Ace Combat 7

[RFT]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

AC7 is super pretty. Only played the first mission, but it feels more like AC 2-5, Zero, and the PSP games than 6 (and less said about Assault Horizon the better). I tried to kill everything, and I wound up downing 21 targets in clustered groups that came in waves, compared to AC6 where it seemed like they were trying to show off new tech by cluttering the sky with hostiles.

I'd agree with that. the opening mission is a bit low-key, compared to the enormous extravaganza that was the first mission of AC6. AC6's missions could really be thought of each as 3 missions mashed together going on next to each other on a huge map - this is more back to the scale of the PS2 games as you say. I've played up to mission 5 or 6.

other non-spoilery thoughts:

The tech tree is really awkward to navigate. It's very easy to get onto a different branch of the one you're looking at. (Decided to do the euro tree that starts with the Mirage so I can get the Typhoon. got as far as Gripen.)

Game still does the annoying thing of making you get through a cutscene and the next breifing before you can get to the tech tree to spend your MRP on shiny new planes and stuff.

Multiplayer is fun, but seems random (not many people on last night). pays decent MRP.

I've been playing games in this series for 14 years and I still can;t tell which country and continent is which.

Lack of a native photo mode is a shame.

Overall though, really good.

[F-ZeroOne]

Somewhat to my surprise, I just found out today that the PC version (which I ordered to possibly finally get some use out of my Thrustmaster) isn't released until the 31st January. Nuts. 

First review is in:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-18-ace-combat-7-review-a-stellar-return-for-the-skybound-series

[kajnrig]

4 hours ago, Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0 said:

Does the AC5 that  comes with PS4 preorders still retain the Operation Katina arcade mode? 

Hell I might end up preordering this.

Yes.

You can still get AC5 if you buy the game through... I think it was February 18 or something.

2 hours ago, RFT said:

The tech tree is really awkward to navigate. It's very easy to get onto a different branch of the one you're looking at. (Decided to do the euro tree that starts with the Mirage so I can get the Typhoon. got as far as Gripen.)

Yeah, it's not great at all. It should have allowed you to move freely about with the stick/D-pad, and whatever part of the tree is in the center is what's currently selected. As is it feels really awkward and slow to move around.

Also, yeah I really REALLY hope a photo mode is added in eventually, because... mwah. This game deserves one.

 

[kajnrig]

I was hoping they'd do a video. They also go into the AC5 bonus, which they too think is an HD remaster.

 

[mikeszekely]

The tech tree is a mess. I hate that you can't sell stuff back, either. I'm early in the game, still, so maybe the campaign levels' payout will improve, but for now it feels like the game is nudging you toward multiplayer. Which, frankly, I didn't find particularly entertaining. I did a battle Royale just to get the trophy, and it was basically a fixed time of 8 people popping missiles and high-G turning. I managed to get one hit and one kill, and that was good enough for 3rd.

Getting back to the tech tree, I seriously spent a half hour staring at the screen in indecision. Although there are many branches in the tree they basically rejoin so there are three end points: YF-23, F-22, and Su-57. After being torn over the YF-23 and F-22 and trying to pick an optimal route through the tree to them I eventually gave up and grabbed a MiG-29. Looks like I'm going to work my way through some Flankers to the Su-57...

[kajnrig]

This is golden... retriever.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by kajnrig

[dizman]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

This is golden... retriever.

I noticed that too when I was playing last night, all of the cutscenes in-between missions seem to be this weird real world/cg hybrid. It's kinda fun to try and figure out whats real and what isn't.

[Vifam7]

The last time I played Ace Combat, it was Ace Combat 3 on the original Playstation.

I hope I have enough skill to play this game.  I haven't played anything other than Super Robot Wars for the past decade.

Anything I should know before jumping in?

Edited January 18, 2019 by Vifam7

[kajnrig]

20 minutes ago, Vifam7 said:

The last time I played Ace Combat, it was Ace Combat 3 on the original Playstation.

I hope I have enough skill to play this game.  I haven't played anything other than Super Robot Wars for the past decade.

Anything I should know before jumping in?

Well... were you good at AC3? If you did alright there, you should be fine here, insofar as playing the game is concerned.

Lore-wise: In AC4, the country of Erusea (vaguely Europe) tries to take over its continent of Usea. You play Mobius 1 and stop it, defeating its super weapon Stonehenge in the process. In AC5, on the other side of the globe, the continent-nation of Yuktobania (USSR) declares war on Osea (USA). You play Wardog 4/Razgriz 1 and unify the two countries against the real instigators of the war, Belka (Nazi Germany). The other games don't seem to matter TOO much lore-wise. This game seems to be about war breaking out between Erusea and Osea (you).

[dizman]

From what I've played so far AC7 is very beginner friendly so I wouldn't be worried about not being able to handle the controls. 

[Wolf-1]

Just got to mission 14 and purchased my first Eagle, not the J; went the U.S. route except for the F-2A replacing the A10.  As far as I can tell, credits do go up accordingly, mission 10 on have surprised me with how quickly I could afford an Eagle without breaking the bank, currently have all available parts to this point as well (on my path that is) but only the special weapon each jet comes with.  I figure this is like any other AC game, it will take multiple times through the campaign and its various difficulties to unlock it all.  I do miss the whole battlefield morale gimmick though, couple of missions that would have been a blessing.  Project Aces has not let me down, this time, unlike other studios and their current franchise game entries.  

[Vifam7]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Well... were you good at AC3? If you did alright there, you should be fine here, insofar as playing the game is concerned.

Lore-wise: In AC4, the country of Erusea (vaguely Europe) tries to take over its continent of Usea. You play Mobius 1 and stop it, defeating its super weapon Stonehenge in the process. In AC5, on the other side of the globe, the continent-nation of Yuktobania (USSR) declares war on Osea (USA). You play Wardog 4/Razgriz 1 and unify the two countries against the real instigators of the war, Belka (Nazi Germany). The other games don't seem to matter TOO much lore-wise. This game seems to be about war breaking out between Erusea and Osea (you).

 

1 hour ago, dizman said:

From what I've played so far AC7 is very beginner friendly so I wouldn't be worried about not being able to handle the controls. 

 

Thank you for the replies. Yeah, I did OK in AC3 back in the day. Wow, has time gone by...

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

wow no DLC codes with either of my AC7 Pre-orders for PS4..

Aces Bundle had nothing.. and Amazon sent nothing either..  

emails away!

 

[David Hingtgen]

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

. After being torn over the YF-23 and F-22

That shouldn't really be much of a debate.  Coolest fighter ever, or---the Raptor. 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, David Hingtgen said:

That shouldn't really be much of a debate.  Coolest fighter ever, or---the Raptor. 

I know (really, have known for years) where you stand on that, but I love the Raptor as much as I love the YF-23.  I love that AC5 and AC:JA both have the FB-22, too.

Actually, in the annals of prototypes that never went into production, I wish more games would include the X-32.  That thing was so ugly, but I love it.  I don't recall that it was in any AC games, but I think it was in Air Force Delta Strike.

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, Wolf-1 said:

Just got to mission 14 and purchased my first Eagle, not the J; went the U.S. route except for the F-2A replacing the A10.  As far as I can tell, credits do go up accordingly, mission 10 on have surprised me with how quickly I could afford an Eagle without breaking the bank, currently have all available parts to this point as well (on my path that is) but only the special weapon each jet comes with. 

I'm on mission 8, just bought a Su-47.  But I got lucky on multiplayer, got in a room with this guy who kept picking an A-10 and was playing really poorly.  I played five battle royales with this group, kept coming in 1st or 2nd mostly by hunting down the A-10.  Took me from nearly broke to more than enough for the Berkut and the part after it on the line.  Now one part and a little over a million credits and I'll get the Su-57 and end the line.

[altermodes]

Dose any one know how exactly to unlock the x02 strike wyvern on the aircraft tree is it just complete normal campaign mode or higher or do you need to distroy a certain type of building? Etc......

Edited January 19, 2019 by altermodes

[Wolf-1]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm on mission 8, just bought a Su-47.  But I got lucky on multiplayer, got in a room with this guy who kept picking an A-10 and was playing really poorly.  I played five battle royales with this group, kept coming in 1st or 2nd mostly by hunting down the A-10.  Took me from nearly broke to more than enough for the Berkut and the part after it on the line.  Now one part and a little over a million credits and I'll get the Su-57 and end the line.

Haven't tried multiplayer on this game yet, though if its much like 6 was I'll pass.  Unless Project Aces is taking a page from Forza's book and forcing one to play multiplayer in order to unlock everything, at which point they have me in gun distance.  I would be the guy in the A10 most likely, only flying with an actual fighter instead; my yaw controls are non-existent until the end missions usually.  

Finished my first run through; my only complaint would be that the campaign mode is simply not long enough.  I did manage to purchase the Raptor for the final two missions, left 100k in the bank, was back up to over 700k by the end of the next mission.  If you think the "Hills have eyes" run is fun, just wait!

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, Wolf-1 said:

Haven't tried multiplayer on this game yet, though if its much like 6 was I'll pass.  Unless Project Aces is taking a page from Forza's book and forcing one to play multiplayer in order to unlock everything, at which point they have me in gun distance.  I would be the guy in the A10 most likely, only flying with an actual fighter instead; my yaw controls are non-existent until the end missions usually.  

Finished my first run through; my only complaint would be that the campaign mode is simply not long enough.  I did manage to purchase the Raptor for the final two missions, left 100k in the bank, was back up to over 700k by the end of the next mission.  If you think the "Hills have eyes" run is fun, just wait!

I've replayed a few levels in free play after getting better planes/weapons to try to get an S-rank, and it looks like a lot of the credits you get from campaign come from a "first time completion bonus" (although I don't know if that bonus is first time ever, or first time per difficulty).  Second time nets you something like one third to one half as many credits, and I don't think I've gotten even 100k on a first time yet.

Meanwhile, on multiplayer, I haven't done a team deathmatch (tried once, and either there was a server hiccup or the room's host bailed because he was losing), but for battle royale I've been pulling in around 100k per match.  For the record, I never play multiplayer and I don't think of myself as very good at the game and usually come in between 4th and 6th (out of eight), and a match is only around 3 minutes long.  So while not strictly necessary to play multiplayer the game is definitely nudging you toward it.  Come to think of it the payout for coming in dead last is still better than the payout for replaying any mission I've done so far in campaign, so it's possible that A-10 guy wasn't really comically bad (I mean, no high-G turns and no flares bad), I think he just joined a room then went and found something else to do, letting his plane drift slowly through the matches, not touching his controller, and still collecting payouts for coming in last.

[Roy Focker]

I have to wait for mine to arrive in the mail.  Downloading my digital bonuses now.

[altermodes]

11 hours ago, Wolf-1 said:

Haven't tried multiplayer on this game yet, though if its much like 6 was I'll pass.  Unless Project Aces is taking a page from Forza's book and forcing one to play multiplayer in order to unlock everything, at which point they have me in gun distance.  I would be the guy in the A10 most likely, only flying with an actual fighter instead; my yaw controls are non-existent until the end missions usually.  

Finished my first run through; my only complaint would be that the campaign mode is simply not long enough.  I did manage to purchase the Raptor for the final two missions, left 100k in the bank, was back up to over 700k by the end of the next mission.  If you think the "Hills have eyes" run is fun, just wait!

Better save it for the wyvern as it is 2,000,000 mrp i hear

[David Hingtgen]

Mission 8 sucks. Haven't done MP yet.  So far, missions are a tier down from 4/5/0, story and music are way down from 4/5/0.   Technically, the game is good/well-designed,  but there's no "heart" to it.   

[Wolf-1]

3 hours ago, altermodes said:

Better save it for the wyvern as it is 2,000,000 mrp i hear

That is affirmative. This also allows you to tie the F-22/F-23 branch down into the Su-57 or vice-versa.  The Wyvern is still a ways off for me, want to have pretty much every other normal jet first.  Has anyone figured out the "nickname" part of the game, couldn't find them under Data reviewer, anyone see an F4 in their hangars yet either?

[RFT]

Nicknames are used when creating aircraft builds for multiplayer (known as “sets”). Got as far as mission 12 today, which is pretty epic and nerve-wracking. Gripes seems to be my favoured mount st the moment. Typhoon was a bit disappointing. 

[AN/ALQ128]

9 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Mission 8 sucks. Haven't done MP yet.  So far, missions are a tier down from 4/5/0, story and music are way down from 4/5/0.   Technically, the game is good/well-designed,  but there's no "heart" to it.   

The music is excellent imo, I haven't heard a track I didn't like. Particularly the BGM for mission 11, the themes for the ace duels against Mihaly, and the BGM for the last arsenal bird encounter are all stand outs. The story has pacing issues for sure (could have used at least 2-3 more missions just to make the transition between legitimate pilot, to convict, then back to legitimate pilot a lot less abrupt, while the princess definitely could have done with more speeches or cutscenes to flesh her out), but I thought the dialogue was written to be way more natural than 6 or 5, and the wingmen were nowhere near as obnoxious as Shamrock or Nagase/Grimm. This game has got got passion project written all over it. The fact that they made an arcadey jet action game (that doesn't handhold the player to oblivion) in this current generation of videogames is near miraculous.

 

[kajnrig]

Things I don't like:

- The A-10's gun both doesn't sound as powerful as it used to and isn't as powerful as it used to be.
- The A-10's rockets aren't nearly as effective as they were in AC6.
- Guns in general aren't nearly as effective as they used to be. (That said, I love that its effective range is truer to life than ever. I managed to lead an enemy UAV with A-10 gatling fire from way outside of "gun reticle" range.)

Clearly I've been using a lot of the A-10 lately.

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Mission 8 sucks

8's not too bad. Now 17, that one sucks! You have to take out these bombers before they hit an island, but there are way too many other targets. I keep flying in circles mashing triangle trying to lock onto the last couple, but it seems like my plane wants to lock onto literally anything else. One or two get by and I keep failing the mission. And there's not even a checkpoint when the bombers spawn.

[Rock]

52 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

8's not too bad. Now 17, that one sucks! You have to take out these bombers before they hit an island, but there are way too many other targets. I keep flying in circles mashing triangle trying to lock onto the last couple, but it seems like my plane wants to lock onto literally anything else. One or two get by and I keep failing the mission. And there's not even a checkpoint when the bombers spawn.

 I had to take a brake there. The lock-on was getting to me. It doesn't help that call signs, aircraft names and target designations are all small text, often too hard to read against the sky background sometimes... For this mission I was in the F22 Super Tomcat with the long range lock air-to-air special weapon. 

[AN/ALQ128]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

8's not too bad. Now 17, that one sucks! You have to take out these bombers before they hit an island, but there are way too many other targets. I keep flying in circles mashing triangle trying to lock onto the last couple, but it seems like my plane wants to lock onto literally anything else. One or two get by and I keep failing the mission. And there's not even a checkpoint when the bombers spawn.

I wish they had the old bore sight targeting mechanic, I've had some trouble with the game selecting everything but the target that is directly in front of me.

[RFT]

Considering that the d-pad doesn’t get used for anything as there’s no wingman commands, it would have been nice to have at least one button used for “target mission objective”. The mission with the arsenal bird was a nightmare trying to lock on to the right bit. 

[kajnrig]

It's a pain cycling through targets, more so than I remember the older games being. Too often I'll defeat a target only to have the reticle suddenly lock on to something way off on the horizon in the direction my nose is pointing rather than an enemy fighter mixed up in the current dogfight. Even prressing Triangle multiple times will only cycle through those far-off targets unless I swerve away from them, usually pitching straight up to force zero targets in front of me and thus the targeting system to lock on to the nearest enemy.

[Chronocidal]

10 hours ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

I wish they had the old bore sight targeting mechanic, I've had some trouble with the game selecting everything but the target that is directly in front of me.

.... why in the hell would you ever remove something that fundamental?  How does targeting even work then? What do they expect you to do, point with a mouse and click on them? 

[kajnrig]

18 hours ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

I thought the dialogue was written to be way more natural than 6 or 5, and the wingmen were nowhere near as obnoxious as Shamrock or Nagase/Grimm.

Ugh..... I think it's owing to the original Japanese script, but they really could have used a second pass at the translation to smooth out the verb tense. The narration will switch from past to present to past perfect at the drop of a hat, and it never EVER fails to claw at my ears like a cheese grater.

I mean besides that the dialogue and story are fine, but just... that one aspect elicits a pained "gaaaAAAAARGH" every single cutscene.

18 hours ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

This game has got got passion project written all over it. The fact that they made an arcadey jet action game (that doesn't handhold the player to oblivion) in this current generation of videogames is near miraculous.

Yeah, this franchise is not going to survive, I don't think. I'm just going to enjoy what I have here to the fullest.

17 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

8's not too bad. Now 17, that one sucks! You have to take out these bombers before they hit an island, but there are way too many other targets. I keep flying in circles mashing triangle trying to lock onto the last couple, but it seems like my plane wants to lock onto literally anything else. One or two get by and I keep failing the mission. And there's not even a checkpoint when the bombers spawn.

The most effective way to select a specific target is to point your nose at it and press Triangle. Generally, the first thing the targeting system will select is whatever is directly in front of you; further Triangle presses will cycle within a small cone of that first target. If this is the same mission I'm thinking of, use your map to keep an eye on the larger battlefield. The bombers will only be coming from the east and will consistently be headed west toward the island; those to the south are only fighters and drones, and those trying to chase you down will be fading on and off your radar (F-35s) and/or change heading to chase you down.

For my part, I hated the "Manual IFF" mechanic more, and I hope it doesn't remain a gameplay mechanic for much longer.

6 hours ago, RFT said:

Considering that the d-pad doesn’t get used for anything as there’s no wingman commands, it would have been nice to have at least one button used for “target mission objective”. The mission with the arsenal bird was a nightmare trying to lock on to the right bit. 

Yeah, now that I think about it, they could have implemented some very useful HUD functions into the D-pad. Right/Left choose between displaying All Targets/Only TGTs/Only Air/Only Ground, Up cycles through perspective, Down for flares and/or hold for auto-pilot... I really dislike Flare on L3+R3 because too often pressing them messes with both my movement and my camera. holding down one button with your thumb for auto-pilot is just way easier than clenching the shoulder buttons/triggers.

[David Hingtgen]

Yeah, it does seem to try to target "not the thing dead-center in the screen that you're heading towards".  I've noticed that too.  

And yes, I find myself changing my view half the time I try flares.   As mentioned---the d-pad is empty, it'd be put to much better use for weapon select, flares, primary vs secondary target selection, etc.  

[Atheonyirh]

On 1/18/2019 at 6:31 PM, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

wow no DLC codes with either of my AC7 Pre-orders for PS4..

Aces Bundle had nothing.. and Amazon sent nothing either..  

emails away!

 

If anyone else hasn't gotten their code yet get in contact with a customer service rep and make sure to point them at the product page and its advertising of the DLC code, then point them at https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/ace-combat-7-frequently-asked-questions and 

 for further proof that they're supposed to provide the code on their end. One is Bandai-Namco's own FAQ for the game's pre-order bonuses, the other is a Reddit post made by a Bandai-Namco rep explaining the situation. I contacted them using all this info and got my code a few hours later after the rep forwarded it to their marketing and promotions team.