High points: The Strike Suit has a suitably enjoyable "oomfie in the Gundam" feel to its weaponry. Multi-target missile acquisition and auto-tracking flak cannons are just fun. There is a lot of switching between strike and pursuit modes, but I sort of enjoyed the rhythm of opening up for 3-second salvos before dashing to a new location to gather more energy.
I also really enjoyed the way score attacks fed into the post-mission briefings; lower scores report rebellion bolstering, but higher scores deliver on the results of your efforts to wipe out everything. I liked it enough to go back and clean up a few scores for the game's secret ending, although... well, the writing isn't much. The first time I got a gold medal and saw the post-mission report change was very satisfying, though. It's a neat trick.
I liked the music at first but ultimately I think it's not too much. Less favorable things could be said about the voice acting. I don't think a single VA gets above the level of "military NPC reading a line in a recording booth," even as the game asks you to overcome ridiculous numbers. I was constantly comparing against Ace Combat 7, which I think directed its voices very well and the climactic moments in that game were properly punctuated by its voice actors.
Speaking of "ridiculous numbers," I do think this game waters down to that more plainly than it should. The penultimate mission brings up an objective to take on 230 fighters, and although other things eventually happen, I was entirely willing to believe that it would ask me to do this. Bigger ships have numerous weak points but they also have such large health that it's sort of hard to tell if you're hitting one or not. Until you get the heavier weapons in the endgame, I think a lot of this is a chore.
I couldn't decide between 2.5 or 3 stars while finishing this up but thankfully the final mission is a 10-minute driving exam with plot dump which put a nice sour cap on the whole experience. Maybe the director's cut is better, maybe the DLC is better, I'm not worried about finding out.
Final rating: "Perfectly enjoyable considering it was in my Steam backlog for 10 years but would have been disappointing in any other context"
I also really enjoyed the way score attacks fed into the post-mission briefings; lower scores report rebellion bolstering, but higher scores deliver on the results of your efforts to wipe out everything. I liked it enough to go back and clean up a few scores for the game's secret ending, although... well, the writing isn't much. The first time I got a gold medal and saw the post-mission report change was very satisfying, though. It's a neat trick.
I liked the music at first but ultimately I think it's not too much. Less favorable things could be said about the voice acting. I don't think a single VA gets above the level of "military NPC reading a line in a recording booth," even as the game asks you to overcome ridiculous numbers. I was constantly comparing against Ace Combat 7, which I think directed its voices very well and the climactic moments in that game were properly punctuated by its voice actors.
Speaking of "ridiculous numbers," I do think this game waters down to that more plainly than it should. The penultimate mission brings up an objective to take on 230 fighters, and although other things eventually happen, I was entirely willing to believe that it would ask me to do this. Bigger ships have numerous weak points but they also have such large health that it's sort of hard to tell if you're hitting one or not. Until you get the heavier weapons in the endgame, I think a lot of this is a chore.
I couldn't decide between 2.5 or 3 stars while finishing this up but thankfully the final mission is a 10-minute driving exam with plot dump which put a nice sour cap on the whole experience. Maybe the director's cut is better, maybe the DLC is better, I'm not worried about finding out.
Final rating: "Perfectly enjoyable considering it was in my Steam backlog for 10 years but would have been disappointing in any other context"