Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match – A Review and Reflection, Über-Micro Meets Panzerfahren and Celebrating Ten Years of Girls und Panzer On The First Day of Spring

“Clear your mind of all things…focus on the micro.” –teh_masterer, Pure Pwnage

After Miho and Ooarai manage to beat the All-Stars University Team to save their school a second time, they invite Alice and All-Stars University Team’s commanders over to help recall the events of their match, so that Anzu and the Student Council can shoot a new promotional video that’s more current. To encourage the other school’s attendance, an Appreciation Festival is organised, allowing the students from the different schools to mingle and share their Panzerfahren strategies with one another. Miho opens the festival with a presentation on their first exhibition match, where Ooarai and Chi-Ha Tan had squared off against Pravda and St. Glorianna. When Miho reaches the larger match against the All-Stars University team, Alice arrives and helps Miho to walk through what had happened. The festival ends on a high note, and Alice thanks Miho for the invitation, promising that they’ll one day face off against one another in Panzerfahren. This is Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match (Dream Tank Match from here on out for brevity), a game that was originally released in 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and subsequently ported to the Nintendo Switch a year later, which featured all of the expansion content for Dream Tank Match. Dream Tank Match was the realisation of a chance to engage in Panzerfahren in a video game setting, and beyond the campaign that retells Der Film‘s events, the game also includes additional scenarios, a “Festival” mode which allows for players to participate in outrageous scenarios, and a five-on-five multiplayer mode. On paper, Dream Tank match is the perfect chance for fans of Girls und Panzer to finally try their hand at operating the same tanks Miho and her friends do – built as a dedicated Girls und Panzer game, Dream Tank Match allows players to re-live iconic moments from the film and see how their favourite tanks and crew perform, complete with voice lines from the series’ original voice actresses to create an unparalleled, authentic Panzerfahren experience that, until 2018, players could only faintly mimic via Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks. In practise, although Dream Tank Match is a fun game, mechanics in the campaign interrupt the flow, resulting in a rather odd experience where players will drop into a match, and then the game yanks control from the player as the characters share dialogue. In other chapters where the goal is to survive a for certain duration, one cannot prematurely force the segment to conclude by hammering all opposing tanks into scrap metal. Beyond this, Dream Tank Match‘s campaigned proved to be a gentle return to Der Film‘s storyline and Girls und Panzer‘s not-so-subtle reminder to players that the series’ themes of sportsmanship are unshakable; even after the upset victory, Alice and her classmates regard Miho with respect rather than contempt, speaking to the spirit of Panzerfahren as a sport for discipline and respect.

Having finished Dream Tank Match‘s campaign, I’ve now finished something I didn’t think would be possible: at the time of writing, there is no port for PC, but fortunately, Dream Tank Match does have an English-translated version that can be purchased quite readily. Upon completion, it becomes clear that Dream Tank Match is the superior choice for folks looking to experience Girls und Panzer and drive the tanks for themselves – unlike World of Tanks, whose list of shortcomings is so extensive I’ll need a separate post to address all of them, Dream Tank Match provides players with all of the characters and tanks of Girls und Panzer for Panzerfahren. Losses do not punish players excessively (the only thing one takes is a slightly bruised ego), and players cannot pay to gain a massive advantage over their opponents. However, Dream Tank Match remains a lesser choice compared to Battlefield V, which still offers the most immersive and authentic World War Two armoured combat experience. The only challenge about Battlefield V is that the combined arms environment means players have more to worry about than other tanks – infantry have access to dynamite and Panzerfausts, allowing them to harass tanks, while pilots armed with bombs can take one out of a fight instantly. The gap in armoured warfare between Battlefield V and Dream Tank Match speaks to fundamental differences in how Japanese and Western studios approach games: Japanese games have a much larger emphasis on characters, requiring players to listen to the game and give thought to how they wish to approach a problem, while Western games favour individual skill. In the present day, games have blurred the boundary between the two philosophies, combining story-telling with high-skill mechanics to produce an experience that compels players to simultaneously to pay the story mind and master the mechanics. In the case of Dream Tank Match, armed with the skills from Battlefield, the campaign proved to be trivially easy to complete. It became clear that in the face of overwhelming über-micro, it matters little as to whether or not I was playing as the All-Star Team or as Ooarai: all foes were felled without effort.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Dream Tank Match is a love letter to fans of Girls und Panzer: it provides a nuanced retelling of Der Film and provides players a chance to experience different Panzerfahren scenarios. Returning to Ooarai Golf Course, where Miho and her allies have seemingly pinned down a number of St. Glorianna tanks, brought back vivid memories of the summer some seven years earlier, when I’d just about wrapped up my graduate thesis paper. Back then, I was dividing my time between looking after the lab’s new summer students and getting things off the ground at my first start-up.

• Der Film had been a very enjoyable experience, even if from a narrative standpoint, it’d been quite unnecessary: from a practical standpoint, it wasn’t improbable that MEXT could go ahead with reneging on their promise and proceed with closing Ooarai anyways despite their winning the Panzerfahren championship if no signed documents ever existed, but Ooarai’s closure was simply a conflict to drive Miho forward. Girls und Panzer had wrapped up Miho’s story to a satisfactory extent, so from a narrative perspective, the film doesn’t add anything new to her growth as a person.

• On the other hand, from an enjoyment perspective, Der Film absolutely delivered. Dream Tank Match allows players to now drive the tanks, and although the campaign does hold the players’ hands, as well as limits the scale and scope of each engagement, there is still enough freedom for players to approach a problem in their own manner of choosing. It becomes clear that, with the right mindset and skills, Panzerfahren is something that isn’t quite as dramatic or stressful as Girls und Panzer had presented it: any player with the right map and weapon knowledge, coupled with a modicum of decision-making prowess and reflexes, will be able to make short work of things in Dream Tank Match.

• I colloquially refer to this combination of skills as “über-micro”. Urban Dictionary mistakenly defines über-micro as the ability to use a keyboard with “great speed and accuracy” in an RTS game to control multiple units at once, but Pure Pwnage describes über-micro as having enough mastery of skill, reflexes and discipline to excel such that one has an almost supernatural control of their equipment. In this 2004 mockumentary, Pure Pwnage follows the life of Jeremy, a pro-gamer as he navigates the real world for a project his younger brother, Kyle, is working on for school.

• Pure Pwnage is responsible for several of the greatest jokes available on the internet, including FPS_Doug’s iconic BOOM, HEADSHOT! catchphrase, but in addition to creating a rich portrayal of classic gamer culture, Pure Pwnage also proved surprisingly meaningful, cleverly presenting life lessons through gaming metaphors. I myself was introduced to Pure Pwnage through friends, and a decade earlier, I found myself returning to Pure Pwnage as my thesis ramped up. In fact, on this day ten years ago, I was on the cusp of finishing my undergraduate thesis paper.

• By this point in the semester, I had found myself doing reasonably well: besides my thesis project, I also was enrolled in databases, software engineering fundamentals and introductory statistics. Although this term was more difficult and involved than my first term, I managed to balance my time well. Since I had already finished most of my thesis project’s implementation by January, this left me with enough time to work on my paper, and in doing so, I had plenty of time left to ensure I could do well in my other courses. Databases came intuitively enough to me, and I managed to keep up with assignments and exams for statistics reasonably well.

• Looking back, software engineering was probably the toughest course, but even then, recalling the models and practises was sufficient for me to score fairly well in that course. By late March, I’d felt that my undergraduate degree was practically in the bag, and having made an effort to ensure I was caught up in my coursework, I was able to finish my thesis paper with time to spare. It was with great satisfaction that I submitted my thesis paper ahead of the deadline; this represented the culmination of four year’s worth of discovery and learning.

• After sending my paper in, I retired for the evening and awaited the release of Girls und Panzer‘s final episode, which would release a few days after the paper deadline. A decade earlier, the massive delay in Girls und Panzer‘s production had meant the final two episodes would release in March, three months after the tenth episode had concluded, and the combination of Girls und Panzer‘s excellent writing, coupled with where the tenth episode had stopped, resulted in some of the most tangible anticipation I’d seen in the anime community.

• I myself ended up watching the finale after making a beeline home once the day’s lectures ended, and fortuitously, I’d put myself in a solid position, so one evening of not studying or tending to coursework wasn’t going to be too detrimental. The finale had been everything I’d hoped it would be, and I was left with an immensely satisfying conclusion to Girls und Panzer. In the present, however, I do feel that a few minor adjustments could be made to Girls und Panzer‘s original run to address an issue that became apparent as soon as Das Finale began airing.

• This will be left as an exercise for the near future, and I’ll return my focus to Dream Tank Match: from a mechanical standpoint, Dream Tank Match is rudimentary and polished. Tank operation is simple, and players are given a few options to drift their tanks for more daring manoeuvres. Further to this, aiming and firing is intuitive and simple, entailing lining up one’s crosshairs with a target and then pulling the trigger to fire. Reloading entails a mini-game of sorts, similar to Gears of War‘s active reload system, where if one manages to reload at the right time, a speed reload is executed.

• When one becomes familiar with the active reload system in Dream Tank Match, they can greatly increase their tank’s firing rate. There are some comparatively strange mechanics in Dream Tank Match, and here, during a survival round, I found that All-Stars University’s commander couldn’t be harmed: even after getting behind their tank and hitting what would be a weak spot, the game only registered a glancing hit. I ended up deciding that, if the round only required my survival, I could easily camp out of range and simply wait for the timer to run out.

• I’ve found that Japanese games make much greater use of max-min optimisation elements in that, for best results, if one plays a certain way, the outcome with be guaranteed to go a certain way. In Dream Tank Match, for instance, I could have tried to engage All-Stars University and destroy all of their tanks. In any other game, the opposing team would be expected to retreat after some biting remarks about unexpected enemy strength, and the round would end. However, by preventing this outcome through use of unseen mechanics, Dream Tank Match forces players to last the whole five minutes.

• This was most visible when Dream Tank Match returns to the open field, and I selected Darjeeling’s Churchchill VII. With nothing to do beyond hang outside of the All-Star University team’s Pershings and their effective firing range, I took my time in aiming down sights, blasted their treads to slow them down and methodically picked off each tank until only their commander was left. Since the commander wasn’t taking any damage, I simply kept firing to occupy myself until the timer expired. While this does make for some tedium, I also remark that the mechanic was likely deliberate: the campaign is a re-telling of Der Film‘s events, so each chapter has constraints to ensure the story still plays out in a manner that is faithful to the original movie’s outcomes.

• One aspect of Dream Tank Match that I found distracting was the directional indicator, which is supposed to give players an idea of where their rounds are going. However, a part of the skill component in a given game, especially where projectile drop is simulated, is learning how to compensate for gravity; in early games, weapons were hit-scan, but as physics engines became more sophisticated, developers began treating projectiles as physics objects. This adds additional depth in the game, and landing a shot at range becomes a satisfying accomplishment.

• On the other hand, Dream Tank Match does simulate limited tank damage: tanks are weaker at the sides and from the rear, and angling one’s armour allows for some shots to be shrugged off. Similarly, aiming for the treads brings about a partial mobility kill – until repairs are conducted, any tank hit in the treads is rendered immobile for a period of time. Thus, one viable strategy is to aim for the treads where possible, and then get into a position where one can hammer a foe into oblivion. During the segment where I played as Mika, her BT-42’s mobility allowed me to take out three All-Star University Tanks with relative ease.

• Battlefield V‘s implementation of the Tiger I tank remains my favourite owing to the level detail, but in Dream Tank Match, it is the case that Girls und Panzer was not too far behind when it came to getting the details right. One element in Dream Tank Match that is completely absent is tank customisation: in Battlefield V, levelling up a tank gave access to specialisations that allowed the tank to perform in different ways, and while these specialisations were straight upgrades (as opposed to being side-grades with distinct pros and cons), they did push a tank to excel in specific roles. Battlefield 2042 sees the Tiger I and M4 Sherman return, but there’s no options for customisations at all.

• I would very much have preferred to engage my foes at long ranges, but in Dream Tank Match, the game is such that most matches force players into close quarters. Here, careful aim goes out the window, and speed becomes king: a tank with high manoeuvrability and a quick turret traversal matters more than higher damage per shot. In my Battlefield V days, I remember making extensive use of the Valentine Archer, whose initial high ammunition capacity allowed me to fell thirty enemy before I was destroyed. While DICE would reduce the maximum amount of shells the Valentine Archer could carry, the tank remains one of my favourites to use.

• Faster tanks allow for a more aggressive play-style, and this is what motivated my decision to prefer medium tanks in Battlefield V. In Dream Tank Match, tank damage models aren’t explicitly clear, and during the campaign, I found that both Ooarai and Chi-Ha Tan’s medium tanks were more than capable of dealing with heavy tanks. Observant readers will have noted that here, the M3 Lee Rabbit team is operating has two targetting lines, reflective of the fact that the tank had two main guns.

• Aside from its M2/M3 75 mm cannon, the M3 Lee also sported a M5/M6 37 mm cannon: the former was a sponson-mounted gun intended for taking on fortified positions and artillery, while the latter was intended to deal with other tanks. Although Germans considered the M3 Lee to be more than a match for the Panzer IV Ausf D. variants, Americans were dissatisfied with the tank, and it was eventually phased out by the venerable M4 in the European theatre.

• For my play-though of Dream Tank Match‘s campaign, since I played the M3 Lee in a segment whose objective was to reach an objective, I never got the chance to fire the weapons. These missions place a large number of tanks in one’s path, and while it can be fun to stop and engage, given the objective, it is more logical to press forwards to the goal: one can always return later and see if they can approach the same mission differently if they wish, and in most chapters, one can replay as different characters to see things from another side of the coin.

• The Crusader is infamous in Dream Tank Match for having extremely loose handling, to the point where it’s almost impossible to control for novice players. Being the most similar to the Valentine Archer, I decided to go with this tank for kicks. This mission was unusual in that there are waypoints one must hit in order for enemy spawns to happen, and while I get that this was to simulate the events of Der Film and prevent players from being annihilated, it also takes away from the challenge – any gamer with über-micro will have no trouble soloing anything.

• While Dream Tank Match has its limitations, and I certainly would’ve preferred more customisation options (like Battlefield V‘s specialisation), what the game does, it does well. On the topic of Battlefield, I’ve heard unverified rumours that Battlefield 2042 may be getting a second year of support and content. If true, this is exciting news, since it would represent a chance to really bring Battlefield 2042 up to standard with older games in terms of maps and weapons. While it’s been more than a year since the game launched, and no new Portal content has been added, I remain hopeful that more iconic maps, weapons and vehicles from Battlefield 3, Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 1942 are added.

• Here, Miho and Anzu engage the All-Star University Team amidst the narrow confines of a maze in a manner reminiscent of Namco’s 1980 top-down shooter, Tank Battalion, which pitted players against twenty enemy tanks, each of which sought to destroy the player’s base. The player’s goal was to eliminate the enemy tanks before this could happen, and the a top-down perspective made a maze layout appropriate. The game was praised the ability for players to destroy the bricks, allowing them to reach combat areas faster at the risk of giving enemy tanks a quicker route to their base.

• Tank Battalion was later remade as Battle City for the GameBoy, which featured additional elements like power-ups and enemy tanks with different properties. Tank games have (largely) come a long way from humble origins, and I’m certainly glad to have played Dream Tank Match – ever since the game was announced back in 2017 and released in 2018, I’ve longed to play this game. Back in 2013, World of Tanks had been the only viable option for players wanting a Girls und Panzer experience, but I found the game to be asinine for its mechanics.

• My criticisms of World of Tanks are based purely around the premium accounts and damage system, which have a profoundly negative impact on one’s experience. I’d previously noted that my grievances about World of Tanks would fill a small book, but that would be out-of-scope for this talk, and I’ll return in the future to share my thoughts on World of Tanks after ten years. It speaks poorly about Wargaming.net that they’ve not manage to fix the game sufficiently to impress me despite having such a timeframe.

• Of all the campaign missions, my favourite came when the game put me in Alice’s shoes, and I got behind the wheel of the Centurion. This British tank is widely considered to be the first Main Battle Tank, featuring the mobility of a light tank, the firepower and armour of a heavy tank and the profile of a medium tank. Chi-Ha Tan’s tanks stand no chance at all, and I slaughtered my foes in a matter of minutes. Experiences like these reinforce my belief that against undisciplined tankers, like members of AnimeSuki’s Mädchen und Panzer clan, I’d have no problem with taking them to school if I were permitted a MBT to even out the numbers.

• To reflect on the outcome of the battle’s final stages, Dream Tank Match allows one to drive the M26 Pershing as the All-Star University team mounts a comeback. Designed as a counter to the Tiger I, the Pershing was counted as being more than a match for German armour, save the Tiger II, and some variants of the Pershing were equipped with the T15E1 74 caliber cannon, giving it comparable firepower to the Tiger II. In a direct confrontation, Miho’s forces stand absolutely no chance against the Pershing, and I allowed myself to enjoy the moment. The resulting battle had been even more entertaining than when I’d used Battlefield: Portal to create a hypothetical engagement between a single M1A2 and nine Tiger Is.

• With my skill, any confrontation between myself and Mädchen und Panzer would result in what people call a roflstomp: if I have an appropriate tank, I’ll win after a thrilling match, and if I were given a tank with even the slightest advantage, it’ll turn into a one-sided slaughter. I remark here that because Girls und Panzer is a decade old, because general interest in World of Tanks has waned, and because Mädchen und Panzer similarly dissolved from lack of community, any engagement with one of World of Tanks‘ most notorious clans will permanently be a hypothetical one. I’ll therefore satisfy myself with the next best equivalent, which is something that Dream Tank Match offers.

• In this way, ten years after Girls und Panzer, I’ve finally had the chance to experience something I certainly wouldn’t have thought possible: Dream Tank Match is the definitive interactive Girls und Panzer experience, and while it’s no Battlefield V, the game plays well enough to give one a satisfactory chance to see the world that Miho and her friends see. With this post in the books, I’ll be returning in a few days to write about Girls und Panzer after a decade: the series is still engaging in the present, and the animation still holds up very well.

• I’ll wrap up with a screenshot of me engaging Alice in a two-on-one. Whereas Der Film had Miho using fire from Maho to accelerate her Panzer IV into a position where she could slide behind Alice’s Centurion for a killing shot, my attempt simply had me blasting Alice’s tracks off, leaving her immobilised, and then subsequently hammering the Centurion until health ran out. I’ve now completed the campaign mode and unlocked several tanks in a relatively short timeframe, but there is still a few more things to explore before I’ve had a complete Dream Tank Match experience. While I do have a tendency to procrastinate, here, I wager that I could play Dream Tank Match to completion before Das Finale‘s fourth part becomes available: by my original estimates, with a gap of 22 months, the fourth part was supposed to release back in January, and then a nine month gap between theatrical screenings and home release means overseas viewers like myself would get to see things by October. We’re now three months in 2023, and there’s still been no news of Das Finale‘s fourth act.

As enjoyable as Dream Tank Match is, the game is primarily intended for Girls und Panzer fans looking to further their enjoyment of the series: the art of Panzerfahren is admittedly less gripping than combined-arms warfare of the sort that Battlefield offers, and a focus on pure armoured combat means that the mind is not focused in other aspects that tankers must be mindful of. In addition, Dream Tank Match also highlights a limitation in current technologies for implementing a complete Panzerfahren experience. In Girls und Panzer, Miho is so successful against her foes because she has near limitless control over how she wishes for her teammates to operate. On the other hand, Dream Tank Match‘s AI will go off and act according to a decision tree of sorts, resulting in more limited behaviours. There is no way to issue orders, and no way to direct allied tanks to certain positions or act in certain ways. Similarly, while one does have human allies in the multiplayer, matches are limited to five-on-five, a fifth of the twenty-on-twenty action seen in Girls und Panzer‘s largest-scale battles. As a result, even with Dream Tank Match‘s release, there’s still no way to fully test the limitations of the Nishizumi Style (or the vaunted strategies that AnimeSuki’s Mädchen und Panzer clan claim as being infallible) against the might of flexible, fluid approaches styled after Sun Tzu’s Art of War and executed with the skill and precision of über-micro. With this being said, Dream Tank Match is unlikely to displace Battlefield V as the definitive World War Two armoured warfare experience: the latter completely outclasses it in terms of detail, immersion and skill. However, as a game that adds to one’s appreciation of Girls und Panzer, Dream Tank Match is still a worthwhile game to play for fans of the series, providing players with a chance to revisit Der Film‘s battles on their own terms and fight in a variety of scenarios to see how they might fare against various schools’ commanders and crew on the battlefield. The chance to step into the commander’s copula and participate in Panzerfahren to any extent is something that the me of a decade earlier certainly hadn’t been expecting to ever try out – when Girls und Panzer‘s finale released almost ten years ago, I’d been on the verge of finishing my undergraduate thesis paper, and with some time available to me, I suddenly found myself longing to play a game with tanks in it. No suitable candidate ever turned up, but Dream Tank Match winds up being the perfect way to see how the strategies and tactics I wrote of ultimately fared against what the anime community of the time posited, and to nobody’s surprise, irrespective of the chaotic and adaptive style Miho uses, the precision and skill Alice brings to the table or the brute force Black Forest employs, there is no foe that stands a chance against practitioners of über-micro.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown × Top Gun: Maverick, Reflections on A Remarkable Collaboration and Some Thoughts on The Last Day of The Year

“Why are the wings coming out, Mav?” –Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Top Gun: Maverick

Back in June, Project Aces did a collaboration with Top Gun: Maverick that added the iconic aircraft from the film into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. This expansion provides the F-14A Tomcat, the custom variant that Maverick and Rooster steal from the enemy airbase, the F/A-18E single seater and another custom variant that Maverick flies during the training exercise. In addition, this aircraft pack also comes with the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter and the Darkstar prototype. On top of this, players also gain aircraft cosmetics based on themes from Maverick. While the cost of this expansion is a little pricey when one considers the amount of content one receives in the package, being able to relive iconic moments from Maverick and replicate them in the context of Skies Unknown is worth the price of admissions, and ultimately, I ended up picking it up during the Steam Winter Sale. Upon installing this add-on content and trying the new aircraft out, it soon becomes clear that these aircraft each possess unique attributes that make them a phenomenal way of extending one’s Skies Unknown experience. The Darkstar’s biggest attribute is its speed. Together with its pulse lasers, one is basically flying a starfighter capable of moving faster than any aircraft in the game. The fifth generation fighters are a variant of the base Su-57, but now equip a wider range of special missiles. The Top Gun exclusive F-14A and F/A-18E fighters have been tuned up, allowing them to go toe-to-toe with the ADF-11F Raven in a dogfight, and provide the sort of manoeuvrability for reproducing the canyon run that is beyond the capabilities of most planes. In trying out the aircraft accompanying the Maverick set, familiar missions in Skies Unknown suddenly offer players with a new experience as the different aircraft and their capabilities alter the way one approaches a mission. This gives incentive to revisit old missions and see how the new aircraft handle; during my return to several of Skies Unknown‘s tougher missions using the Maverick aircraft, it became clear that the cost of entry was worthwhile. While the aircraft themselves outwardly are simple reskins (the only all-new aircraft is Darkstar), in terms of handling, the new aircraft are smoother and more responsive than most of the other planes available, giving players confidence to fly and perform the same manoeuvres that Maverick, Rooster, Phoenix, Payback and Hangman perform during the events of Maverick.

Top Gun: Maverick stands as one of the greatest films of the 2020s so far, and it is rare for a sequel to outshine its predecessor, but Maverick has managed to do so. The film completely captures the thrill of flight while simultaneously remaining respectful to the original movie, and some of the scenes have very quickly become iconic to the point where the fertile mind, with an active imagination, would yearn to re-enact them. When Top Gun originally released in 1986, it inspired some viewers to become naval pilots. Today, the advancement of computer hardware and graphics means that for most folks, it is now possible to experience the same suspense and exhilaration that Maverick and his pilots find while flying their mission in Maverick. There is no better game than Ace Combat for such an experience: while it’s an arcade combat simulator and therefore provides distinct mechanics to ensure players have a fun time in the game, the same rush of being able to get behind the stick of a multi-million dollar flying machine and doing some work with it is conveyed. It was therefore unsurprising that a collaborative project would be made, in which Ace Combat and Top Gun crossed over to provide a means of giving players a tangible way of reliving their favourite moments from the film, or seeing how the film’s most recognisable aircraft might handle in the Strangereal universe during the course of the Lighthouse War. Overall, this experience was equivalent to picking up model aircraft and running around in a field with some mates re-enacting the same; as a child, I used to run around on the school playground, pretending it was the “Facility” map from GoldenEye 007, and I imagine that after Top Gun, excited children would’ve done the same in playing pretend dogfights with their toy aircraft. Ace Combat has simply allowed players to do the same in a different manner, and the Maverick package allows one to evoke memories of a simpler time and re-live their favourite film moments, making it a worthwhile purchase.

Screenshots and Commentary

• In practise, the Darkstar hypersonic stealth fighter is the single fastest aircraft available in the game to players: with the right parts, Darkstar can even outrun missiles. The trade-off is that handling and manoeuvrability become limited at high speeds, so using the aircraft becomes an exercise in skill as pilots must constantly keep an eye on their airspeed and constantly adjust to ensure they can engage foes that are much slower than themselves. When a balance is struck, the Darkstar becomes a force to contend with: it is capable of reaching enemy targets very quickly, and then decelerate swiftly in order to engage them.

• Besides an integral pulse laser mounted in its nose, Darkstar also carries missiles in an internal bay. Depending on its configuration, Darkstar carries short-range aerial suppression missiles, small-diameter bombs or pulse lasers, making it suitable for both anti-air and anti-ground operations. For me, the pulse lasers remain a favourite, and the fact that Darkstar carries six hundred and fifty shots, the same as the Su-57, makes this a straight upgrade to the capable Su-57. The down side about the pulse lasers in Skies Unknown is the fact that clouds will diffuse the beams and render them ineffectual.

• However, with Darkstar’s handling characteristics, one could easily switch back to missiles and come around for another attack run. During my first run with Darkstar, I utilised its extreme speed to make short work of the forces amassed at Artiglio Port. It suddenly hits me that the last time I wrote about Ace Combat at the end of the year, it would’ve been two years earlier. Back then, I’d just picked up the Year One Pass, which gave access to the extended missions and the ADX series of aircraft, which I’d been longing to fly on PC ever since I played Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.

• Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War had ignited a desire to fly the Falken, and one of the things about The Unsung War had been the fact that the game had players shooting down the SOLG on New Year’s Eve. The atmospherics surrounding this particular mission had been especially well done, and the decision to time the final level on New Year’s Eve had always evoked a sense of curiosity in me. In discussions with a friend, we’d reach the conclusion that destroying the SOLG and stopping the Belkan plot to instigate open war between two superpowers on New Year’s Eve had been symbolic.

• By wrapping up all of the conflict before a new year, The Unsung War sought to convey the importance of wrapping things up decisively so that there was no chance for any lingering feelings of regret or resentment to carry forwards. This entailed destroying the Grey Men’s ace-in-the-hole before it could reach Oured, and in doing so, Razgriz makes it clear that whenever we’re on the cusp of a new beginning, it’s important to let go of past grudges. The Grey Men came to represent these grudges, and destroying their instruments of terror became a show of how people can actively make a choice not to let the past impact their present or future.

• Later games don’t quite have the same symbolism, and for this reason, The Unsung War remains my favourite Ace Combat game. Skies Unknown comes in at a close second because later additions would add enough content to the game to make it feel like a comprehensive experience that brings Strangereal to the PC. Things like the Maverick aircraft set give players new ways of experiencing the game. While the idea of downloadable content and expansions may prima facie appear to be a money-grab, and it is true that when poorly done, DLC can significantly degrade player experience, good DLC allows one to get more mileage out of their games.

• Good DLC never restricts a player in what they can intrinsically do: a base game must allow a player to unlock everything and experience things wholly. A game that offers a solid experience on its own will incentivise players to pick up additional content, whether it be new missions, equipment or even cosmetics. On the other hand, if a game requires DLC in order for a player to have a fair or complete experience, then it has failed because it is forcing players to drop additional money for something that should have been part of the original game.

• In Skies Unknown, players can have a comprehensive experience without picking up the Alicorn missions or any of the bonus aircraft, but buying the additional content allows one to extend their enjoyment of the game further, making them fair for players. For me, because I enjoyed Skies Unknown and desired a challenge, buying the Season Pass to gain the Alicorn missions and the ADX aircraft was a simple enough decision. Similarly, since I found myself thoroughly enjoying Top Gun: Maverick, picking up the Maverick set to further my time in Skies Unknown was something I had no qualms doing.

• With 2022 drawing to a close, yesterday, I ended up going on one final adventure before the year ended. Five years earlier, I’d gone out into the mountains during the cold of winter to capitalise on the Canada 150 complimentary park pass, and of the days I’d chosen, I ended up going amidst a snowstorm. Although the food had been great, the drive had been especially difficult: the roads were covered in snow, and a blizzard had enveloped the highway, reducing visibility to near zero. Five years have passed since that excursion, and this year, to take advantage of the remaining break time I had, I decided to schedule a similar trip.

• This time around, I also walked over to the Vermillion Lakes. At this time of year, the lakes have frozen over completely, and this means that the mirror-smooth reflections of the mountains and sky were absent. However, during the morning, we still had gorgeous skies, and the temperature was a comfortable -6°C. This allowed for a more casual walk along the Vermillion Lakes trail. I imagine that to get the coveted combination of a lake that has not yet frozen over, and fresh snowfall, I’d need to come in during late October or early November. Having said this, there is a joy about visiting during the heart of winter: ice covering the lake was dotted with footprints, suggesting that adventurous individuals had wandered about.

• As the morning drew to a close, we headed back into town and stopped by lunch at Tooloulou’s, a Cajun restaurant with dishes inspired by the Rockies. This establishment has developed a bit of a reputation as serving flavourful comfort food; the wait times were estimated at three quarters of an hour, so I went for a quick walk to the Cascade Mountain Viewpoint across the river. After a table opened up, I sat down to their soft-shell crab po’boy sandwich with a potato salad, and after one bite, it became apparent as to why Tooloulou’s is a popular dining spot: the soft shell crab was an explosion of flavour and seasoned well, while the creaminess in the source balanced the flavours out.

• After lunch, the last two items on the itinerary was a drive up the Trans Canada highway; I’d been looking to check out Castle Mountain and Morant’s Curve during the winter, and neither spots disappointed. I still remember a time when I had no love for winter, but in recent years, I’ve come to appreciate the aesthetic of a hushed landscape enveloped in snow and cloud. There’s a stillness about the winter landscape that conveys tranquility, and I now feel that winter is not a time of death, but rather, a time of repose.

• When I arrived at Castle Mountain, there had been a brief break in the clouds, allowing the mountain to peek through the clouds and catch the last rays of the sun. After a half hour’s drive further north, I reached Morant’s Curve. By this time, the clouds rolled back in, and snow had begun to fall, creating a peaceful landscape. A small crowd had gathered to watch the train, but for me, I determined it would be better to return home before the sun had set fully. The drive back home was unremarkable; the highway was extremely crowded, but the flow was also smooth, making it a far better drive than the one I’d experienced five years earlier.

• Besides Darkstar, the Maverick set also comes with Maverick’s custom F/A-18E Super Hornet. Shortly after Maverick came out, I attempted the Cape Rainy Assault canyon run with the standard F/A-18F. This had been a fun experience in and of itself, but being able to rock Maverick’s F/A-18E custom made the canyon run feel like a night version of the run that was seen in Top Gun: Maverick. Such a run was done purely for the sake of creating a captivating cinematic experience: in real life, the sort of mission in Maverick would be best carried out by the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a 14-tonne precision guided bomb that is delivered by the B-2 Spirit.

• The assignment seen in Maverick would see a single B-2 Spirit fly in under the cover of darkness and drop the MOP: while the enemies are stated as using GPS jamming, the guidance system in the MOP is capable of operating even in the absence of a GPS signal. The only drawback about the MOP is that it lacks a void fuze and therefore, will only detonate once it’s stopped moving. The existence of dedicated weapons in reality is meant to allow the armed forces to carry out very specific assignments, and as a result, the idea of sending in human pilots for a low-altitude assignment is unlikely to be anyone’s first option.

• Of course, in the realm of fiction, using human pilots to carry out dangerous assignments is done purely for entertainment value: watching Tom Cruise banking sharply and exhaling with each turn is significantly more exciting than watching a pair of stoic B-2 Spirit pilots lasing their target and dropping a single MOP from an altitude of fifteen kilometres. However, this would preclude a thrilling movie. Similarly, if Ace Combat were realistic, missions would likely end as soon as one shot down two aircraft, since it is not feasible for an aircraft to carry a hundred plus missiles.

• Skies Unknown‘s equivalent of the canyon run requires players to remain below six hundred metres and avoid searchlights: there isn’t any sort of timeline to the canyon flight, and novice pilots can take their time in flying through the canyon. This hasn’t stopped talented Ace Combat players from accelerating through the canyon at breakneck speeds, navigating with a combination of skill and finesse while staying below 150 metres the entire way. Regardless of one’s skill level, however, the canyon run is most definitely one of Skies Unknown‘s most iconic missions.

• Once players get clear of the canyon, the mission is simply to altogether flatten the enemy forces at the airfield. On my original run of this mission, I used an F-15E with six air-to-air missiles. However, while using Maverick’s F/A-18E here, I am running with the GBU-24 Paveway III guided penetrator bombs that were seen in the film: these explosives ordinarily require a laser signal in order to accurately hit their targets, but in Ace Combat 7, their implementation is such that as long as I lock onto a ground target, they will automatically steer themselves towards that target.

• Still, being able to fly a film-faithful version of the F/A-18E was fantastic, and I can think of a few more places in Skies Unknown where the F/A-18E could be useful. Playing through Ace Combat 7 again, I am reminded of how much fun this game is: Skies Unknown marked the first time an Ace Combat game set in Strangereal was available on PC, and at the time of its release in 2019, it had already spent four years in development. I myself had been excited to play Ace Combat 7 ever since finishing the 2013 spin-off, Assault Horizon.

• The successor to Skies Unknown will be the eighth formal entry in the Ace Combat series, and while development began back in 2021, I imagine that to ensure that the title delivers the best possible experiences for players, it will release somewhere in 2025. Ace Combat 8, as it is informally called, is using Unreal Engine 5, but beyond this, not much more is known. Back in Skies Unknown, I’ve switched over to the penultimate mission, where I’m flying the Fifth-Generation fighter. This is the actual name of the aircraft in-game, a deliberate callback to the fact that in Maverick, the Su-57s the unnamed hostile nation operates is never identified.

• The original Su-57 in Skies Unknown occupies the same tier as the YF-23 and F-22 Raptor, being the second-best group of aircraft available to players in the base game prior to unlocking the Strike Wyvern. Capable of carrying either a guided penetration bomb or four multi-target anti-air missiles, the Su-57 is a capable fighter. However, its true strengths lay with the fact that it could equip a pair of pulse laser pods, and of all the aircraft in Skies Unknown with pulse lasers, the Su-57 had the highest capacity, carrying 650 rounds.

• The Maverick variant of the Su-57 has weapons suited for anti-air engagements at the expense of being unable to carry any anti-ground munitions, and trades mobility for stealth For my flight, I opted to go with the four multi-target anti-air missiles, since I knew I would be fighting a mission that was primarily focused on anti-air combat. Ever since playing through Project Wingman, I’ve come to appreciate the utility of the multi-target missiles: while they’re not as manoeuvrable as the quick-manoeuvre anti-air missiles, at range, they do allow one to pick off entire squadrons in a single salvo.

• Against the UAVs and manned fighters in a map where the number of foes means one’s threat indicator is going off non-stop, the fifth generation fighter is a beast. The slight differences between the Su-57 and the “fifth-generation fighter” are not substantial, and in the hands of a capable pilot, this plane is more than enough to get the job done. As memory serves, I ran an F-15E armed with the tactical laser for this mission when I played through the game for the first time, primarily because I’d wanted to fire the tactical laser on PC for the first time.

• To no one’s surprise, the Su-57’s superior traits mean that it is the better plane for this mission, and prior to Maverick, I would suggest that the Su-57 and its pulse lasers would be well-suited for this mission. I did find that the multi-target missiles were a satisfactory substitute, and high in the skies above the Lighthouse orbital elevator, I slaughtered both the enemy fighters and Arsenal Bird with relative ease. Despite it being over three years since I’ve played Ace Combat, I found myself getting back into the swing of things surprisingly well, and I do remember how during my first run of this mission, I was having trouble hitting the docking clamps and antennae on the Arsenal Bird.

• Having the additional missiles on the fifth-generation fighter did help with this last part, and I was able to defeat the Arsenal Bird without too much difficulty, even though I’d taken a considerable amount of damage in the process. Primarily for survivability reasons, I run with the automatic fire extinguisher whenever I play Skies Unknown: this little gadget will gradually decrease the damage back to fifty percent over time, if one’s damage should exceed fifty percent.

• In order to test the F-14A that Maverick and Rooster ends up stealing, I chose to do so within the final mission. This mission was really where the old adage, “it’s not the plane, it’s the pilot” was put to the test: the ADF-11F Raven is a seventh generation fighter with capabilities far outstripping those of even the fifth-generation fighters, and this means that theoretically, the F-14A should be even more outmatched than it had been in the movie. However, despite the disparity, the Maverick version of the F-14A is again, given some customisations such that it is a bit more manoeuvrable.

• Whether it was a result of experience, or the F-14A’s intrinsic capabilities, I was able to shoot down both Ravens within the space of three minutes, and deal with the UAV unit that jettisoned from the Raven’s wreckages. For this mission, I ran with the high-powered anti-air missiles, which hit harder than ordinary missiles but also have a greater difficulty in tracking targets. The F-14A was able to get behind the Ravens without too much trouble, and I found that using the guns actually worked well here: ever since Project Wingman, I’ve taken to using guns to deal with boss-type units that have either unlimited flares or a supernatural ability to evade missiles.

• Defeating both Ravens with the F-14A was the surest show that the adage, “it’s not the plane, it’s the pilot” holds true, and in the context of Skies Unknown, that a fifty-three year old fighter can do anything at all against a hypothetical seventh generation fighter shows how UAVs aren’t quite ready to replace human pilots yet. Of course, this definitely doesn’t hold true in reality: highly manoeuvrable UAVs would be able to pull off turns that would cause g-LOC in human pilots in a dogfight, and advanced UAVs will likely be smaller than manned fighters, so a real engagement would probably see UAVs firing accurate long-range missiles that could down an F-14 long before the pilot had time to react.

• Again, realism isn’t the object of entertainment, and it does give players thrills to be able to pull something like beating a Raven with a Tomcat.  For the final part of Skies Unknown‘s last mission, I was able to carry out the tunnel flight and escape without too much difficulty, and with this, it becomes clear that the Maverick set represents a highly enjoyable addition to Skies Unknown. Over the past two years, besides the ADX series and Maverick, three other aircraft sets were released. These aircraft sets are similar to the ADX series in that they’re for existing fans of the franchise, adding aircraft from earlier games into Skies Unknown.

• At the time of writing, anyone east of London, England has already welcomed 2023. However, most of the readers here hail from North America, and that means there’s still a few hours left before it’s our turn to do the big countdown. Having spent most of today doing housework and getting this post wrapped up, it’s time for me to unwind and enjoy a New Year’s Eve dinner with family. For my final remarks for this last post of 2022, I’d like to thank all readers for having stuck around for excellent conversations over the past year, and look forwards to seeing familiar faces return in 2023. Here’s to a Happy New Year for everyone!

This discussion on the Ace Combat crossover with Top Gun: Maverick is the last post of 2022, and now that we’re at the eve of a new year, it is striking as to how quickly the year has passed. Over the course of this year, a great deal has happened: according to site metrics, I’ve written a grand total of 138 posts, for a total of six hundred and fifty-six thousand words. A hundred and forty-five unique viewers have collectively totalled two hundred and eight thousand views over this time. Despite my uncertainty with keeping this blog running with everything that’s happening, I believe I’ve managed to do a fair job of things (although I will let readers be the judge of this). Beyond this blog, which I assure readers does not constitute the majority of my life, this past year has also been quite remarkable: I’ve learnt new things about iOS and Android development through my work, saw my first-ever move and became a homeowner. Following the move, I’ve taken advantage of the change in scenery to explore the new neighbourhood, its amenities and the community further. Thanks to a gradual return to normalcy, I’ve also had the chance to have new culinary experiences and hit the open roads with my time off. To put things lightly, 2022 has been a very eventful year, and looking back at my resolutions from the beginning of 2022, it does appear that I’ve managed to meet them in a satisfactory manner. In customary fashion, with 2023 only a few hours away for this side of the world, I will need some new resolutions for the New Year. For 2023, I resolve to make a conscious effort to always bring my best forward for the people around me and continue stepping out of my comfort zone: while this isn’t a goal with a quantitative measure of success, I’ve found that resolution-keeping works best for me if I maintain consistency, and that means, so long as I can do something with frequency and do so well, I’ve met my aims.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown- Flying Up So High With The Superplanes and Remarks on Balancing Power with Experience

“It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot” –Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Top Gun: Maverick

As players became increasingly proficient in Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, they would slowly progress towards unlocking the Erusean-made X-02 Wyvern and Gründer Industries’ ADF-01 Falken, two of the most powerful aircraft in the game. The unlock requirements for both aircraft are steep: the Wyvern is earned by buying at least one of every other aircraft in the game, while the Falken is unlocked by destroying five special hangars hidden throughout the campaign missions, and then on top of this, earning enough currency to buy the aircraft. The efforts in doing so, however, were quickly apparent; the Wyvern and Falken are both incredibly manoeuverable, allowing players to accelerate and decelerate with ease, turn on a dime and maintain a bead on other foes thanks to its impressive handling. These planes excel in very specific roles: the Wyvern equips advanced long-range AA missiles that can lock onto four targets at once at long ranges and is capable of destroying entire squadrons at once, while the Falken’s iconic tactical laser torched anything it touched on short order. Being the most capable aircraft in The Unsung War, I’ve longed to fly both the Wyvern and Falken. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown‘s Season Pass offers instant access to these aircraft on top of three additional campaign missions: representing a chance to realise a dream I’ve had since I was in middle school, I picked up the content and immediately found myself with Skies Unknown‘s most powerful aircraft. At that point, I’d already completed the campaign once, so I was already familiar with the mechanics, and upon hopping into the game, it became clear as to why these superplanes were included into the game. Besides being a nostalgic callback to earlier titles, the superplanes live up to their reputation as the most advanced aircraft available to players. However, while The Unsung War required players to earn access to these veritable game-changers, Skies Unknown had made these planes available to anyone with a credit card. At first glance, this diminished the thrill of having the superplanes, since next to no effort needed to be spent in-game to earn them, but looking back, Skies Unknown perfectly balances their aircraft out so that players aren’t given an overwhelming advantage merely because they could buy the DLC.

While the Falken, Morgen and Raven are exceptional aircraft with excellent handling traits, far above those of the other aircraft available in Skies Unknown, their base weapon performance remains unaffected. One must still master dogfighting and aerial manoeuvres to enter a position where they can shoot down their targets. The planes still share the same limitations as other aircraft in that one can only carry a single special weapon with them at a time, and weapons still require a certain amount of knowledge to use effectively. The Raven has unlimited pulse lasers as its gun, but pulse lasers are blocked by moisture, leaving one without a good close-quarters tool if their foes should fly into a cloud. Bringing a tactical laser into a mission with large numbers of ground targets, or wasting a multi-purpose burst missile on an F-16 is unsound. It becomes clear that, while the superplanes are a cut above the other planes available to players in Skies Unknown, their efficacy is determined by one’s ability to operate the plane and understand what its weapons are configured to do. In practise, an inexperienced player will not perform well with a superplane in a given mission, whereas a skillful player will always find ways of making a less-than-optimal aircraft successful. This parallels reality, where having the most top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art tools do not make a difference to anywhere nearly the same extent as having the experience and know-how of how to approach a problem. For instance, the average Macbook is likely used as a note-taking machine that doubles as a great way of watching Netflix, but in the hands of an iOS developer, that same Macbook can be used to debug and compile apps that have a tangible real-world impact. This is why the line from Top Gun: Maverick, is so applicable: as important as it is to have excellent tools, this alone doesn’t mean anything unless one also knows how to utilise their toolset fully. In tuning the superplanes so that they reward skilled players but otherwise don’t offer novice players an overwhelming advantage, Skies Unknown has done a fantastic job of incorporating real-world lessons into its mechanics. Having the Falken, Raven or Morgen isn’t going to make this game any easier, but for players who’ve beaten Skies Unknown and are yearning to fly their favourite superplanes from earlier titles, the Morgen, Raven and Falken are a superb way of seeing iconic planes brought out into the present.

Screenshots and Commentary

• The last time I wrote about Ace Combat 7, it was almost three years ago: 2020 had just arrived, and I’d been looking to the new decade with optimism. At the time, the startup I was with was amidst a push to complete a version two of our app, and while the seed money had run out, investors had expressed that, contingent on us producing an app that had a very clear business case, they would be willing to commit to Series A funding. At that point in time, I’d been a few endpoints short of a working app, and I vividly remember struggling with the Facebook API, as well as integrating the Stripe workflow through their SDK.

• It wasn’t until February that I had a complete app: the founder had been extremely pleased with the completed app and investors had been quite confident this app would be a strong foundation for scaling the business up. However, right at this time, the global health crisis had finally hit. At the beginning of the new year, I had heard of a virulent new coronavirus strain that was wrecking havoc halfway across the world, but once it arrived here, everything suddenly shut down. I certainly had no idea this would happen when I played through and wrote my thoughts on Skies Unknown‘s DLC at the time.

• Since then, I’d not returned to Ace Combat, but recently, after watching Top Gun: Maverick, I suddenly found myself with a desire to fly awesome aircraft around again. I’d beaten Project Wingman earlier this year, and it hit me that both games, because of their unique approaches towards the air combat experience, had their own merits. In Ace Combat, limited special weapons and more forgiving missiles means players are made to be mindful of their choice of aircraft, as well as how they approach a mission given its parameters. Project Wingman lets players run with up to three special weapon types, but on the flipside, has less mission variety.

• After beating Skies Unknown, I quickly replayed the campaign a second time so I could earn the funds needed to unlock the X-02 Strike Wyvern. This was Mihaly’s aircraft during the campaign, and until the first DLC was launched, this was the only superplane available to players. The road to the Strike Wyvern is similar to how one unlocked the Wyvern in The Unsung War, and when unlocked, the Strike Wyvern provides players with a then-unsurpassed platform. For me, I immediately chose to unlock the electromagnetic launcher for the Strike Wyvern.

• With its variable-geometry design, the Strike Wyvern proved to be a highly versatile aircraft best suited for anti-air missions. It is capable of running with a long-range anti-ship missiles or multiple lock-on missiles, giving it some options. Having now played The Unsung War, I found that the option to pick a special weapon meant being able to wield a plane in a greater range of mission types. For my revisit of Skies Unknown, I ran the Strike Wyvern with the electromagnetic launcher: this is the ultimate skill weapon and is devastating against individual targets when a shot connects.

• Having not played Ace Combact for some time, I decided to ease back into things by flying the first mission, where I’d utilise the electromagnetic launcher against the slow-flying bombers. While the electromagnetic launchers aren’t as flashy as the Cordium railguns of Project Wingman, they are still fun to use, and here, I land a kill against a bomber. I’d forgotten how blue the skies of Ace Combat 7 were on this first mission: one of the great joys about any flight game is that it allows one to soar into the skies without needing to book a plane ticket.

• Next, I decided to run with the ADFX-01 Morgan. The first of the superplanes developed by Gründer Industries, the Morgan was designed purely for firepower and foregoes stealth. In-universe, lore states that Belka originally intended to use the Morgan, but Osean forces ended up capturing a prototype. The Oseans never did develop their own equivalent, and in subsequent years, Gründer Industries would build the ADF-01 Falken from data acquired during the Morgan’s development. Designed to carry an unwieldy tactical laser, the Morgan’s manoeuverability is reduced to minimise strain on the airframe, although the Morgan can also be outfitted with the powerful multi-purpose burst missiles.

• However, the Morgan’s most powerful weapon lies in its Integrated Electronic Warfare System (IEWS): when activated, this simultaneously provides ECM and electronics support to both the Morgan and nearby allies. It becomes difficult for enemies to lock onto the Morgan or nearby allied aircraft, and similarly, one’s missiles can lock on much more quickly. While equipping the IEWS precludes the addition of more specialised weapons, the tradeoff means that one’s basic weapons are augmented to a considerable extent.

• The IEWS represents another tool that enhances a skilled player’s ability further: special weapons in Ace Combat are meant to make specific tasks, like hitting multiple ground targets, or neutralising an enemy squadron from afar before they can get into dogfighting range, easier, so forgoing these weapons in favour of making the basic missiles and gun work better represents a commitment to the basics. This double-edged sword is reminiscent of how, after missiles were introduced, pilots lost their ability to dogfight and found themselves at a disadvantage when aircraft stopped carrying an integral auto-cannon.

• By 1968, aircraft loses were mounting, and the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor programme was established to produce pilots that could operate with all aspects of their aircraft, including dogfighting. The programme, better known as TOPGUN, yielded dramatic results; the kill-to-loss ratio improved drastically on subsequent sorties. As a bit of trivia, it turns out that TOPGUN students are fined five dollars every time they reference the Top Gun film: the actual TOP GUN programme is about leadership and professionalism, and the film is fiction, so making light of the programme can be seen as an insult of sorts.

• When I picked up the season pass back in December 2019, I immediately set about flying the Falken, using it in the first of the DLC missions. The Falken is my favourite of the superplanes: with excellent all-around statistics, its The Unsung War incarnation had a tactical laser so powerful even a momentary, glancing hit against a foe would destroy them. Here in Skies Unknown, the tactical laser on the Falken has been dialed back compared to its original appearance for balance reasons. However, the Falken’s laser is still more powerful than the lasers that the other aircraft could equip.

• Bringing the Falken to defend the 444th Air Base was plainly overkill: when I originally played this mission, I believe I was flying a MiG-21 outfitted with the gun pods. At the time, I’d just started Skies Unknown and didn’t have access to parts for bolstering my aircraft’s performance, so I reasoned that having additional gun pods would help me keep up with the enemy bombers. The mission had, admittedly, given quite a bit of trouble, although in the end, I was able to pull things off. Returning with the Falken made the mission trivially easy: with the parts for extending the tactical laser’s hitbox and duration, I was able to destroy bomber groups before they could even see the base.

• While it’s easy to attribute the mission’s reduced difficulty to the fact that the Falken is considerably more powerful than the MiG-21, the fact is that I’ve also got more experience in using the aircraft of Ace Combat by this point in time. This is where the choice of page quote comes from: what one can achieve ultimately boils down to their skill and experience. This definitely holds true in reality, and my example about the MacBook Pro is one I have personal experience with: when I entered my first year as a university student, some of my old high school classmates were quite smug about how they were running the best MacBook Pro of the time in their courses, letting them take notes faster and use social media more efficiently than their peers who didn’t have the latest and greatest tech.

• I stuck to my old-fashioned approach of taking notes by hand, and by my fourth year, during a research symposium, I borrowed one of my lab’s MacBook Pros to do a demo. Said classmates had seen my presentation and had been gobsmacked that it was possible to create and run a full renal system visualisation on the same machines they’d been running. I remarked that this was made possible by the fact that the game engine running my model had been built by exceptionally skilled people, and that with an active imagination and creativity, one will find their machines can always pleasantly surprise them. Since four years had passed, my classmates had matured, and were amazed that technology could accomplish impressive things.

• While I take considerable pride in achieving my goals with whatever tools are available to me, I won’t say no to a hardware upgrade, either: being able to do my job more effectively is something I always welcome, and I will note that good hardware is the difference between night and day. I primarily do my work on a company 2019 model MacBook Pro nowadays, but for my own side projects, I work off a 2017 iMac. The aging hardware is quite noticeable now: Xcode is considerably slower to compile apps and run the iOS simulator. However, because these side projects are for my own edification more than anything, I don’t see a particular need to upgrade my iMac just yet.

• The last of the superplanes that came with the season pass is the ADF-11F Raven, an evolution of the ADF series. Originally an unmanned aircraft, the DLC gives players a manned version they can pilot, and despite its bulky airframe, it shares similar handling traits to the Falken. For my test-run of this aircraft, I decided to fly the mission to defend Stonehenge and decided to equip the tactical laser. Having said this, the Raven’s best weapon is the UCAV, autonomous drones armed with pulse lasers that function similarly to DRAGOONS, Bits and Funnels.

• To ensure things are balanced, the Raven can only send out two UCAV’s at once. Were one able to send out eight UCAVs at the same time, the Raven would become as overpowered as a Gundam, and there’d be no challenge at all to the game. Similarly, were Ace Combat to allow the same approach as Project Wingman, in allowing players to carry additional special weapons into the skies, the balance would be gone. While Project Wingman‘s approach increases combat versatility dramatically and make the ordinary aircraft capable of adapting to different scenarios, the end result of this is that the game’s ultimate aircraft, the PW Mk.I, becomes obscenely powerful.

• I am looking to write about my experiences with Project Wingman‘s best aircraft in a separate post, since it completely alters the way one plays the game. Having said this, it would be interesting to see if the upcoming Ace Combat title will expand aircraft customisation options and potentially allow players to carry a second special weapon type at the expense of bringing performance-improving parts. In such a scenario, there could be a set of special weapons all aircraft could equip (such as the Mark 81 or Mark 82 unguided bombs, 70 mm rocket pods and missile variants, such as high-velocity missiles that sacrifice explosive payload, or high-impact missiles that sacrifice speed). One could then select these additional weapons in place of upgrade parts to increase their firepower.

• I do not imagine that the next Ace Combat title will allow this, since Ace Combat games have traditionally emphasised the idea that certain planes are more suited for some roles than others, and this encouraged players to mix up their planes in a mission to achieve the goals more effectively. For me, the Stonehenge defensive mission with the Raven proved quite manageable: on my original run, I flew an F/A-18C and found success by prioritising targets on the ground. Having now returned to Skies Unknown and replaying some missions, I am reminded of how much fun I had when going through this game three years ago.

• I am therefore curious to see what the next Ace Combat title entails; at present, there is no information on what story this game will tell, but excitement is high because of Unreal Engine 5, which has proven exceptional in tech demos. In the meantime, having found newfound engagement with Ace Combat 7, I will be looking to pick up the Top Gun DLC when there’s a sale: I thoroughly enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick, and the opportunity to fly the Darkstar hypersonic aircraft, Pete Mitchell’s custom F/A18E and equip the Rooster and Hangman emblems would be quite entertaining. This might perhaps incentivise me to revisit the entire Skies Unknown campaign again. Until then, all eyes are on the Modern Warfare II campaign. While the game is going to cost 90 CAD, the trailers for it have been very promising, and if the play-throughs I see of it instill sufficient excitement, I anticipate picking up Modern Warfare II shortly after launch and making my way through the campaign early November.

In practise, being the earliest of the ADFX prototypes, the Morgan is the weaker of the superplanes. Its tactical laser has a six-second recharge, but on the flipside, it is able to carry the obscenely powerful multi-purpose burst missile, which I’d previously used to destroy the Alicorn’s weapons and structures in the DLC missions. The Raven’s special weapons and performance make it an immensely powerful dogfighter, and its drones are able to make short work of the targets its assigned to. Moreover, it was one of the few planes that had the pulse lasers as its gun. In situations where there isn’t much cloud cover, the Raven can decimate aircraft without expending its missiles. On the other hand, the Falken is probably the most versatile of the superplanes; it has the most effective tactical laser of any aircraft (signified by the fact that the beam is blue, rather than pink), and it is capable of carrying the fuel-air bomb, whose large blast radius makes it suited for missions with an anti-ground focus. Finally, the Strike Wyvern, Skies Unknown‘s upgraded version of the Wyvern, lives up to its role as a plane for aces: beyond a weaker anti-ground rating, it shares similar performance statistics as the Falken, and its most powerful weapon, the electromagnetic launcher, demands utmost precision because it fires projectiles at hypersonic velocities. Unlike the tactical laser, which can be directed to focus on a target after it’s begun firing, the electromagnetic launcher only fires individual rounds, so one must be certain of their aim before pulling the trigger. In the hands of a capable pilot, any one of these superplanes will deal a significant amount of damage: each represents a novel way of experience Skies Unknown to the point where it is a worthwhile exercise to revisit the campaign with these new aircraft and see how far one has come, both in terms of their skill and the tools available to them, once they’ve completed the campaign. Of course, having finally returned to Skies Unknown after two years, and with the recent release of the Top Gun: Maverick accompaniment DLC, I am now intrigued to fly the Darkstar, a superplane that is capable reaching a top speed twice that of the Raven, along with Pete Mitchell’s custom F/A-18 and the fifth-generation fighters seen in this film. Top Gun: Maverick was a superbly gripping film that, in my eyes, surpasses even the original to deliver an unparalleled movie-going experience, and in doing so, revitalised my enjoyment of the Ace Combat and Project Wingman games.

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War- Final Review and Reflection at the Endgame

“When history witnesses a great change, Razgriz reveals itself; first, as a dark demon. As a demon, it uses its power to rain death upon the land, and then it dies. However, after a period of slumber, Razgriz returns; this time, as a great hero.” –Albert Genette

With Nagase safely returned, Osea stage an offensive on Yuktobanian forces in the Jilachi Desert, successfully destroying their command headquarters and capturing an airfield. Wardog Squadron is then invited to poerform a ceremonial flyover in November City while the Osean Vice President gives a speech, but Yuktobanian aircraft enter the airspace, forcing Wardog to engage them while reinforcements are called in. During the confusion, the enigmatic 8492nd Squadron call off the reinforcements and Davenport ends up taking damage. Unable to eject, he crashes into the stadium and dies. Wardog later assists with the assault on Cruik Fortress as Osean forces press towards the Yuktobanian capital and are successful in neutralising its defenses, but en route to an allied escort, come under attack from the 8492nd Squadron. At Sand Island, Wardog is forced to escape with their mechanic, Wolfgang Buchner, after commander Allen C. Hamilton brands them as traitors. They rendezvous with Marcus Snow, who shoots down Wardog’s aircraft and secretly has the Kestrel pick everyone up. On board the Kestrel, Wardog learns that Vincent Harling is held at Stier Castle and participate in an operation to free him. Information also reveals that the Grey Men, hardline Belkan nationalists, were the ones who manufactured the antagonism between Osea and Yuktobania. Its members include politicians, businessmen and military command, unified by a desire to take revenge on both Osea and Yuktobania after their defeat in the Belkan War. To this end, they orchestrated Harling’s kidnapping and the replacement of Yuktobanian Prime Minister Seryozha Viktrovich Nikanor, as well as secretly prepare nuclear weapons to carry out their act of vengeance. After freeing Harling, Wardog is redesignated as the Razgriz, and tasked attacks the Belkan facility at Mount Schirm after carrying out reconnaisance that points to nuclear weapons being stockpiled here. They are successful, and later, Razgriz heads off to assist anti-war factions in Yuktobania, providing air support for them while they dismantle a Belkan warhead. The Belkan squadron, Ofnir, arrives to fight Razgriz, but they are shot down. Belkan operatives capture the Arkbird and plan to use it to detonate the remaining nuclear warhead they have over Okchabursk, Razgriz manages to shoot down the Arkbird. It turns out that Captain Bartlett had survived and joined the Yuktobanian resistance. He rendezvouses with Razgriz, bringing Nikanor with him. With the leaders secured, Razgriz engages and shoots down Grabacr Squadron before returning to the Kestrel. However, the Osean fleet comes under fire from Yuktobanian vessels. While Nikanor heads off for Oured to meet with Harling and issue a joint statement demanding an end to this war, Razgriz sinks the pursuing Yuktobanian forces and the Osean forces sent out to deal with the Kestrel. Information from Bartlett reveals the Belkans had completed construction on the SOLG, an Osean weapon that was abandoned after the previous war ended. The Grey Men intend to use the SOLG to launch the V2 MIRV. Mid-briefing, the Kestrel is sunk, but not before Razgriz takes to the skies for an all-out attack on the SOLG’s control facility in Sudentor. They are joined by friendly Yuktobanian and Osean aircraft alike, and after clearing out the ground defenses, Blaze heads into the tunnel to destroy the control unit while Bartlett flies in from the opposite end to take out the backup controls. Both are successful, and Hamilton is killed when he collides with a plane. On New Year’s Eve, the SOLG begins descending into Oured, and Razgriz sortie to destroy it. With its core units annihilated, the SOLG explodes harmlessly over Oured Bay, bringing the Circum-Pacific War to an end.

Whereas Skies Unknown explored the dangers of entrusting warfare, of life-or-death decisions to machines, The Unsung War speaks to the idea that warfare (and indeed, a majority of the world’s ills) are the consequence of collusion amongst a small group of shadowy elite. The Grey Men are the real foe in The Unsung War, manipulating events from behind-the-scenes, fuelling hatred between Oseans and the Yuktobanians with the aim of destroying them both to settle a perceived slight. Radical groups that possess little more than a few Twitter accounts and spirited, but untrained youth are unlikely to be threats, but when these groups are financially stable and have members in critical parts of a society, they can begin dealing real damage to peace and stability. These activities occur far from the public eye: to Oseans and Yutkobanians, it would simply appear as though the two governments were going to war with one another in response to the other’s actions. The Grey Men are shown as kidnapping politicians and ordering special squadrons beholden to them to create atrocities that furthered the hatred between the two nations. One method the Grey Men are not explictly stated as employing, but very likely to have been used, is the act of media collusion, in which multiple news outlets repost content with the same tone and opinion within a very short period of time with the aim of giving the impression that multiple “independent” sources all reached the same conclusion on a given topic. Because of the scope and scale of media outlets, it would be quite tricky for journalists to all hold the same opinion on something in such a synchronised manner (even if people do agree, the evidence chosen and method in which a conclusion is reached would all differ at least slightly): only a powerful guiding force would be able to achieve such a level of cohesiveness. When multiple sources reach the same apparent conclusion, the public is left to believe that what’s being reported is indisputable fact, and in this way, those who manipulate the media could, in theory, control how the public think. It is not inconceivable that the Grey Men also had people bankrolling both Osean and Yuktobanian media, allowing them to create events and amplify feelings of hatreds through the news. Such a foe can seem unbeatable, but The Unsung War gives players a chance to fight back against this injustice in a manner consistent with Ace Combat: take a missile-laden aircraft into the air and blow up assets helpful to the Grey Men, frustrating their plans to the point where the truth is exposed to the world. In this way, The Unsung War suggests that while shadowy societies like the Grey Men can manipulate the world to a hitherto unprecedented extent, the will of a few determined individuals, in the right place and at the right time, can shut down even the most well-organised of plans. The build-up to this in The Unsung War is exceptional, and through the game’s second half, players really do feel as though they’re making a tangible difference in Strangereal. Every single part to the Grey Men’s elaborate machine of revenge taken down feels immensely satisfying, and The Unsung War makes it abundantly clear that every action Razgriz takes has relevance in a larger context.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Last I left off, I’d just finished recovering Nagase from the frozen taiga of Yuktobania’s northernmost regions. Here, Wardog is sent out to the Jilachi Desert, and since I ended up replying “yes” to Chopper’s song, I was sent on over to Operation Desert Arrow. The distinct circular farm patches here are a result of center pivot irrigation, a form of irrigation in which equipment is rotated around a pivot, creating a circular area where crops can be watered. The technique was devised in the 1940s by a Colorado farmer named Frank Zybach, and the technique is remarkably efficient, reducing soil compaction and labour costs.

• While centre pivot irrigation is an American innovation, it has been used elsewhere in the world: Saudi Arabia also employs the technique, and indeed, these desert missions have a distinctly Gulf War aesthetic about them. These are the only two desert missions in the whole of The Unsung War, and according to players, I ended up choosing the easier of the two missions: Desert Blitz is said to be an infamous mission owing to how its objectives are placed, but the prize is worth it: there’s a hidden hangar that needs to be destroyed in order to secure the last of the parts for the legendary Falken.

• For the first time since picking up the Ace Combat 5 strategy guide at the local library, I finally fly over the skies of November City, a major Osean population centre inspired by Toronto and Los Angeles. The tower seen to the right of the image resembles the CN Tower, and the proximity of the stadium to the observation tower is reminiscent of how close the Rogers Centre is to the CN Tower. There’s an aesthetic about November City that can’t be found anywhere else in The Unsung War; the mission is set during the evening, and players simply need to fly over the stadium.

• A mission without enemies would be dull, and moments after the fly-over, Yuktobanian aircraft appear over Osean airspace, prompting an evacuation. Nothing can be seen on the ground, as players will be completely focused on shooting down the enemy fighters. Missions like these typify Ace Combat‘s ability to do more with less: the game itself is about flying awesome aircraft armed to the teeth and blowing up entire squadrons on one’s own, but an incredible amount of the story is presented through the communications chatter that players overhear.

• By placing dialogue at key points in the game, The Unsung War is able to create a sense of urgency and connect the players’ actions to a much larger context. Engaging flights of Yuktobanian fighters while stadium crews below begin evacuating spectators clearly conveys players to the idea that Blaze and Wardog squadron are playing an essential role in keeping enemy fighters away from the stadium. For this mission, I flew the F-15S/MTD, an experimental version of the F-15 equipped with a unique 2D nozzle that could use thrust vectoring and increase its performance at low speed.

• The unlock system in The Unsung War is simple enough: some aircraft are unlocked for purchase after completing certain campaign missions, and player performance in campaign mission yields currency to buy aircraft. Using an aircraft enough will unlock the next iteration of the aircraft in the tree, and all aircraft in The Unsung War have a unique special weapon. The F-15S/MTD is equipped with XMAA, medium air-to-air missiles that can lock onto four targets simultaneously. These are reasonable missiles against distant air targets, and are especially fun to employ against targets that are still in formation.

• Eventually, a flight of F-117s will show up and crash the party, while Davenport dies in a crash after his aircraft sustains damage and he is unable to eject. The mission has a melancholy to it as a result, and despite the lingering mystery resulting from the 8492nd Squadron’s conflicting instructions, the loss of Davenport is tangibly felt. I’d come to greatly enjoy his banter during missions: he reminds me a great deal of Skies Unknown‘s Count, who similarly clashed with Bandog in highly amusing ways. When Spare Squadron’s pilots get transferred over to Strider squadron, the exchanges decreased, but Count remained an interesting character.

• I’ve skipped over a few missions for this post, passing over the assault on Cruik Fortress, Wardog’s escape from Hamilton’s rogue pilots and being guided through perilous skies to escape the treacherous 8492nd: The Unsung War is a superb game where every mission is unique, and every mission is enjoyable, but there are some missions that particularly stood out for me. Thus, I resume with the strike against Stier Castle in the heart of Belka, a land ravaged by war: during the previous war, in a bid to destroy their foes, they utilised nuclear weapons in the Waldreich Mountains, and this has left the area scarred. There is a moodiness about this mission, and Stier Castle itself is covered in grey.

• Looking back, it would be fair to say that Skies Unknown‘s Shilage Castle was probably inspired by Stier Castle – both missions entail defending ground forces assaulting the castle. However, The Unsung War, the mission aims are only to take out ground targets and allow President Harling to be extracted, whereas in Skies Unknown, once the castle is seized, Trigger must do battle against Mihaly and his top-of-the-line Strike Wyvern. The lack of a single powerful ace in The Unsung War is noticeable, and while both the Ofnir and Grabacr squadrons are said to be formidable, they can be destroyed in moments with the right aircraft.

• I opted to go for the F-22A Raptor for this mission despite the prevalence of ground targets. Aircraft in Ace Combat have special weapons that make them suited for a specific role, and planes with stronger ground capabilities are simply those with dedicated anti-ground special weapons. Beyond this, a plane suited for anti-aircraft operations can still hold their own in missions with an emphasis on ground targets, so for this mission in Belka, I found no difficulties in using the F-22A to deal with air and ground foes alike. Of all the missions in The Unsung War, the operation to retrieve President Harling from Belka brought back memories of winter days during my youth, when I’d spend snowy weekends visiting the local mall.

• The snow-covered, overcast atmospheric surroundings create a sense of death that I’d long come to associate with this time of year, and it does feel like Belka ends up being the punching bag of The Unsung War, being a nation whose citizens suffer as a result of the games that their politicians play. Although Wardog squadron can’t directly take the fight to the Grey Men, their actions directly contribute to the Grey Men’s plans falling apart. The level of collusion shown in The Unsung War was scripted for the game’s story, but it is disappointing that in reality, there are analogues of this occurring.

• I can think of no better example than the recent debacle with the MY2022 app: a few weeks ago (in fact, on the day I published my thoughts for The Unsung War‘s first half), all the media outlets in the nation simultaneously ran the same story about how the Citizen’s Lab allegedly gained access to the MY2022 iOS app’s source code and found “serious security risks for personal information” because the app doesn’t use SSL. This media’s assertion is laughable because there is no source code in a compiled executable (i.e. the .ipa files that iOS devices utilise to store apps), so there is no way that the Citizen’s Lab would have performed a code review to back such claims. Since iOS 9, all apps submitted to the App Store need to enforce TLS (Transport Layer Security) support, and the networking libraries have built-in support for TLS.

• As such, to state that the MY2022 app isn’t compliant with authority, one would need to prove that the endpoint connections aren’t secure. The resource names are typically stored in the app’s source code, which, as previously mentioned, isn’t included with the .ipa file. If vulnerabilities are indeed present, they were found in some other way, but the media has obfuscated things to the point where they’re erroneously suggesting that the Citizen’s Lab gained access to MY2022’s source code. For most people, this explanation would be sufficient evidence of the app’s developers caught in wrong-doing, but a developer would find it strange to claim that the Citizen’s Lab is able to do something that, by definition, is not possible. That every news outlet across the nation broadcasted the story at the same time is reminiscent of the level of coordination was previously seen with the “Gamers are Dead” incident some years earlier.

• This sort of thing does seem to suggest that there might be forces at work to denigrate the 2022 Winter Games, and on that note, today marks the first day of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. China ended putting on a solid showing at the opening ceremony in spite of bad press; the events were a sight to behold, from the nation’s entries and performances, right up to the torch lighting and fireworks. I’ve never found the Olympics to be an appropriate arena for political games and are more interested in Canada’s medal counts at such events. Back in The Unsung War, I participate in an assault on the Mount Schirm complex, where the Belkans are holding nuclear warheads. Sustained fire on the tunnel entrance buries the opening, preventing the Belkans from accessing their stockpile.

• However, at least three warheads were secured, and so, Razgriz squadron next head off to assist resistance members in Yuktobania: they’ve managed to secure one of the Belkan nuclear warheads. Thanks to tight anti-air defenses, Razgriz must stay within the canyon walls to avoid anti-air fire. This mission likely inspired the opening segment of a similar mission in Skies Unknown, in which players must navigate a narrow canyon in order to maintain surprise over the Eurusean forces. There is a little more tolerance here in The Unsung War, and players can actually fly briefly over the canyon walls before the enemy anti-air weapons kick in.

• Once the forces in the river valley are destroyed, Ofnir Squadron will appear. They’re also under the Grey Man’s pay, but despite their fearsome reputation, I promptly shot them down: the F-22A’s XMAA missiles made short work of most of the enemy fighters, and a brief dogfight allowed me to down the rest. With this last mission in the books, The Unsung War enters its endgame – the Belkans’ machinations are now out in the open, and they’ve seized control of the Arkbird, a joint Osean and Yuktobanian project that sought to push the two nations on a path of cooperation after the first Belkan War ended. Equipped with lasers, the Arkbird was designed to remain in low Earth orbit and destroy asteroid fragments.

• By the events of The Unsung War, the Grey Men operatives seize control of the Arkbird and outfit it with a nuclear warhead with the aim of destroying the Yuktobanian capital. Nagase’s love of the Arkbird signified her love of peace, and so, when the Arkbird’s symbolism is corrupted by warmongers, she must now participate in the operation to destroy the very thing that represented her optimism. This was The Unsung War‘s way of showing how even symbols can be corrupted over time by shadowy organisations like the Grey Men. When this happens, people must set aside their own feelings and do what is necessary.

• In order to catch the Arkbird, I ended up flying the MiG-31M Foxhound, the fastest plane available in The Unsung War. Equipped with unmatched acceleration and the highest top speed of any aircraft, the MiG-31M is a true interceptor, designed for catching up to bombers and taking them out of the skies. The Advanced Long Range AA missiles the MiG-31M runs in The Unsung War can lock onto four targets at once at long ranges, making them a powerful tool. On my first few attempts, I got vapourised by the Arkbird’s defensive lasers, but once I figured the laser out, it was a matter of attacking the Arkbird’s engines.

• The Arkbird also deploys UAVs called Vogels. These UAVs are a precursor of sorts to the MQ series that show up in Skies Unknown, and while they’re uncommonly manoeuvrable, they are also surprisingly durable. I opted not to attack them, leaving them to my wingmen to deal with: instead, I focused on their launch ports after destroying the laser that was firing on me. Once the Belkans realise the Arkbird is too damaged to attack Yuktobania, the operative on board changes his plans to detonate the nuclear warhead over Osean territory. Dialogue creates a sense of urgency, pushing players to continue hitting the Arkbird.

• Once the Belkan operative activates the Arkbird’s final emergency booster engine, it will appear on the player’s HUD, and destroying this will end the level. The Arkbird will plummet into the ocean below, its nuclear payload lost forever, and in the aftermath, it turns out that one of the resistance fighters who’d been aiding Razgriz is none other than Captain Bartlett. After he was shot down, he managed to escape Yuktobanian captivity and ended up joining the resistance. With help from Nastasya Vasilievna Obertas, Bartlett proves instrumental in unveiling the plans the Grey Men had for the world, and once the Arkbird is destroyed, Razgriz squadron heads out over to the Pobeda Peninsula in order to assist in a critical operation: Bartlett and Obertas have managed to free Yuktobanian Prime Minister Nikanor from the Grey Men’s clutches.

• Razgriz head off to a far-flung corner of Yuktobania in order to rendezvous with Bartlett at the crack of dawn. Numerous checkpoints lie along his path, and at certain points, Bartlett will ask Blaze whether or not he should take a shortcut. Shortcuts will introduce more checkpoints that Blaze will have to deal with; if the checkpoints are not destroyed, Bartlett’s convoy will be wiped out. While the presence of ground targets suggest an anti-ground aircraft will fare better, the presence of enemy air means it’s easier to go with a fighter.

• Slowing down and making use of guns will be sufficient in taking down the checkpoints. Throughout the mission, Nagase and Grimm will feel a little more relaxed than they have all game; having Bartlett back is great, and while he’s not quite the motormouth that Davenport is, Bartlett has a sense of humour and is always willing to lighten the mood up. As it turns out, he and Obertas were fromer lovers, leading him to take on the callsign “Heartbreak One” after she left him. This was something I’ve long wondered about, and being able to experience things for myself meant one more mystery in The Unsung War was solved, doubling my respect for the game.

• Once Bartlett’s convoy reaches the Yuktobanian airfield, he will disembark and attempt to seize control of a C-1 transport in order to escape and bring Prime Ministor Nikanor to safety. Several tanks and anti-air guns defend the airfield, and once they’re destroyed, Bartlett will attempt to take to the skies. The sun begins rising, and Grabacr squadron will appear. The time has therefore come to put the F-22A’s advanced multi-target missiles to use here. This elite squadron, along with Ofnir squadron, are composed of former Belkan nationalists, and were persuaded by the Grey Men to join their cause.

• The fact that the Grey Men have infiltrated almost every level of infrastructure in both the Osean and Yuktobanian nations speaks to how dangerous hidden organisations can be; it is only though Razgriz’s efforts that they are stopped. With all that is going on out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if shadowy organisations were manipulating the world’s chaos from behind the scenes, hiding behind lies and proxy soldiers to do their bidding. I ended up shooting the entirety of Grabacr down to finish off the mission, although all of the pilots manage to eject, allowing them to fight another day.

• Razgriz squadron returns to the Kestrel, but the Osean fleet soon comes under fire from Yuktobanian vessels. Despite Nikanor’s message, the fleet continues to come under fire, forcing Razgriz into the skies. For this mission, I took the F-35C into the skies: armed with the long-range anti-ship missile, the F-35 is ideally suited for anti-surface warfare. The long-range anti-ship missiles in Ace Combat can sink enemy ships with ease, and in some situations, are useful in ground operations. While lacking blast damage, these missiles are effective against individually tough ground targets in The Unsung War.

• Armed with the F-35C, this mission became remarkably enjoyable: the anti-ship missiles can acquire a lock from range, allowing one to destroy two ships quickly. From here, one can then strafe the remaining ships in a formation to quickly sink them. The atmospherics surrounding The Unsung War‘s final mission is unparalleled, and there’s a sort of finality about them now that the Grey Men’s machinations are out in the open. The end is evidently near, and the game’s pacing really picks up. One after another, the Yuktobanian fleet is put on the sea floor, and even when rogue Osean forces show up, I still had enough anti-ship missiles left to sort them out, too.

• While the F-35C is rated for anti-ship combat, it performs admirably against air targets, as well. The numbers in The Unsung War appear to indicate how well a given aircraft performs in a role owing to its special weapons, and each aircraft type is limited to one kind of special weapon, hence this value. By Skies Unknown, each aircraft comes with one set of special weapons, but can equip different special weapons once they’re purchased, increasing their versatility. Project Wingman, an independent title, features aircraft that can carry three different kinds of special weapons simultaneously.

• I have been eying Project Wingman with interest: it’s made by a three-person team but nonetheless has managed to capture the Ace Combat aesthetic very well. Returning to The Unsung War has reignited my interest in arcade-y flight games, and I suddenly found myself excited to try out more Ace Combat-like games. Project Wingman fits the bill quite nicely, and I’ll be writing about my experiences in the demo version on short order: the footage I’ve seen of Project Wingman looks very promising, and my interest in seeing the demo will be two-fold. First, I’d like to make certain my machine can run it, and second, I have read that there are small differences between Project Wingman and Ace Combat‘s mechanics. While minor, these are substantial enough so I’d like to get a feel for things before diving head-first into Project Wingman.

• We’ve come to it at last: the two missions I’ve longed to play the most in The Unsung War. With Prime Minister Nikanor and President Harling appearing together on national television to shake hands and demand the beligerent factions to lay down their weapons, a coalition of Yuktobanian and Osean forces accompany Razgriz squadron on one final offensive against the Belkans: under the snowy skies of Sudentor, Razgriz gets to work destroying ground targets so allied forces can assault the facility holding the SOLG. The SOLG (Strategic Orbital Linear Gun) is an Osean weapon that was originally designed to counteract Yuktobania and later, Belka, but after the wars ended, it was abandoned.

• The Grey Men managed to get the SOLG to an operational state, and have modified it so it fires a MIRV rather than kinetic projectiles. This information comes late in the game – the threat posed by the MIRV is that Belka now has a superweapon capable of wiping out half the cities in either Osea or Yuktobania. As such, it is unsurprising that both nations’ appetite for war has dulled, and now, it’s a flight to take the SOLG out of the game before it causes unspeakable calamity. Sudentor is a former Belkan city that became incorporated into northern Osea after the first Belkan War, and, as the headquarters of Gründer Industries, is a large city with numerous research parks and a sizeable central commercial district.

• I ended up picking the Su-34, one of the most effective anti-ground aircraft in the whole of The Unsung War, for this strike at Sudentor – its payload of advanced anti-ground missiles can lock onto multiple targets at once, have a large blast radius, and the missiles perform a top-down attack, allowing them to strike targets from behind cover. These proved useful, since Sudentor is a target-rich environment. For the mission’s first part, the goal is simple enough; one needs to remove all of the foes between allied ground forces and the SOLG control’s entrance tunnel.

• I’ve always wondered whether or not the skies over Sudentor is a consequence of the weather, or the urban pollution and smoky skies resulting from the fact the area is a major industrial centre. In Skies Unknown, I had the chance to fly over Anchorhead Bay during a night operation, and the modernised graphics show a vibrant urban area. Being able to revisit iconic Ace Combat locations in a future title is always a possibility: Skies Unknown brought players back to Shattered Skies‘ most famous areas, so I remain optimistic that one could revisit places like Sudentor in a future game.

• We finally come to this moment at last: the tunnel flight I’ve always wanted to experience for myself. The Su-34 has above average stability and handling traits, so it was time to gently guide it into the narrow tunnel leading to the SOLG’s control systems. Experienced players will have memorised the tunnel’s interior layout, right down to the shutters, and therefore, can blast through at full speed. However, since this was my first time, I allowed the plane to fly at its default airspeed and hit the brakes whenever I felt uncomfortable with manoeuvring in the tunnel itself.

• In the end, being careful meant I was able to finish the mission without crashing into the tunnel walls, and this tunnel flight is actually more straightforward than the flight to escape the 8492nd from Sand Island, which had a few tight turns and large obstacles within. A few of the shutters will begin closing as Blaze passes through the tunnel, but they close slowly enough so one could roll a little to squeeze underneath them. Unlike Skies Unknown, exiting the tunnel is straightforwards, too: there’s no need to manoeuvre between the pillars of an orbital elevator and then fly vertically.

• While Blaze flies in from one end, Bartlett will enter from the other side. Both are able to coordinate a strike on the SOLG’s core components, severing its connection to the surface, and next comes the most suspenseful moment: Blaze must fly past Bartlett without crashing into him. Bartlett will call the player’s turn so no one crashes, but keeping right on the tunnel will prevent the mission from ending prematurely. Aircraft will have entered from behind players, and for most of the run, there’s nothing that can be done about them. Even Hamilton has joined the fight against Razgriz, and with him on Blaze’s six, the only thing left is to keep flying. Eventually, Bartlett will say Hamilton was killed by a ricocheting plane.

• Personally, I would’ve loved to have fought Hamilton in a one-on-one, the same way I fought Mihaly, but because of Razgriz’s focus on stopping the SOLG, there’s no chance to do so. Once the core components are destroyed, shutters will begin closing, making it imperative to fly back out into the night skies. It was such an incredible rush to exit the tunnel and finish this mission. However, there is one more surprise that The Unsung War has for players: the Belkans had programmed a failsafe into the SOLG, and it’s begun descending for Oured. If it is allowed to crash and detonate its payload of MIRVs, the Osean capital will be devastated. As such, Razgriz is asked to put everything on the line one more time to save Oured.

• Thus, on the morning of New Year’s Eve, Razgriz takes off from a freeway near Oured’s harbour and soars into the pre-dawn skies, with fire in their hearts and a grim determination to destroy the Grey Men’s final weapon. This mission has long resonated with me for its unmatched symbolism, and I will actually be returning come New Year’s Eve, with the Wyvern and Falken in hand, to discuss why The Unsung War‘s New Year’s Eve mission is so significant. On the topic of New Year, this past week saw the arrival of the Chinese New Year, and we celebrated in style with a poon choi (盆菜), a special festival meal comprised of a mouth-watering array of ingredients (abalone, conpoy, whole prawns, chicken, thick-cut pork belly with the skin, oysters, BBQ pork, fish balls, cabbage, broccoli and shiitake mushrooms, to name a few).

• This year’s poon choi was a ways larger than the one last year despite costing the same, so I am to take it that my favourite restaurant in town is doing well. Unsurprisingly, it was delicious, and as one of my friends puts it, it’s the best of Cantonese cuisine put into a single bowl. Back in The Unsung War, I’ve finished off the remains of the Grabacr squadron by blasting them with the F-22A’s multi-target missiles, leaving me plenty of time to fly on over to the SOLG’s point of descent. The SOLG was originally designed to be a coilgun, so I’m guessing the idea behind giving it an MIRV was to accelerate these nuclear warheads to a point where they couldn’t be intercepted. The SOLG is the final fight of The Unsung War, being an unmanned weapon on a collision course with Oured.

• Solar panels and a rotating counterweight system will block the SOLG’s core systems from a direct hit: one must time their shots so that their missiles find their mark. The SOLG’s movement makes it feel like one is standing still, and it takes some finesse to avoid colliding with the SOLG’s main barrel, as well as any fragments that come off the SOLG. However, the SOLG is not the toughest foe I’ve ever faced in an Ace Combat game (that goes to the ADF-11F units, Hugin and Munin, that were encountered at the end of Skies Unknown). Here under the rising New Year’s Eve sun, I finished off the SOLG, and found myself wondering if Oured’s citizens were aware of Razgriz’s accomplishments here on this day. Destroying the SOLG brings the Circum-Pacific War, and The Unsung War, to an end. Truth be told, I never thought that I’d be able to do the Sudentor tunnel flight or take on the SOLG for myself.

• That January afternoon some ten years earlier, I wistfully watched the YouTube videos of gameplay, when I was supposed to be reviewing alkene and alkyne reactions for organic chemistry, and balanced trees for computer science. I suppose that if I’d played The Unsung War then, the distraction would’ve caused me to fail out of university outright: nowadays, circumstances are different, and while the current cohort of students might be fighting their way through properties of a B tree or the Diels-Alder reaction, I’m able to kick back and blast planes without worrying about midterm I: with The Unsung War in the books, I’ve now fulfilled a dream I’ve had for about seventeen years. I will reiterate that I’m glad to be at a point where I’m no longer troubled by electrostatic properties of various functional groups for organic chemistry, and with this post in the books, my plans for this month are to wrap up posts for Halo Infinite, revisit Ragnarok Online now that I’ve gotten my own private server set up, and knock out posts for a few anime I’ve been watching in between Slow Loop.

With this, I’ve now experienced Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War in full; I’ve found the answers I’ve been seeking out since picking up The Unsung War‘s official strategy guide at the public library all those summers ago. The Unsung War is a fantastic game, and having now gone through it, my appreciation of Skies Unknown doubles for the fact that The Unsung War had polished so many aspects that would become staples of the Ace Combat franchise. To see Project Aces bring The Unsung War‘s best features into Skies Unknown speaks volumes to how far ahead of its time The Unsung War was: everything from mechanics to aesthetic were not only faithfully reproduced, but improved upon in Skies Unknown to produce the first proper Ace Combat game since 2007’s Fires of Liberation, and the first true Ace Combat experience for PC players. Altogether, it should be evident that I had a great deal of fun going through The Unsung War, and despite the game’s age (it’s 18 years old at the time of writing), it manages to hold out very well, both from a mechanical and thematic perspective. More than once, I found myself wishing for a modernised remaster of The Unsung War. However, I understand that this is highly improbable given the state of gaming today (microtransactions are favoured over games that allow players to unlock everything through replay and skill alone), and with news of a new Ace Combat in development, one cannot help but hope that several locations from The Unsung War will be revisited in this new instalment. Ace Combat 7 brought players back to Stonehenge and Farbati, so it is possible that the new Ace Combat could give players a chance to revisit Sudentor, Stier Castle, November City and Oured itself. This is an exciting thought, and having finished something that the me of a decade ago would’ve thought impossible, I turn my attention to where I go next for Ace Combat; The Unsung War‘s final mission, The Unsung War, is set on New Year’s Eve, and I’d always felt there was something special about this particular mission’s aesthetic. In discussions with my best friend, we ended up reaching a conclusion on what this was, although to my surprise, this topic has never been explored anywhere else. As such, I do have future plans on covering the significance of a December 31 mission in The Unsung War in the context of the Circum-Pacific War and what this meant for The Unsung War‘s story. Similarly, to keep myself busy while awaiting whatever the next Ace Combat instalment is, I’ve begun looking at Project Wingman: the gameplay looks solid, and as my best friend notes, arcade flight games with bombastic weapons and entertaining stories have the makings of a summer experience. Although said friend can’t put his finger on why this is the case, I think I’ve got an answer: big, explosive experiences are the hallmark of a summer blockbuster, an indulgent and entertaining experience perfectly suited for those long and warm days of summer. Project Wingman satisfies this criteria, and in fact, I ended up picking this up during the Lunar New Year sale and will begin my journey in this experience shortly.

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War- At the Halfway Point

“Amidst the eternal waves of time, From a ripple of change shall the storm rise, Out of the abyss peer the eyes of a demon, Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath!” –Razgriz Poem, Part One

In 2010, an unidentified spy plane appears near Sand Island, prompting Wardog squadron to scramble. Rookie pilot, Blaze, accompanies Captain Jack Bartlett and two other trainees, Kei Nagase and Alvin H. Davenport into the air to intercept the plane, which unexpectedly calls for support. Although they are successful in repelling the attackers, a second spy plane shows up three days later, forcing Wardog squadron to scramble yet again. During the combat, Bartlett is shot down and declared missing. On the same day, Yuktobania declares war on Osea. Wardog squadron is sent to defend the Osean fleet, before returning to Sand Island. Hans Grimm joins Wardog squadron, and Blaze’s actions lead him to become promoted to Wardog’s flight lead. Wardog escorts the Kestrel and two other carriers, but an attack from the Yuktobanian submarine, Scinfaxi, destroys the other aircraft carriers and most of the air forces with burst missiles. This turn of events prompts Osea to accelerate the installation of a laser module on the Arkbird, a low-orbiting space craft originally intended to be utilised as a testbed for aeronautical technologies and space exploration. Yuktobanian forces launch an attack on the facility, but Wardog manages to repel them. When the Scinfaxi attacks Sand Island, the Arkbird’s support allows the defenders to focus on the Scinfaxi, and despite severe losses from the last of the burst missiles, Wardog squadron sinks the Scinfaxi. To prevent the war from escalating, Osean president Vincent Harling makes his way over to a secret peace summit with the Yuktobanian government. Although the aircraft carrying Harling comes under fire, Wardog defends him. The Osean army prepares for a massive amphibious operation against Yuktobania, and with Wardog’s assistance, deal the Yuktobanian army a defeat by destroying their bunkers and capturing their fortress. Wardog pursues the withdrawing Yuktobanian forces, and while they are able to shoot down their transport aircraft, Wardog is made the scapegoat after a terrorist attack at a Yuktobanian university kills civilians. This leads Yuktobania to launch a massive attack on the Osean capital, Oured, and on Bana City. Wardog is in Oured while awaiting a disciplinary hearing, but the unexpected attack forces them to take to the skies and engage the Yuktobanian air force. They manage to defend the airport and minimise damage to the city. To prove their innocence, Wardog next takes an assignment to destroy a Yuktobanian ammunition depot and successfully complete their task. Later, a ballistic missile attack reveals that Yuktobania has another Scinfaxi-class submarine, the Hrimfaxi. Travelling to the far north, Wardog engages and destroys the Hrimfaxi, earning them the nickname of Razgriz. Later, when Wardog is set to support the extraction of Osean POWs, Nagase is shot down, and command decides to wait until the next morning to pick her up from behind enemy line. To their surprise, when Nagase is located, she’d actually managed to turn the tables on the Yuktobanian forces sent to capture her.

Right out of the gates, my immediate impressions of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (The Unsung War from here on out for brevity) are overwhelmingly positive. The flight controls are smooth and responsive, allowing me to direct my plane towards any target and participate in most dogfights with confidence: after beating the first few missions, I became at home with how things handled. However, it also became clear that unlike Skies Unknown, the fact that The Unsung War dates back to an older time means that some mechanics were simplified from what I’d been accustomed to. For one, enemy planes cannot equip countermeasures. In Skies Unknown, enemy pilots could sometimes put flares out if a missile would impact, but here, one needn’t worry about flares. Similarly, clouds were utilised to act as cover in Skies Unknown, and planes could ice up if they spent extended periods inside cloud cover while attempting to break an enemy lock. Moreover, laser weapons would fail to function if a target was behind a cloud. The Unsung War has none of these elements, and this actually simplifies things for players, who can focus purely on the mission at hand. Missiles are consistently useful; they can reliably hit targets between 2500 and 5000 feet, and one can chain kills in succession by rapidly switching between targets. Like Skies Unknown, having gotten through half of the missions in the campaign, I am now quite confident that my flying is sufficient for me to be successful in The Unsung War‘s second half. With a good understanding of The Unsung War‘s control scheme now that I’ve fifteen missions under my belt, one more remark that I will add is that being able to play The Unsung War has furthered my appreciation for Skies Unknown, as well. It is clear that The Unsung War had pioneered the sort of creativity that returned in Skies Unknown. Missions with special mechanics (such as phony radar contacts, flying down a narrow, specific course and special bombing runs) help to keep things novel and challenging. In this way, Skies Unknown ends up being the developers’, Project Aces’, way of thanking players for having waited this long for Ace Combat‘s return to form after almost a decade of spinoffs which lacked the original series’ finesse and staying power. The success that Skies Unknown enjoyed is also a testament to the extensive list of things that The Unsung War did particularly well in: numerous elements from The Unsung War made their way to Skies Unknown, demonstrating that this classic evidently still holds up to more modern games where mechanics and narrative are concerned.

Screenshots and Commentary

• My first exposure to Ace Combat was sixteen years ago: it was the middle of the summer, and back then, the local public libraries had a wonderful selection of books. There wasn’t anything quite like it nowadays, but previously, libraries had books on every conceivable topic of interest, from Reader’s Digest’s Treasures of China, to Smithsonian’s Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide. There was even a small section with video game strategy guides, and as luck would have it, the newly-opened local branch happened to have guides for a handful of games I’d been curious about, including Halo 2.

• On that day, I found a copy of Brady Games’ Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, and upon perusing it, I was captured by the extensive aircraft listings. The strategy guide had been intriguing enough for me to check it out for the two weeks, and reading through it, I found myself wishing that I had a copy of The Unsung War for my PlayStation 2, which was a brand-new console at the time. Upon arriving home, I sat down and began reading through the strategy guide, which had detailed a rich world beyond imagination. Over the years, I would check The Unsung War‘s strategy guide out a few more times, but as I moved into secondary school and stopped going to the library, Ace Combat began falling to the back of my mind.

• This changed when I came upon a link to The Unsung War‘s soundtrack during the early winter semester of my second year in university. The music was exceptional, far beyond anything available to games of The Unsung War‘s era, and instead of studying for organic chemistry, I remember spending an afternoon reading about The Unsung War‘s missions, aircraft and superweapons. At the time, I wished that I’d bought The Unsung War back when copies were still being sold at local gaming stores, but I resigned myself to watching YouTube playthroughs and reading about things, believing there wouldn’t be a chance to ever go through this game for myself.

• All of this changed recently, and I was able to acquire a copy of Ace Combat 5: this is something that I’d long given up hope for and thought to be impossible until now. However, with a functional copy, I’ve been able to step into the world of The Unsung War for myself for the first time since checking out the strategy guide from the library sixteen years earlier. I don’t recall every detail in that strategy guide, except for the fact that Nagase gets shot down at some point, that the Arkbird plays a major role in The Unsung War‘s story and that the best missions are in the game’s second half.

• In order to reach the second half, I needed to become familiar with the controls anew, and then beat the first half of the game. Fortunately for me, The Unsung War handles very well, and I have no trouble in getting the aircraft to go where I need it to go. Things aren’t quite as smooth as they are in Skies Unknown, the consequence of Skies Unknown being some fifteen years newer, but overall, the controls are as responsive as can be reasonably expected. After I acclimatised to the controls and had the chance to fly a few sorties, my confidence increased.

• After repelling spy aircraft from the skies over Sand Island, Wardog is sent to assist the Kestrel, an Osean aircraft carrier that served in the Belkan War. The goal here is to fend off enemy aircraft while the Kestrel heads for open water, and the level marks the first time players get to fight over a populated area. The graphics have aged quite gracefully, and while smaller buildings are just textures on the ground, simple structures do have some height to them. Despite being far simpler than the visuals in Skies Unknown, where every building has height, the visuals still hold up quite nicely.

• Initially, Wardog will only have access to the F-5E Tiger II, a supersonic light fighter designed by Northrop. Despite being less renowned than its larger and heavier cousin, the F-4 Phantom, the F-5 did have a strong service record, being utilised in the Vietnam War, and it was thought to be similar in the MiG-21 in terms of air performance. In fact, the F-5 was adopted as the aircraft to stand in for MiG-21s during air combat training, and it was found that in the hands of a good pilot, an F-5 could give both the newer F-14 and F-15 trouble.

• In The Unsung War, the F-5E carries twelve unguided bombs to go with its missile payload, making it a fair all-around aircraft for beginners. The missiles of Ace Combat is one of the series’ defining features: players will carry a prodigious amount of missiles with them into combat, and while these missiles are either the AIM-9 Sidewinder (when using an American aircraft) or the Russian Vympel R-60, which are heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles in reality, Ace Combat allows the standard missiles to lock onto both air and ground targets alike.

• I’d grown accustomed to missiles acquiring a lock at around two thousand metres in Skies Unknown, so it was a little jarring to see them acquire targets at five thousand in The Unsung War. However, as it turns out, I’d left the units on Imperial for my run. The Unsung War does allow players to freely switch between Imperial and Metric units: using Imperial units, speed is measured in miles per hour, while distances and altitudes are measured in feet. I normally have difficulty with miles, since they’re an arbitrary measure (kilometres is more natural for me), but feet is something I’m okay with, since I approximate one metre as about three feet.

• Given that missiles lock on at around two thousand metres in Skies Unknown, I’d say they actually have a longer distance than they do in The Unsung War. However, owing to the way the older Ace Combat games work, missiles do tend to be quite reliable between three and four thousand feet, and it’s possible to fire off two missiles in rapid succession, switch over to another target, and watch as the system displays to players that their target was destroyed. This was something that became an integral part of older Ace Combat games, so when I entered the franchise for the first time through Assault Horizon, I was disappointed that dogfight mode was needed to shoot down a larger number of foes.

• Skies Unknown marked a true return to classic game mechanics, and it became possible to once again fire off missiles at one target and switch over to the next without worrying about whether or not one’s shots would find their mark. Playing through The Unsung War, it becomes clear that many elements from an old classic would make their way into the latest instalment, and in this way, my appreciation of Skies Unknown increased. Back in The Unsung War, I continue to fly the venerable F-5E into combat. It’s one of the weaker aircraft of the game, but in the beginning, this doesn’t matter too much: the game doesn’t throw insanely mobile or large numbers of foes at the player.

• This is fortunate, since unguided bombs, the F-5E’s special weapon, don’t have any application in missions where the combat is primarily anti-air. Special weapons have long been a feature in Ace Combat, and in The Unsung War, different aircraft will be granted different special weapons. These weapons are more powerful than the standard missile and have different capabilities, whether it be locking onto multiple targets simultaneously or tracking them with a much greater accuracy than standard missiles. Iron bombs are about as basic as it gets and simply free-fall towards their target, dealing slightly more damage than the missiles would.

• All aircraft in Ace Combat will automatically display a gun reticule when within two thousand feet of a target. At these ranges, missiles become useless. The documentation incorrectly calls the gun a “machine gun” – this is a misnomer, since a machine gun is an automatic weapon firing rifle cartridges. The guns aircraft carry are correctly called “auto-cannon” since they fire rounds of 20 mm or larger. On lower difficulties, the gun has unlimited ammunition, making it a great way of conserving missiles when engaging targets that are too close for missiles, or stationary ground targets.

• The mission to defend the mass driver from a Yuktobanian attack brought back memories of the mission to protect Tyler Island and destroy cargo launched from the mass driver, as well as the mission after Trigger is transferred to the penal unit and sent up to protect a phoney airbase from Erusean forces in Skies Unknown. The setting here reminds me of the former, and this mission actually did give me some trouble when I first played it, since I was having trouble finding all of the tanks attacking the launch facility.

• One of the most notable aspect of this mission was the soundtrack: up until now, the music in The Unsung War had been pretty bog-standard, but the moment the Yuktobanian forces show up with their tanks, a flute-like instrument is added to the incidental music, creating a summertime feeling that spells melancholy and wistfulness that reminds me a great deal of KyoAni’s AIR, a 2005 anime that adapted Jun Maeda’s visual novel of the same name, about a travelling showman whose aim is to find the enigmatic “girl in the sky” by summer. The Japanese have long excelled at creating collective nostalgia in their works. Collective nostalgia refers to a nostalgia for something one has never experienced, and in particular, their music is able to do this with great frequency.

• Once all of the tanks are destroyed, the Yuktobanian forces will launch cruise missiles in a bid to destroy the mass driver. Conventional cruise missiles are subsonic and can be intercepted, but their advantage is accuracy: cruise missiles are highly accurate and can be considered as unmanned aircraft with an explosive payload intended for a single use. The Yuktobanians are counting on their numbers to destroy the mass driver, and missiles come from all directions – if the mass driver takes too much damage, the mission will end in failure.

• It took me a few tries to get things right for this mission, which is why it reminded me of the mission in Skies Unknown to defend the false base from Erusean bombers: it would’ve been three years ago, at around this time of year, that I’d gotten to that mission, and after getting stomped by the mission, I ended up taking a short break from things before having another go at it. This time around, I was able to push forwards, and beating this mission showed me that I was ready for whatever lay ahead in The Unsung War.

• Once the Oseans successfully outfit the Arkbird with the laser module, its power becomes apparent: the Yuktobanian navy deploys the Scinfaxi, a nuclear-powered submarine that served as a combined underwater carrier and ballistic missile platform. With a length of three hundred metres, the Scinfaxi-class submarines are double the length of the Russian Typhoon-class, and were capable of firing the highly lethal burst missiles, which have multiple warheads that scatter over a wide area before detonating. In Ace Combat games, burst missiles are used an area denial measure by forcing players to abandon their current target and reach a safe altitude.

• Use of burst missiles annihilates entire squadrons, but with the Arkbird in Osea’s corner, several burst missiles are shot down before they have a chance to detonate. Wardog is then tasked with destroying the Scinfaxi. While sporting impressing specs, the Scinfaxi is actually a relatively slow moving and easy target to eliminate: several attack runs will destroy its weapons, weakening enough so that it can be sunk. I ended up using the iron bombs here to get a feel for things, and their area of effect damage proved helpful in destroying several targets at once.

• It goes without saying that the Scinfaxi is nowhere nearly as treacherous as the Alicorn: the Scinfaxi cannot submerge and only has limited anti-air defense capabilities, so it was simple enough to simply make a few attack runs and sink it. This is the first super-weapon Wardog sinks in The Unsung War, and I was surprised that players would be involved with destroying a Yuktobanian super-submarine so early in the game. This is meant to show that Wardog squadron means business, and also tangibly indicate to players that their roles in this war are essential.

• Having gone through a few missions with the basic F-5E, I picked up the F/A-18C, which was a minor upgrade over the F-5E in terms of anti-air performance and has better mobility and speed overall. The F/A-18 is a multi-role aircraft that the Canadian air force employs, and here, I flew a familiar mission: use of the yaw controls to stay out of a radar net being employed on the ground. Between these and canyon missions, I’ve found that if one can handle manoeuvre missions in Ace Combat, they’re more than ready to deal with more challenging missions.

• The aim of this mission is to defend a transport after guiding it past the anti-air defenses, but almost immediately, enemy fighters will show up. The object here is to protect the transport and keep fighters off it: allowing attackers to deal enough damage to the transport will result in the mission ending. For my run, I stuck close to the transport and fired on any foe that got too close. It turns out President Harling is on board this transport, and he’s en route to peace negotiations with the Yuktobanians. Standing in for Russia, Yuktobania is the main foe players engage in The Unsung War, but remarks from Grimm and Nagase both suggest that there’s no real ill-will towards them.

• During the chaos, the transport takes enough damage so that it needs to land, and Wardog is tasked with destroying a few windmills in the plane’s path. Once this is done, the mission will draw to a close. The 8492nd Squadron will then secure Harling, but he subsequently goes missing, foreshadowing the 8492nd’s affiliations. Although war is brewing, players cannot help but wonder if the Yuktobanians are the true enemy at this stage. As things escalate, however, these thoughts are pushed out of both Wardog and the players’ minds.

• Osean forces launch a full-scale invasion of Yuktobania in retaliation for their actions at Bastok Peninsula, and Wardog is sent out to assist an amphibious assault on the Yuktobanian coast on an overcast day. The weather in The Unsung War is definitely capable of conveying a very specific mood; modern games are nearly photorealistic, and this leaves very little to the imagination, but with older games, just enough of a visual is provided such that the mind will fill the rest in, and this accentuates the atmosphere somewhat.

• The goal of this mission is simply to neutralise the bunkers on the ground and support the advancing Osean forces. There are very few air targets to speak of, so equipping aircraft that are primarily focused on anti-ground operations will be helpful. Since I’m running the F/A-18C here, I’m running with the AGM-84 Harpoon. The LASM (Large Anti-Ship Missile) actually proved a viable option against the heavily fortified bunkers. Normally, anti-ship missiles are most effective against ships since they have long ranges and high damage against individual targets. However, because of their flat trajectories, they are less useful in ground operations.

• After Yuktobania organises a retreat in response to the fierce Osean attack, Wardog is sent to deal with escaping transports. This mission is complicated by the fact that Yuktobanian forces are using E-767 jammers, which confound the radar and give the impression that there are more targets than there actually are. The key to this mission is to close the distance and engage targets after visually confirming their presence, as well as focusing on the jamming aircraft themselves. During the course of this mission, radio chatter indicates that an Osean squadron has just bombed out a Yuktobanian university, and Wardog is held accountable, since officially, there is no 8492nd squadron.

• Players will be powerless to do anything about this outcome, but earlier in the mission, can make a decision that determines whether they are sent to Apito International Airport on Oured Bay, or Bana City. Chopper will ask players if they’d heard a certain song: if players answer yes, their mission is Apito International Airport. I ended up picking “yes”, which sent me over to Apito International Airport to defend it against attacking Yuktobanian forces. The first phase of this mission was to shoot down all attacking Yuktobanian aircraft by night, while the second part entails destroying Yuktobanian tanks that had snuck in via transport aircraft disguised as civilian vehicles.

• Even though The Unsung War is eighteen years old, I remain impressed with how gracefully the visuals have aged, and fighting urban operations accentuates this fact. Oured below looks like a proper city despite using two-dimensional textures for low-rise buildings. High rises are still rendered with 3D structures, and while these are quite simple, especially compared to what was used in Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation and all subsequent games, The Unsung War represented a dramatic jump from what was seen in Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies. While I’ve long read about the Ace Combat universe, from a practical standpoint, I’m not an Ace Combat veteran by any means (in fact, I don’t even know what this manoeuvre is called or how to perform it).

• My first in-game experience Ace Combat was 2013’s Assault Horizon, and I subsequently had the opportunity to play Ace Combat properly on PC through 2019’s Skies Unknown. To keep up with the lore and read up on different aircraft, and their efficacy in various missions, I turn to both online resources and YouTube videos. Ace Combat Fan is my go-to resource; his content is actually how my interest in The Unsung War was piqued, being uploaded to YouTube back during a time when there were no other videos. Beyond full play-throughs of older Ace Combat titles, Ace Combat Fan also has a variety of videos on how to fly, benchmarking different aircrafts and their weapons, and even full collections of the music throughout Ace Combat.

• I respect this level of devotion from Ace Combat Fan: were it not for people like this uploading gameplay to YouTube, the only thing I’d have of The Unsung War would be memories from reading a strategy guide. One of my best friends has expressed an interest in trying The Unsung War for himself, as well, and he’d actually been in a similar position to myself; both of us have seen the YouTube videos and read extensively about the lore, but thanks to Ace Combat games being unavailable on PC until recently, we’ve never had a chance to otherwise try the games for ourselves.

• Altogether, I greatly enjoyed this night mission and its aesthetics. At some point in the future, I’m going to have to return and take on its sister mission, which is set in the university town of Bana City. The Unsung War‘s branching missions add variety to things, and this also provides an incentive to replay missions: hidden hangars allow players to acquire parts for the legendary Falken. This is something that Skies Unknown was lacking. However, while alternate mission routes would’ve been great, overall, missions in Skies Unknown feel a ways larger, whereas here in The Unsung War, missions feel a bit shorter to complete.

• After successfully repelling the Yuktobanian attack, Wardog is next sent out to a munitions depot. The object here is simply destroying everything before the time runs out, and while there’s a catch (the munitions sites are located inside tunnels that can only be hit from certain angles), the mission itself was quite straightforward. This level also contains a hidden hangar for the ADF-01 Falken, a super-plane that was first seen in Ace Combat 2. In Skies Unknown, players who bought the Year One Pass would acquire this legendary aircraft for free; in The Unsung War, players must replay several missions in order to destroy the hangars, although luckily, the hangars can be destroyed on lower difficulties in Free Mission mode.

• For this playthough, I will not be flying the Falken: although I do have it unlocked, I plan on presenting things as people would’ve seen it for the first time, and here, I begin the operation to take down the Hrimfaxi, the second of the Scinfaxi-class submarines. The mission is set in the Arctic ice floes, and unlike the encounter with the Scinfaxi, this mission sees the Hrimfaxi diving and surfacing repeatedly to launch its drones against Wardog squadron. It is here that the F/A-18’s anti-ship missiles really shine, and after locating the Hrimfaxi, the goal is simple: to put it on the bottom of the ocean floor.

• The Hrimfaxi’s captain has access to a wide range of anti-air weapons, and burst missiles will periodically be used. I ended up using the anti-ship missiles to disable the weapons on its surface, and once all of its weapons are disabled, the targetting system will indicate that the Hrimfaxi’s super-structure is the final thing to take down. I absolutely loved this mission for its aesthetics, and as I found with Skies Unknown, every mission in The Unsung War brings something new to the table.

• The feat that Wardog accomplishes here earns them the moniker Razgriz, the name of a mythological deity of great power unique to Strangereal. Its traits make it similar to that of the Valkyries from Norse Mythology, and The Unsung War creates a very comprehensive collection of lore in its story surrounding the Razgriz, indicating that the pilots of Osea are likened to a mythological being whose existence was misunderstood, but ultimately, was a benevolent presence. Sora no Woto ultimately utilised similar elements from The Unsung War for its backstory, and a cursory search finds that no one’s drawn the conclusion until now.

• As it stands, my coming upon The Unsung War should be a boon to the Sora no Woto community; I’m not too fond of grandstanding, but I will say that my approach towards anime means that I offer insights that often greatly augment one’s enjoyment of a series. In this case, assuming that the Fire Maidens and winged dæmons of Sora no Woto are based off the Razgriz, it is possible to say that the events of Sora no Woto parallel Wardog squadron’s reputation in The Unsung War. The 1121st are initially revealed as protectors of Seize, come to be seen as traitors when Colonel Hopkins takes charge, but ultimately demonstrate themselves to be saviours by stopping an all-out war between Helvetia and the Roman Empire.

• While the mythology in both Sora no Woto and The Unsung War likely were derived from real-world stories, commonalities meant that spotting the connection between Razgriz and Sora no Woto‘s angels meant that one could’ve predicted, with high confidence, how the anime would’ve ended. From what I’ve seen, this connection was never drawn. Back in The Unsung War proper, I’ve embarked on the mission to rescue Osean prisoners of war from Glubina, a snowy and mountainous region of Yuktobania reminiscent of Siberia.

• The operation is dependent on Wardog providing cover for the Sea Goblin helicopter team, and in the end, they are successful. During the operation, Nagase begins to believe that Bartlett might be amongst those being rescued, and becomes sufficiently distracted that she is shot down. Although she is able to bail, when one of the helicopters attempts to rescue her, the poor visibility causes it to crash, forcing the retrieval to be postponed until the next morning. The next mission deals with Nagase’s recovery, and utilises a signal system to guide players to the spot where Nagase is.

• This system was reapplied to the hunt for the Alicon in The Unsung War‘s DLC missions, and having had familiarity with how that worked, I had no trouble in finding Nagase. For the final two missions in The Unsung War‘s first half, I’m rocking the F-15C. This air superiority fighter boasts solid all-around stats for air-to-air combat and equips the semi-active air-to-air missile, which is a long-range radar-guided missile best suited for engagements at range.

• Once Nagase is rescued, the mission draws to a close, and with this, I’m now halfway through The Unsung War. Even though we’re just getting into the game’s best parts, I was thoroughly impressed with the sheer variety there is in The Unsung War, and at this halfway point, I’ve already seen the destruction of two superweapons in the Scinfaxi-class submarine. Coupled with the fact that the game takes players from the remote Taiga characteristic of Siberia, to the heart of Oured, and everywhere in between, The Unsung War has been a blast. I am very much look forwards to finishing The Unsung War, and for the time being, I should be on track to wrapping this game up before the month is over.

At The Unsung War‘s halfway point, I now appreciate why The Unsung War is considered one of the best in the franchise: besides solid gameplay, the story has proven to be very captivating. Mission briefings and banter between pilots and command are an immersive mode of exploring the story, explaining to players very clearly what their goals are, what’s at stake, and what their accomplishments are in the grand scheme of things. It is clear that war is brewing between two superpowers, but neither superpower seems to desire open conflict, and some of the Ace Combat world’s most devastating war machines are brought out to bear. In The Unsung War‘s first half, players already get to sink two of Yuktobania’s most powerful weapons, the Scinfaxi-class submarines. The Arkbird is unveiled, both as a symbol of peace that Kei idolises, and as Osea’s latest superweapon. The stakes of an all-out war prompt players to take to the skies and do what they can, providing incentive to keep pushing forwards such that they can see what happens next. The combination of world-building and exposition through events that players experience allows The Unsung War to add depth to the Strangereal universe in a then-unprecedented scale, giving the Ace Combat world a much more immersive feel to things than previous titles had done, and it is for this reason that even now, The Unsung War remains a fan-favourite. In fact, a part of me wishes that this game would be given a full remaster: when Skies Unknown released, PlayStation owners also gained access to an HD version of The Unsung War, but beyond this, it would be great to have a standalone version of The Unsung War on PC. I have heard that a new Ace Combat is in development, and beyond the fact that it will be built using Unreal Engine 5, not much more about this project is known. For me, I’d definitely love to see a return to Belka and Osea as seen in The Unsung War: these areas of the Ace Combat universe are iconic, and certainly worthy of being remastered with all of the improvements available to both computer graphics and hardware available today. In the meantime, I’ve got another whole half of The Unsung War to experience, and if my memory isn’t mistaken, this is the half of the game to look forwards to (which is saying something, considering how consistently enjoyable the first half has been).