The negative side of this review has bigger fish to fry, though. That’s as much a genre problem as anything Ace Combat 7 does wrong in particular, and if you’re reading this review you’ve likely already made your peace with arcade flight sims’ eccentricities. The settings change, and sometimes the environment itself poses a hazard, but in the simplest terms the gameplay loop doesn’t evolve beyond aim, lock, fire. Despite all the bluster, it’s hard to shake the fatigue that comes with your hundredth dogfight or ground attack. Ace Combat knows this very well, you suspect, as it lingers on shots of them in selection screens before your sortie.īut is there enough variety? It seems ungrateful to even ask when you've just concluded a mission that requires you to navigate collapsing skyscrapers, but-no, there isn't, really. The improvements to manoeuvrability are subtle when you upgrade a plane, but weapon additions can make you much more effective in certain missions-plus each new jet speaks to the five-year-old in all of us who finds them impossibly, unspeakably cool. Make it back to base after one of these delirious encounters and you’ll earn some currency to spend on new weapons, plane upgrades, and entirely new aircraft via a huge and elaborate tech tree.
Ace Combat 7 keeps the early nineties arcade flight sim alive, prettier and weirder than ever
