I'll preface this by saying I'm extremely biased in my enjoyment for this game. With that in mind...

Is it the best game ever? Not really, no, I could name lots of games that I think would be better, especially within the broad category of "turn-based japanese role playing game." I'd say this game has a special kind of magic though, that turned it into one of my favorite games ever.

I remember I found this game at a flea market, and picked it up on a whim because I thought the cover looked cool. I hadn't really played many RPGs which give you, the player, a role in the game, no matter how small, so I thought the idea of having you be the Guardian Spirit and playing a role in the story was unique. I thought the opening scenes and the buildup they had to be pretty interesting. I got into a battle, and thought the music was pretty cool, leading up to the first boss. I made it to the serpent guarding the end magnus, that's when something clicked in my mind- I knew then I was going to be in for one hell of a ride.

I played that game whenever I could, and it turned into something of an obsession, wondering how the plot would go, wondering just what else was around the corner. It came together beautifully in the end, and I enjoyed it greatly, and it left an effect on me even 10 years after.

I do admit that there's some... peculiar choices in the game, which do get resolved in Origins (Why is there no way to dump dead cards from your hand? Why does the decision timer diminishing get so absurdly short at the end? Why do the npcs and some of your player characters have such questionable voice work?) but even then it's still a great time if you can look past it.

Thankfully, the game was brought over to the Switch in the HD Remaster, so more people can enjoy it now. I haven't put as much time as I should unfortunately, but I'm looking forward to it when my backlog is brought down to size.

Ace Combat 6 was a bit of an experimental title in the series. Much like 5 and Zero, you have a buddy flying with you, where you can choose his plane and weapons. In most missions, you have one large map with multiple objectives you can clear. Clearing an objective gets you support from a faction of your army- depending on what you can do you can get some in battle asset like an on field base to restock, radar support to increase your missile's effectiveness, and you can actually call in help in terms of sweeping through a swathe of enemies, or covering you in the air.

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.

Project Wingman is a game made by fans of Ace Combat, that does a good amount to set itself apart. I wouldn't say it's a competitor to Ace Combat 7, but it does stand alongside them.

If you've played an Ace Combat game you'll have a fairly good idea of how to pilot your planes, as the flight controls are the same as AC's Expert controls. Instead of having your regular missiles and a single subweapon you're mostly locked in to, you can carry up to 3 different subweapon types, from nonstandard missiles, to bombs, laser guns, and mounted guns. You can either stack the same weapon multiple times to increase your ammo capacity and firing rate, or have multiple unique types to give an edge in multiple roles. I think this kind of system is great, and hope Ace Combat can bring something similar.

You also have defensive and evasive options, with an infinite supply of Flares on a cooldown, to help throw missiles off your aim, as well as a Angle of Attack module to help you spin around and quickly change your flight angle. Finally, your standard machine guns feel fairly powerful, I've used them fairly often to help close out kills on enemies.

The plot is based on a post-disaster Earth, still attempting to come back from the Calamity that happened years ago. As Monarch of the Sicario Mercenary Corps, you get brought into a war of independence. Cascadia (based in the real world U.S. west coast) is full of natural resources as a result of the Calamity in the past, and they're trying to free themselves from the Pacific Federation. It's up to you to show them your best as you and Hitman team become one of the main aerial forces of the Cascadian liberation force.

I can really feel the sense of camaraderie Hitman team has, usually your wingmen Diplomat and Comic are giving a quip or an analysis on the current battle situation. When you fly a 2 person plane, even your weapons system operator Prez chimes in, which I'm surprised Ace Combat never did. Rounding out the vocal cast of people you'll regularly interact with is other elements of Sicario, such as your airborne warning and control system operator Galaxy, and elements of the Cascadian army such as Stardust, as well as the occasional enemy radio feed from people such as Crimson 1.

When you finish the campaign of the game there's also a rogue like Conquest mode to keep the fun going. Finally, the game has VR for all the missions on Steam, as well as ps vr2 support for the Frontline 59 portion of the game.

It's clear that this game is made as a labor of love, with the main group only consisting of 3 people. If you enjoy Ace Combat, you'd be doing yourself a disservice skipping on this.

It's Euro Truck Simulator 2 with 70% more freedom.

Most things that could be said about ETS can be said about ATS. It's being continuously updated with more content- we're only up to the Midwest at this point in time- and the older stuff is being brought up to modern standards with reworks. It's not something I play all the time but it is a comfy game to play when I want something low stress to play.

It does a fairly good job at giving states their landmarks, and at least from what I've seen it does a good job at giving every state its own mood and vibe.

It's a fun game but I definitely understand why you wouldn't want to spend full price on it. It goes on sale pretty often so it's worth waiting until then.

The best example of power-creep in a game. I left it a while back and I didn't look back. The gameplay is FE light but it power of units has increased dramatically since launch that it's really unsustainable unless you put in a lot of money to keep up.

The plot wasn't great, and the time between story bits doesn't help. I'm not expecting like Fate: Grand Order levels of story for the wait but, at least FGO doesn't make me wait a year for the crumbs of a "story arc" to be laid out.

It was good getting to hear old favorites have a voice, but unfortunately the idea of using your favorites is difficult to with due to how much you would need to put into old units to keep them up to par.

Path of Radiance is another one of my favorites. I remember grabbing it just before the popularity spike with Awakening, so that was some good timing, haha. In general I have good memories of the game.

It's a slow paced game due to the speed your units move on the map- and you have to unlock the ability for them to move faster by beating the game, which is a pretty silly choice- I don't have an issue with it, but I can see why that would be a turn off. I think even today I'm impressed by the animations, I still really enjoy watching Aether go off.

The actual mechanics are pretty good at this point. Skills return from FE5- you can easily add them to your character with Skill Scrolls, though you're locked into that choice since if you decide to remove them you won't get the skill scroll back. Bonus experience helps you get new units up to speed, and is earned by doing various objectives like having NPC allies survive, not defeating specific enemies, opening chests, and so on. I'm sad this didn't return past Radiant Dawn, though I do understand this is due to how easily abused it was. New to this game is Laguz units, characters who can shift into a cat, tiger, lion, hawk, heron, crow, or dragon form to attack. They're more fleshed out in Radiant Dawn, but the baseline work that's done in this game is good, though admittedly I didn't use them much myself.

I think this game and Radiant Dawn has some of the more interesting characters in the series. All your units have pretty well-developed backstories to discover with supports, and most of them are strong throughout the game. The story is fairly good on its own, though does have a hook at the end to lead into Radiant Dawn.

In the end, it's a great game that fans of the series should try, though given the price I understand why people are hesitant to get a copy for themselves. I hope that it'll be rereleased at some point.

It's one of my favorites in the series, which I'm aware isn't a common opinion. The base gameplay is simple, and the story is too, but that's okay. At its core it's FE1 updated to more modern (for the time) standards, without breaking the balance of the game by adding too much stuff. It could have done more but I feel like what's there is more than enough.

Giving promotions to the classes that lacked them is great, and letting healers level normally is a boon, but that goes without saying. I don't really use reclassing too much when I do play but the addition is interesting. Save points are a nice quality of life addition- I don't know if I prefer it over the turnwheel/time pulse but I'm surprised this form of it wasn't used more.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think it's a fairly good time.

It's the peak of the PS2 era Ace Combats, and maybe the best in the series overall. Good replayability, good plot, great music, amazing battles.

The Ace Meter isn't revolutionary in terms of gaming, but it does a fair bit to help the immersion- of course the enemy would want to send their best against someone who's mercilessly cutting through their forces.

In general, it's great all around, and definitely worth it.

It's my least favorite of the PS2 era, but it's still a good game. I feel like the pace was a bit slow at times, and it went on a bit too long. I feel like the game could've had about 3 missions removed and still have concluded how they wanted to, but that's just me.

I'm of two minds with the plot. I feel like it contributed to the longer length of the game, but it also hits some pretty high moments because of the set up it does. It could have been done better, but what's there is fine. Can't really go wrong with this game.

My favorite of the PS2 era Ace Combat games. I just like how it gets down to business in terms of gameplay. I feel like it's just right in terms of mission amounts- not all of them are hits but the majority are good. The side-plot of the civilian boy is nice, and doesn't get in the way of the experience, which I felt that Unsung War and Fires of Liberation tripped up in to some extent.

It's probably also the easiest to pick up and play just one or two missions- a few of them are longer length but if you only have time for one that's probably fine. All in all, a good time