It's my understanding that the first game in this series is very rough around the edges, and you can tell just from looking at it. I've seen gameplay of the other PS1 games, and the difference is night and day. Still, as my first proper exposure to Ace Combat (outside of a brief stint with Assault Horizon on subpar hardware years ago), it's surprisingly competent.

While it's graphically very plain, I'm not one to complain much about that, especially since the gameplay still holds up fairly well, even considering the lack of analog support. And despite its short length, Air Combat certainly turned me onto the series and I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of the games, which I have no doubt will be generally much better.

By the way, did anyone really play test the final mission here? Absolute bollocks.

Reviewed on Dec 13, 2022


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