Throughout Ace Combat 6, the player must pilot a fighter jet or other aircraft to destroy foes both in the air and on the ground. As an arcade flight game, it simplifies flight controls and gives the player a large amount of bullets, missiles and other weapons, putting them up against a very large amount of enemy forces. In addition to missiles and a vulcan cannon, the player can equip special weapons such as heat-seeking missiles, bombs, rocket launchers, and others. The player can lock on to a number of foes, and assist different tactical squads by switching between their respective HUD readouts. The game includes 4 default multiplayer modes: Battle Royale, Siege Battle, Team Battle, and Co-Op Battle. In Battle Royale, the basic Deathmatch game mode, up to sixteen players shoot each other down to earn the highest points at the time limit. In Team Battle, a basic Team Deathmatch game is created. Points are awarded based on the type of aircraft destroyed. A unique type of multiplayer game, Siege Battle is played with two teams, Attacking and Defending. The Attacking team attempts to destroy the target (usually heavily defended by flak) within the time limit. The Defending team tries to halt their attack. The co-op battle mode consists of two single-player missions without AI that can be played with up to three other players.
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Unfortunately, a lot of that praise ends up feeling moot when so much of what makes this game good is done better in other Ace Combat games (minus the actually useful allies), and those games support all that with more engaging stories, an area where AC6 sadly falls short. The story of this game tries to replicate a bit of the magic of how AC4 told its story: following civilians and characters not shown directly in the gameplay, barring some moments of contact with the larger narrative. This disconnect worked for AC4 by keeping the story personal and on-message with the game's themes, but here, most of the cutscene narrative just feels half-baked, and at worst it just feels a bit juvenile. The fact that the in-game narrative also lacks any real engagement, outside of a few standout moments of gameplay, leads to a game that overall fails to engage with what has made Ace Combat such a beloved franchise: a strong, thematically appropriate narrative about the nature of conflict.
In the end, AC6 is a decent game in its own right, with strong gameplay and some standout missions, but it fails to create a strong personality for itself, and that ends up making the game feel much more hollow than it otherwise would. Anybody looking to get into the series for the first time would be served well by this entry, especially being one of the more modern titles, but I doubt it would create as many lifelong fans of the franchise as some of the games that came before or after.
This game has a lot of cute touches that I really enjoy- when you get radio calls from your allies you have the option of seeing mugshots of the main department leaders or their vehicles. When you lock on to a distant enemy you can get a close up shot in a separate window- when you fire down enemies and you're up close your screen gets splashed with some oil.
The plot is nothing to write home about sadly- nothing really memorable like 4 or Zero. I feel like most of the development focus was on the gameplay itself, which I think was okay as a trade off. I did feel like there was a sense of, maybe not friendliness but camraderie with your allies? I always enjoyed it.
Unfortunately you're not able to get it digitally anymore, but physical copies aren't going for too much. If you're a fan of Ace Combat it's worth giving the game a try, in my opinion.
But as flawed as the story is, the gameplay was the true highlight. Not only is this the point where the flying system was updated, giving us a even smoother experience than the ps2 games, but the ground combat is just wow.
The fact the game requires us to assist ground forces and actually makes us cares about them makes me so much more annoyed that Ace Combat 7 never implemented this system. It is actually such a good feature and I really hope ac8 will have it, whenever that game comes out.