When I was a kid, I played a game called "Rebel Raiders: Operation Nighthawk." I remember just absolutely being in love with the beginning of that game. The orchestral music swelling as you entered in the middle of a high energy dogfight. Playing as the jet in this cinematic cutscene, letterbox and all, cutting through the blue sky against a titanic ominous flying geometric object. The heroic violin melody kicking in as you hear the encouraging, desperate words of your squad. That euphoric feeling of confidence and hope contrasting against the odds and ignorance of the situation. That self-aware smugness peeking through fear and excitement, mixing into a feeling that doesn't have a word, but you'd know it if you saw it.
The game wasn't received very well. Despite how that beginning made me feel, critics rightfully saw it as a bit tedious and lacking. I had no way to play it for a quite a few years. It still sits in a old PS2 case in my room. Eventually, it faded from my mind. That feeling with that memory, though not lost, had been forgotten.
When I heard the soundtrack for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, this feeling is what I remembered.
So, I waited for a bit due to its (completely understandable) high price. Did Ace Combat 7 give me this feeling again?
Yeah. And more.
Would I recommend it to everyone as an incredible game that'll change lives, or even as a great game?
No. I don't have the qualifications to decide that a video game has pillars of design or how they subvert them.
I just liked it, thought it had some issues that I will pontificate about. You cannot stop me. Pretending my opinion has value is will of humanity, so dogfight me.
That whole cathartic bad-ass feeling is immediate...ly challenged by the moral greyness of your own actions and the relationship between the two nations at war, the Oseans and Eruseans. (Both of which I constantly confused for one another.) I honestly appreciate it. The themes of nonviolence and guilt, sort of clash with the exciting music, which makes the experience memorable. There are so many unnecessary deaths by your hand as enemy combatants express fear. It honestly guilted me enough to attempt to complete missions as minimally as possible. The characters you work with do comment on awful situations are. They do feel awful most of the time, yet that heroic guitar riff keeps going.
Eventually, you find out that that this entire war is due to...the Belkans, and the scientific development of AI based around an old pilot who craves dogfighting. You learn this after the two countries turn the rest of world into shambles by destroying thousands of satellites. Civil war breaks out and millions are made refugees. All this death, war, and violence is due to pointless ego. This is impactful, but past this point, how the story resolves itself and its themes really don't work.
I admit, this is the first Ace Combat game I've played. However, there's something weird thematically about Skies Unknown starting with a dive into Osea role in Erusea. It explains the construction of the space needle, a symbol of "global unity" planted by Osea in Erusea after a previous war/global catastrophe. I can see "Erusea" wanting to own this symbol that a previous enemy built on their soil. Then our country "decides" that it belongs to them.
(Technically we're meaning to save the former president who is trapped at the Erusea-captured space needle, but when he is seemingly killed...by us, the war doesn't end.)
My point is the idea of "Us vs Them" is completely mocked the entire time, straight on through until the end. Introducing that it was actually the secret Belkans, is silly. I guess Schroder, the main Belkan researcher behind these drones, could represent the stupidity of combining nationalism with identity. He does have a change in heart after watching children die. It just doesn't read to me as a further example of Ace Combat's cynical warning of group-think of a macro scale, but just finding an excuse for another "real" bad guy. A different 3rd party.
The final enemy is a nice and guiltless destruction of the AI drones that could have self-duplicated by the thousands, keeping the rest of the world in war until everyone dies. The battle was fun, the music was of course boppin', and the sky was beautiful.
As an ending, it felt okay. The space needle becomes a safe place for refugees of any country, becoming an actual symbol of global unity. An astronaut thanks you for basically ending the war, allowing them to finally land. This was an effective surprise, like we forgot that humanity can move forward.
It's optimistic and sweet, but it doesn't feel good.
I didn't do anything different in the end that I did in the beginning, I shot down planes.
The praise feels shallow and undeserved. It felt like I was just a specialist following orders from mankind after it just shit itself and realized the stink was coming from them. Maybe that's just life in general. Furthermore, I think the writers of the game are smarter than me and probably know that players like me wouldn't have so much autonomy in a military branch or any society. The autonomy to say "wait, this is wrong" and not fly the million dollar plane that I was trained to fly while speaking pretty prose to save the world is impossible.
I acknowledge fully that the game wouldn't exist without my willingness to play. I just wish the game didn't so kindly pretend that I solved it.
It's still a pretty good game, if you're less about the game experience as a whole including story.
TLDR
Ace Combat 7's ideas on anti-violence is present the entire time. The expression is very sincere. Skies Unknown starts a lot of grey issues, but puts a bow on it so neatly at the end that that it's almost off-putting. It could be that since the beginning of the game, 7's conclusion to the story was working towards that optimistic end. It seems that the world that this takes place in constantly recovers and rebuilds from global catastrophe. That's not a bad world to escape to.
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