Ace Combat: The Belkan War
| Developer: Project Aces | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Bandai Namco Games | Sound: |
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| Year: 2006 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Flight simulation / Arcade | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2* | Rating: |
6/10 | |
(*) The two-player mode sticks to split-screen duels.
Officially named Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War (the European version tries to be different again by skipping the number). As you might not have guessed, this is actually the sixth “canonical” entry (excluding portable console spin-offs). Don’t mix it up with Ace Combat 6 (Xbox 360, 2007), which I won’t be covering because, frankly, I’ve officially reached my limit.
I’m starting to see a pattern here. It seems like the developers are alternating between big, ambitious projects and “quick paycheck” gigs. Compared to Ace Combat 5, I’d bet they cut back a little on this one. The campaign is shorter, the story is thin, and the controls and combat are practically unchanged, so much so that you could almost call Zero an expansion of its predecessor.
The story takes place before that of the fifth game. Yes, it’s war again, and you’re the best. No, really, you’re amazing. How do you do it?
Instead of cutscenes, a parade of characters, pulling faces that could have wedged the wheels of a hearse, vomit praise, facing the camera, to the genius of piloting embodied by the player. When out of ideas, flatter the audience…
Among the new features… To start with, whose bright idea was it to display enemies in green on the radar? I got shot down in the first mission, thinking I was surrounded by allies. By the way, yellow targets are supposedly “neutral”, whatever that means. I see something; if it locks on and beeps, I shoot.
Then there’s the matter of wingmen: the three from the last game have been replaced by just one (apparently three times more skilled, judging by his score sheet), but you’re no longer allowed to pick his plane.
I do like the little scenes introducing enemy ace squadrons, with their crest embedded on the screen. Other than that, though, the missions are lazy rehashes from earlier games. They even reproduced the scene evoking Pearl Harbor, half-heartedly and shortened. Later on, our partner’s defection to a terrorist group is straight-up recycled from the third game (note how well I’m keeping track of the storylines!).
And then there’s the return of that annoying tendency to keep mission grading criteria a mystery. Sometimes you have to ignore secondary objectives to complete it before a (hidden) time limit; sometimes, you have to hang around and rack up a quota of points (unknown). The only way to know is to check a guide online.
One theme that interests me—and I’ll dive into it more in the review of another upcoming game—is the addition of RPG mechanics in a genre where they don’t belong. Ace Combat 5 included experience bars to unlock planes. Here, we find a sort of moral alignment: the game labels you as a “mercenary”, “knight”, or “soldier” depending on your willingness to take out “neutral” (yellow) targets. The only real point is to nudge players into replaying the game three times, reserving specific rewards for each alignment.
And that brings me to my main complaint. On one hand, the game won’t stop showering me with praise, medals, and new “unlocked” planes after each mission; but on the other, it doesn’t provide me with enough credits to buy them. The distribution of planes seem staggered over the length of three full campaigns. But why do they assume I’d want to slog through the campaign three times?
In my playthrough, I unlocked a plane I’d been dying to fly (the Typhoon) by the end of the third mission, but had to wait until mission twelve to afford it! And by then, it was obsolete. So, I ended up stuck with an antique for two-thirds of the campaign, until I could finally splurge on one of the most advanced models (the Su-37), which I then kept until the end. And they want me to replay the whole thing twice more to try out dozens of lesser planes?
It’s always the same with Ace Combat games—the first impression is great. Blasting enemy planes is thrilling … for an hour or two. Then the adrenaline wears off, and you spend the rest of the campaign grinding. The previous game had me filling up experience bars. This one forces me to save up credits, slowly, as if it’s a management sim.
It feels like the developers’ main goal is to stretch things out as long as possible. And that’s what makes it boring. Let me forget I’m bored by giving me a new plane to fly every mission, for example. Or by writing a half-decent story (cheesy or not, I just want to be entertained). And for heaven’s sake, quit flattering me! I want to be humbled! Throw waves of missiles at me—guided ones that force me into real evasive maneuvers to survive!
I gave Darkest Dungeon a harsh critique for its embarrassingly thin concept, disguised by over-the-top difficulty. Ace Combat takes the opposite approach. They have a golden concept, a perfectly honed combat system that they wear out prematurely due to lack of genuine challenge.
Last month, I went through every game in the series, one by one, starting from 1 and ending with 0. Ironically, I came away with this odd feeling that the series was going round in circles…
I felt like something was missing from Ace Combat 2 (my favorite episode), and I hoped to find it on the PlayStation 2. While I admit there have been innovations, they don’t all align with what I was hoping for.
But what exactly was I waiting for? To paraphrase Pascal Legitimus, my idea of the perfect Ace Combat would feature:
- the soundtrack from 1 or 2 (kitschy synthesized electric guitar instead of the soppy orchestral themes of the later games)
- the slick interface from 2 (briefings, plane selection)
- the “smart” enemy missiles from 3 (which provided at least a hint of tension)
- the understated narration of 4 (I’d keep the background dialogue, but drop the leading questions aimed at the player)
- the well-crafted mission design, enemy behavior, and handling from 5 (minus the stalling and targeting issues, which are minor details)
And above all: no timer, no grades. Just let me have fun on my own with the suspension bridges and clouds!
Ace Combat Zero contains 36 aircraft and (only) 18 missions.
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