Ace Combat 8 Campaign Review — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] We'll be right back.

[00:30] time with the multiplayer. So we're doing a tent score, a campaign review now because you've seen all of that and then we're going to be updating the review with a final score and a multiplayer impressions and

[00:44] all of that jazz once you've spent a little bit of time with that on the live servers. Will, I guess just as a baseline, what's your history with this series and what do you think of the campaign

[00:56] for Ace Combat 8? So I have a very vivid memory of playing Age Combat 4, which was the first one that I played way, way, way back on the PS2 era. And I was playing it at my friend's house, and his parents had this big, like, huge CRT,

[01:10] like one of the ones that you would, like, associate with a home theater. And I remember playing Age Combat 4 and being like, I didn't know video games could look like that. And I've been playing it ever since, so it's about 20 years.

[01:23] And for 8, if it's been so long since 7, you know, going into it and coming out of it, I was incredibly impressed by it. I think it is very well written.

[01:35] It's got some incredible playing combat, probably the best that the series has ever had. It looks incredible. It sounds amazing. The soundtrack is something that I would buy on a vinyl or on a CD so I could just listen

[01:48] to it. And it marries all the disparate parts of Ace Combat that you want, which is the dogfighting playing customization, the narrative, the mission design, to make this really, really memorable campaign that I'm still thinking about

[02:03] and actually really want to replay. So I think they've done an excellent job here. What's the most sort of important part of the Ace Combat formula to you? Is it a good story? Is it the dogfighting itself?

[02:16] And, like, what does this game get so right in that regard? I think it's everything. like Ace Combat for it to work as a campaign has to have great dogfighting and really good mission design

[02:28] that allows you to keep playing and still be invested without repeating things too much because a lot of it is repetitive, right? Because you're in a cockpit and you're shooting down other planes but giving you new objectives

[02:41] putting those objectives in new context is really important and I think the story is a crucial part of that because it allows you to understand why you're doing what you're doing. And one of the cool things that Ace Combat often does,

[02:54] and 8 does this too, is it will not give you mission objective markers all the time. It'll be like, hey, you're escorting a ground team, and they're calling for help, and you're not going to get marked where they are

[03:06] on the other two little icons of what a ground team is. You have to go over there and figure out, okay, what do I need to do to help these guys make it to their objective? And so it's all of it. It's a combination of, you know,

[03:19] what the mission objective is asking you to do, how that's being communicated to you in the cockpit of the plane, because you're mostly only hearing it through radio chatter, what the overarching nature of that story is and how that mission folds into an in-context.

[03:33] You know, there are missions where it's like, hey, we're going to go do this major important story thing, and then, you know, something happens that nobody has planned for and you're scrambling to try to just survive the mission. You know like forget about what you had initially planned right and all of that is delivered in a way that marries the gameplay and the story into a really satisfying thing that draws you in and keeps you playing So I think it all of it I don think it works without any particular piece

[03:58] So you say that this is potentially the best air combat action in the series so far. What about it? What stands out? Previously in air combat games, you used to have to hit specific parts of the planes to raise your damage.

[04:11] And this is not true in League of the Apes. You can just hit them anywhere. And so that's a huge improvement for the dogfighting, but it's also just the way that the game feels to play. It's very playful, very snappy, very responsive.

[04:24] You are going to feel the difference between, like, an F-22, which is an incredibly fast plane that handles very well, and, like, one of the basic planes that you get, right? Like, you can beat the whole game with it if you want. You can beat the whole game with a floating plane,

[04:37] and you will play a lot of those missions with it, just, like, especially if you're saving up for the better stuff. but that feeling of differentiation between the planes is huge. I think the level of customization that you have, even though it is relatively minor,

[04:49] like what special weapons do I want to take? Do I want to take anti-ship missiles? Do I want to take anti-air missiles? How does that change the way I approach a mission? And then they have these really cool kind of boss fights, for lack of a better word,

[05:03] against massive planes, massive, like there's one thing in the campaign called a land battleship, which is a battleship that goes on land, and it fires railguns into the air, and those explode.

[05:15] And so you're trying to, you know, take out this incredibly, like, this basically, imagine a battleship that was also a tank and is shooting railguns in the air, and they explode. And you're fighting that, and you're trying to figure out, like, okay, I'm just playing.

[05:27] How do I deal with this? And there's lots of cool moments like that. There's missions that you're just in the sky. You do not have to worry about ground targets, and it's just dogfighting. And those play out very differently. There's a lot of really cool mission objectives in AVE where I talked about this in the review.

[05:43] One of my favorite ones is you have to take out these kind of airships that are helping target these missiles. And the only way you can find them is to follow the laser guidance system that they have.

[05:55] So you have to wait and then be like, okay, there's a laser there. Fly into the cloud cover, not being able to see the airship until you're basically right on top of it and following it through this laser. while you're still dealing with other planes that are trying to shoot you down,

[06:08] like protecting your carrier group. And you're on a time limit because if you don't do it quickly enough, that missile is going to hit and it's going to blow up the ship. It's a really fascinating mission, and there's a lot of missions like that where it's like, hey, we're not going to tell you exactly what to do.

[06:21] You just kind of have to pay attention to, like, oh, there's a laser. Now I need to go. And I think that the mission design especially elevates that. And, again, the way that they use that to tell a story. In the scene of fear, what did you play on?

[06:35] So, I played on both PC and Xbox, so I got a good feel for the way the game plays on both. I played on a controller.

[06:47] Some people will be like, you know, you have to play Ace Combat at its best, and you don't want to break up. Like, you do not need to do that. I played very well on a controller, and I will say that I think the extra controls in this are the way to play if you pick it up.

[06:59] There is a standardized control scheme, which makes it a little easier to handle when you're playing, but you were going to lose things like your ability to roll, and really the freedom and joy of flying the plane kind of be limited to make it easier.

[07:12] But it does play very well on both platforms. I did not notice a big difference. So the other half of this game always feels like a new story, where the story is more in-depth than somebody who's not a fan of the series

[07:25] might expect from just an aerial combat game, and that's definitely the case here as well. So tell me what you liked about this story because you said it was told a lot through the comms but also there are scenes outside of the comms that are just as effective in a lot of ways Yeah So Waves of Teaser is really unique because it very much like a story of this particular

[07:48] era of what we're looking through right now in the real world, where social media is very important. You are playing as a pilot for the Federation of Central Asia.

[08:01] You were with the Republic of Sotoa. You were losing very badly. and so to kind of give people hope and to inspire the forces that are still fighting they have created this mythical ace called the Wings of Thieves but most of the stuff that is associated with the Wings of Thieves is made up

[08:17] like the Kill Count all these stories are not real they're there as propaganda and you step into the role after the previous Wings of Thieves is shut down and you have to kind of try to live up to the legend

[08:32] your job is literally just to come back but the realities of war necessitate that you also, you know, be a pilot and fight and, you know, shoot down other planes and help their missions. And so it builds this really complicated narrative about, like, propaganda versus reality,

[08:49] what is real, how that affects, like, morale during wartime, and it kind of deems force into that situation with you and the squadron that you end up kind of taking command of. and it's also interesting because I think Ace Combat is,

[09:04] I'm not going to use this word negatively, it's just a genre description, Ace Combat is usually a melodrama, like it's very elevated, right? But in this case it actually helps us a lot because it's a war story, like these are inherently awesome, very dramatic,

[09:19] and so dealing with these characters in these incredibly exaggerated situations, like something like a land battleship, right, which feels very ridiculous, until you're fighting it,

[09:31] and you're watching it, like, tear through a city, and you're hearing people over the comms be like, oh my god, you know, like, we can't stop it, like, it's tearing through a crowd at the city center, and you're like, oh, like, this is horrifying, right?

[09:43] And I think the game does a really good job of that, and then also those sections that came in where it puts you on the ground, or on the deck of the aircraft carrier that you're serving on, really allow you to build a rapport with the other pilots in your squad,

[09:55] the other members of the crew of the ship, and you get to see the world outside of the cockpit. And it's a good reminder of, you know,

[10:07] this exists outside of, you know, a dogfight or outside of a mission or outside of whatever the plane that you're in. And it allows you to really connect with those characters and that world and the idea of, like, okay, this is what we're fighting for, these people.

[10:21] And it does a really good job of showing, like, hey, it just isn't, you know, it's not just military folks. because so many people were displaced because of the war. A lot of them ended up on the search after as civilians. You get to spend a little time with them and kind of learn about that aspect of it too.

[10:36] About how long did the campaign take you to be? I would say about 20 hours. There are 30 missions in total. They range from about 10 to 20 minutes to about 40 at their longest.

[10:48] It also depends on how well you play because there are situations where you might take a little bit longer in a mission and it isn't going to matter too much, but some of them are on time, so I'd say about 20 hours. Gotcha. Is there anything else you wanted to shout out that stands out to you

[11:03] as something really sort of, like, impressive? I mean, visually, it is a stunning game. It is one of the best-looking games I've ever seen. The way that the... If you fly in the cloud cover, the way that the droplets of water

[11:17] kind of cling to your cockpit and then move in reaction to what you're doing is really impressive. there a mission where you have to follow these enormous planes that you can see on radar but you have to follow their contrails through the clouds And being able to distinguish like this is a contrail this is a cloud And they both you know white puffy like pieces of fuzz basically

[11:40] And being able to see, like, okay, I need to go here is really cool. The soundtrack in Winds of Thieves is genuinely one of the best soundtracks in the video game I have ever heard. They do this really cool thing.

[11:53] one of the sequences that happens a lot is you are fighting this elite squadron known as the Shappos. And when they show up, they just start openly singing, vocalizing over the comms, and that's how you know that they're coming.

[12:06] And the song is incredible, but B really drives home, okay, whatever you were doing before, now it's about to get ratchet up. And there are sequences where one of your fellow pilots will play songs over the radio.

[12:19] That's kind of his thing, that's what he does. and so you're getting pulled into in-universe music that is really good and also has a story connection, and the game uses that a lot to drive home stakes or elevate a mission

[12:32] or just remind you that, again, the world exists outside of the cockpit, and I think the sound design is remarkable in every single way, but especially the music. All right, so this isn't the final whole overall review as I discussed at the top.

[12:46] What do you still have left to see? Basically just multiplayer PvP modes? Yeah, we did get to spend about two hours with the multiplayer, but there are several modes. We only got to play maybe half of them.

[12:58] I want to see the progression. I want to see the lobbies that are impressive based on what I've seen. They can hold 100 players at a time. There's a hangar that you can walk around in. There's an arcade that you can play games on. All kinds of cool stuff, but we were very limited on that.

[13:12] And because of the way Ace Combat 7 worked, progression was very important to that multiplayer, especially early. you don't have a lot of plane parts, you don't have a lot of planes, and so initially you're trying to catch up to the people who do,

[13:26] and I want to see how that plays out in 8, and I want to see how stable is it with other player lobbies, how do these time-limited missions that we didn't get to see at all work, how frequently do they come up, that sort of thing.

[13:39] I think that is the responsible thing to do, because you never know how an online launch is going to go in this era. they could go swimmingly, it could be a complete disaster. But I think the highlight here is that, you know,

[13:54] it's not that the multiplayer is a big part of it, but it sounds like you would recommend this game on the single-player merits alone. If somebody is not interested in the multiplayer, the single-player gets an enthusiastic recommendation regardless.

[14:09] So, like, if you had to put a number just on what you've seen so far, where do you think that would be, kind of in a non-final sense? I would give it a 9. I would very highly recommend it. It's one of the best games I've played this year. You do not need to have played Ace Combat to understand games like these.

[14:23] You can just play this. You don't have to play Ace 7, even though it is a sequel to 7. It takes place about 10 years later. But you don't need to know, like, that part of the world, that part of the history. It's very self-contained. If you do know that, you will get a little bit more out of it,

[14:36] because you'll be like, oh, I see how this connects to the previous plot. Well, Will, thank you very much for talking with me about this and telling us a little bit about what you thought of Ace Combat 8's campaign. Like we said, we'll be back with a finalized,

[14:48] inclusive of campaign and multiplayer review with a final, final score on it. Probably in a week or two, we'll see, you know, spend some time with those multiplayer systems and see how much we want to dig into those. If you want more from Will in the meantime, more flying,

[15:02] you reviewed Wild Blue Skies, which is a very, very arcade-y, very different kind of flying game. But we had a conversation at the end of that one as well. And then if you want a totally different type of campaign game, we just reviewed Silent Hill Town Hall recently.

[15:15] And for everything else, keep reading your own IGN.