Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

The last time I played a game solely focused on flight combat it was  Blazing Angels on the Nintendo Wii. Before that, it was Top Gun on the  Nintendo GameCube. Needless to say, I was a little out of my element going into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. However, being out of practice did not hinder my gameplay experience whatsoever. The hardest part of getting into the game was using the controls, and that wasn’t so bad.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is an absolute blast and I found it hard to pull myself away, no matter what mode I was playing. As a whole, the game looks, sounds, and feels fantastic.

Even in VR.

The Environment

Ace Combat 7 is astoundingly beautiful. It is actually quite distracting to be sent out to fight enemies when all you want to do is fly through the clouds and try to see the enemies up close (which does inevitably lead to getting TOO close and blowing yourself up).

Even though there are missions that take place over land, the best were the ones over the open ocean. The water is beautiful and flying on a sunny day with some broken clouds makes it perfect.

Ace Combat 7 absolutely nails cloud dynamics. Flying into the clouds is one of the most gratifying experiences. Upon entering the clouds, water droplets begin to form on the plane, the music gets muffled, and, the light gets scattered. Clouds not only perfectly diffuse the light and obscure your vision as you venture deeper into them, but they also serve a mechanical purpose. You will often find yourself locked onto by an enemy ready to blow you out of the sky with a missile. Diving into the clouds will help save you avoid them and save your skin, but enemies can do the same. The clouds in Ace Combat 7 add a wonderful layer to the game I had not seen before but can be dangerous if you are not aware of what is beyond them.

The landscapes are wonderfully unique from stage to stage and this is most noticeable in the Multiplayer mode (see below). Getting close to the ground is almost a whole new game in itself. As I constantly ignored the “pull up” warning, I found it sometimes easier to attack ground units. It is also a little more enjoyable to watch an AA gunner blow up as you fly right above them. Even though it is more dangerous and the game reminds of how terrible an idea it is, I would recommend trying it out a time or two in the early stages.

The Flight

Without a doubt, the trickiest part of Ace Combat 7 is getting used to the controls. There are two options: standard and expert, and there is a major difference between the two. Standard controls help the player control the plane so that playing is more smooth and the players have just a little less to worry about. If you want a more realistic experience, go for the expert controls. This allows the player to control pitch, yaw, roll, and essentially anything that makes the plane move. You are in complete control of everything that the plane does with no help from the game.

Even though standard controls are easier on the player, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to learn. Flying the plane takes practice, a lot of practice, and the game reminds you how well (or poorly) you flew during a mission. When you finish the stage, the game replays your flight twice: first as a recording of your actual flight, and second as a model that shows your path and show you how long your flight took in “real-time” (pictured below). Admittedly, it is a little disheartening to see how bad your flight pattern is and I found myself skipping the replays for the first few missions.

In all fairness to Ace Combat 7, these replays do bring attention to how the player has progressed as a pilot. You will begin to notice your flight patterns becoming smoother and missions can be completed faster on subsequent playthroughs. The fact that the developers were able to create a modeled simulation based on how you flew and where you took down enemies is remarkable. The fact that it can be used as learning feedback puts the game on another level.

Overall, the flight controls, though tricky to learn, are quite intuitive. I was able to pick up on the controls quicker than I anticipated. I quickly realized that I had no issues remembering the controls scheme and felt quite accomplished as I implemented techniques to dodge a missile or quickly turn a fight toward my favor. However, this is just my experience with the standard control scheme. The expert control scheme is a different story, and I talk about it more under “The VR Experience.”

Multiplayer

A couple things to note about multiplayer in Ace Combat 7: first, it is solely online, so don’t expect any at-home dogfights with your family. Second, it feels like an extension of the main game. By this, I mean that the online fights don’t feel out-of-place like they might in other games. Everything during online combat is the same as it is in the campaign; the only difference is that you are fighting other players.

I wasn’t particularly good at the multiplayer mode, but I still found it extremely enjoyable and hard to put down. A critical part of the online mode is that you correctly customize your plane to help give yourself the upper hand.

Ace Combat 7 includes a skill-tree-like structure, known as the “Aircraft Tree,” that allows the players to use the in-game currency (MRP) to purchase new planes and upgrades/weapons for said planes. The selections made in this tree transfer between the multiplayer and campaign modes, as does MRP earned. Being able to switch between modes and not have to grind to unlock planes in multiplayer that the player already unlocked in the campaign is wonderful and it makes the player feel as if they really earned the upgrades.

There is no actual distribution of players based on skill level, but caps can be set on the type of planes used. This is done by setting a cap on the cost of the plane and weapons used in a match. This helps even out the experience and allows less experienced players (like yours truly) hop into a game with more experienced players (like almost everyone I played against) and not completely ostracized.

The VR Experience

The VR experience in Ace Combat 7, which is currently only available for PSVR, was so much better than I expected.  Admittedly, I still get pretty giddy when it comes to VR content, but I truly feel that Ace Combat 7 got it right.

There is no change to how you play the game in VR compared to everything else in the game, except that (1) it is more immersive and (2) you are forced to use expert controls. I understand the reasoning for using only the expert control scheme in VR, as it helps add to the realism, but it also makes for a dizzying experience until you are used to the control scheme. Since you are controlling the individual parts of the flight, it is easy to try to turn and find yourself doing barrel rolls.

Aside from the wonky controls, the experience is wonderful. And after you complete a mission in VR, you are able to fly around the map of the completed mission in a free flight. This is a wonderful opportunity to get used to the controls. It is also a great way to do my favorite thing in the game: fly through the clouds. It was actually in this mode that I found out that flying at high altitudes in the clouds will freeze your plane and you can see your plane icing as it happens.

If you do play the VR missions, I recommend good, surround-sound headphones. It really does complete the immersive experience. Hearing the engine roar behind you and the sound of missiles being fired from either side makes the VR missions feel so much better.

In the end, I found it so incredibly hard to put down Ace Combat 7. The missions were so engaging and I always wanted to see what the next mission had it store. There is a storyline throughout the campaign, but I felt that it was overshadowed by the gameplay. It wasn’t boring or uninspired, I just found the gameplay infinitely more interesting.

Ace Combat 7 has quickly risen to be one of my favorite games and I don’t plan to stop playing it any time soon. It is oddly relaxing for a game about war, but the environment has quite a bit to do with that. I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to long-standing fans of Ace Combat and newcomers alike.