The Ace Combat series has always been a giant blind spot for me. All I really knew about it was that you play as a Top Gun-like pilot who finds themselves in intense dogfights. Up until now, it wasn’t something that I really gave too much thought to. That’s all changed now, and it’s thanks to the hands-on preview event I attended, where I played four hours of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. During that time, not only did I perform aerial tricks that would make Tom Cruise proud, but I also found myself invested in the story being told, connecting with the characters in my squad, and more.
One thing that really caught me off guard was that Ace Combat 8 doesn’t expect you to know any of its previous titles. All you really need to know is that it takes place in a fictional world that’s heavily divided by a massive war. The story beats of Wings of Theve are just as gripping as the actual gameplay.
It has many messages about the ramifications of war and how it can create rifts between people you once loved. Without risking spoilers, this was something I was pleasantly surprised by. Because one minute I was nose-diving in and blowing up everything in front of me, and the next minute I found myself torn about whether to keep shooting at the targets, now that I knew a little bit about who they were personally.
Wings of Theve doesn’t shy away from a lot of this, and this is why I especially enjoyed it. As you may expect, early in-game, you’ll be introduced to your squadmates, and each one has their own unique personality. You have Baxer, the older mentor, Tasha, the young optometrist, and Coster, the standard pilot. But I really want to focus on the first two. Throughout my build, Tasha would often say or do something that forced Baxer to give her a life lesson. The takeaway I got from this was that he was, in many ways, trying to preserve her innocent view of the world and keep it from being warped by the horrors of war.
This is something you try to prevent, but it can still shape how you see the world around you. This was exactly what happened to the main character. Despite your character being voiceless, you still hear the inner thoughts of someone jaded and angry about everything that transpired up to that point. All of this, combined with the unfolding story of the war playing out, had me invested in everything that I saw on screen whenever I wasn’t behind the cockpit.
Before I could load into each level, I had the option to upgrade my plane and sometimes unlock new ones altogether. Doing this was especially important because it allowed me to pick a build that would uniquely fit me or whatever I needed for any specific mission. Some upgrades would make locking onto targets a bit faster, while others would allow me to take more hits.
The plane you pick would also greatly affect this, as it would naturally be optimized for speed, while others may be better for dogfights. But the great part about that was that you could also change planes that your squadmates would be flying. So if you knew that the mission you were loading into would require a lot of land attacks, you could find the perfect balance between having enough planes to do that while having some to support you in the sky.
While you’re out on each mission, you can command your squad to play to your liking. The orders are easy to understand and fairly basic. You can order them to use their special weapons when heavy targets are out, forward-attack to encourage them to be aggressive, and regroup to give you support. Depending on the situation, each order makes all the difference.
Each mission required me to do something a bit different every time, too. Some would be as simple as destroying the other planes. But others weren’t as straightforward. For example, in one mission, I was tasked with destroying all enemy cruisers to prevent them from receiving supplies, while in another, I was tasked with hunting down a plane using radar jammers to hide from me. Every level I played felt unique and brought something different to the table.
Ace Combat 8 does a lot to really make itself stand out and feel as if you’re actually flying a fighter jet. It was hard not to get goose bumps every time my plane took off from the airstrip. This was largely due to the way the engine sounded each time it powered up, which felt like it packed a serious punch. Each time I flew up, it was hard not to feel small whenever I looked at the ocean or buildings that were right underneath me.
The feeling of awe didn’t end there. I quickly discovered that flying above the clouds was one of my favorite things to do. Each time I did, my windshield would get covered in rain for a few seconds, and everything would get slightly darker. But the second I got past everything, there’d be nothing but clouds right below me, and with the sun shining just a bit brighter.
Having clear sight would be especially useful whenever I found myself in combat. As you’d imagine, everything is coming at you fast, and you often have to be faster to keep up. That’s why I found flying in first person helpful. Not only did it enhance immersion, but it also allowed me to focus on what was in front of me and avoid distractions from anything that wasn’t my target.
But whenever someone did get the jump on me, I was forced to escape. This could be done in several ways. The first was using flares to confuse the missile coming at me, but the catch was that I was heavily limited in them and would often use them only if all else failed. The other way was to make sharp turns or fly as high as I could to avoid the missile. Even though this did yield results, it often left the target I was originally chasing behind. But doing this was half the fun because it gave me an excuse to fly more recklessly than I usually would.
Locking onto enemies was half the battle, too. Because the second everything lined up, I needed to make sure I had enough ammo to finish the job. This was because everything I brought out was limited (except for the machine gun). Even if I was given more than enough missiles to handle whatever was thrown at me, there were a couple of times when I ran out of ammo on my special weapons and had to rely on my machine gun to finish the job. The only downside is that it would require me to focus much more on a single target than I would naturally.
The last two things I want to touch on are the music and banter. The Ace Combat 8 team absolutely cooked with the music. Each song perfectly captured the mood of each mission, whether that was a sense of adventure, hopefulness, dread, or even something to get the blood pumping a bit faster. It was extremely hard not to bob my head during each mission because of what was playing in my ear.
Lastly, the banter. Hearing my squadmates go back and forth with one another was great because it added an extra level of immersion for me, and it reminded me of playing Star Fox as a kid whenever anyone would talk to one another. The nice cherry on top was whenever I heard any of the NPCs yelling at one another, because what’s playing out on the battlefield.
Up until now, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was a game that I didn’t concern myself with too much. But after spending a couple of hours behind the cockpit in adrenaline-chasing fights, that’s no longer the case. I’m excited to see what Bandai Namco has to offer when the game is fully released.
