If the missions didn't all play the same and go on way too long, this could be a perfect dogfighting game. And I'm sure the future Ace Combat games solved this issue from the looks of things, but man oh man does it sour the initial campaign experience.
On one hand, the reliance on air to ground combat and missions that last 20 minutes with no checkpoints is straight up exhausting. It's by no means hard on Normal difficulty, which makes it all the worse when you fuck up 30 seconds from completion and have to do the same repetitive pillbox bombing to see more story. It doesn't help that 90% of missions have the same structure and lack exciting setpieces. On the other hand, it looks great, controls super well and has an amazing story that is more or less completely disconnected from the actual missions. (You can split hairs about this)
My recommendation? Pick up Ace Combat 5 or 7 and watch this games cutscenes on Youtube. Or at the very least, start with a later entry and come back to this if you get obsessed, because its still solid fun.
On one hand, the reliance on air to ground combat and missions that last 20 minutes with no checkpoints is straight up exhausting. It's by no means hard on Normal difficulty, which makes it all the worse when you fuck up 30 seconds from completion and have to do the same repetitive pillbox bombing to see more story. It doesn't help that 90% of missions have the same structure and lack exciting setpieces. On the other hand, it looks great, controls super well and has an amazing story that is more or less completely disconnected from the actual missions. (You can split hairs about this)
My recommendation? Pick up Ace Combat 5 or 7 and watch this games cutscenes on Youtube. Or at the very least, start with a later entry and come back to this if you get obsessed, because its still solid fun.