the title screen but someone left them in for every menu area...the hangar, Arcade Mode, everything. It's really strange.
Audio
I've heard people raving about the inclusion of Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry" as part of the intro and ending. Sure it tangentially matches up (the "oceans in between us" and "everything's so blurry" lines are the only ones that actually fit what's going on) but that song's over three years old, and the game's set in 2014. It’s kind of hard to believe that a one-hit wonder is still going to be around thirteen years after their fifteen minutes of fame ran out. Of course, Namco didn't fare much better with their original track that became the anthem for the latter third of the game. The meter and the lyrics are all messed up. It sounds like something that John F. Kennedy from Bubba Ho-tep would have come up with, and remember, he's thinking with a bag of sand up there.
The in-game background music is thankfully much better, and the in-game chatter is nice, too. They never explain why it is that you can hear the enemy radio chatter in any of these games, but that's just the way it is. A lot of the story will be told through the dialogue in-game, so keep your ears open. You have the option of going with just the English dubs or listening to the Japanese voice talent do their work. Subtitles are provided in either situation. I can't complain too much about the American voice jobs, but still, it's always nice to have the originals around.
Gripes
Ok. We've had enough. Anyone who's making a flight combat or flight sim game, have someone tattoo this on the inside of your eyelids. NO MORE CANYON MISSIONS! Also, Namco, quit it with the freaking "fly through the tunnel to blow up the core" final missions. I mean, we already have one company who can't get past the glory days of Star Wars. Let it go. It's not even your movie. It's time to find another way to end the game.
Also, put in some checkpoints when you're making plays go through the supremely annoying missions. Nothing drops a game's score faster than playing through the same fifteen minutes 6-8 times because of one slip-up that happens around the 12 or 14 minute mark. If you know most people are going to die in a certain section of a mission, be cool and let the player restart from there. Don't try and artificially lengthen your gameplay with full level restarts.
One particularly annoying sequence of missions had me supporting ground troops through an assault on a huge fortress, then, before I could save, I got waylaid during refueling and either had to flee or dogfight my way out of several squads of the toughest enemies to shoot down in the game, then immediately after succeeding at that, I had to play follow the leader on some crazy flying exhibition, and you guessed it...fly through caves. I started this chain of missions at 1:45am, not knowing I wouldn't be able to save. I gave up at 3:30am and had to replay everything the next day. I was not amused.
The wingmen are a source of annoyance as they are practically good for nothing. They never get shot down unless it's a scripted event, but they manage to shoot something down once in a blue moon. On the missions you'd love to have them protect you the most, they refuse, or just don't. It is understandable that they basically want the player to be shooting down everything themselves. That's the dream of being the Ace of Aces, but if you call for help, you're already throwing in the towel; at least have it mean something instead of just having the wingmen not do anythingm especially when your commercial's main emphasis is on the squad.
Speaking of squads, where's the online play? Seriously, the last game I remember Namco giving online functionality to is Venus & Braves. Ace Combat is practically begging to have some sort of online war. Four on four to gain ground for your respective "nation"? That'd be the best selling console flight combat game of all time, by leaps and bounds. Flight sticks would be absolutely flying off the shelves, but, alas, no such luck. Tis’ but a dream.
Overall
If you liked Wing Commander, Crimson Skies or any other of the flight combat games, you need to get this game now. Even with the PS2 controller it's still good fun. It's EXCELLENT fun with the flight stick, but it's also $130 plus tax for that bundle...it had better be that good. (Add a +1 onto the gameplay, replay, and overall score for the scores with the Flight Stick.) This game and Katamari Damacy are vying for my game of the year right now, which means that either way Namco wins. It you're hankering for a good action game, this is going to hit the spot in a way no other game out there right now will do. Take the shot.
