The Ace Combat series from Namco has always been one of the better arcade style dog-fighting games out there. The quality of the series has also seemed to teeter during its course. While Ace Combat 4 was a huge leap forward in the quality of the series, I’m sad to announce that Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, while certainly better in some respects, takes a tiny step back due to a large number of small design issues.

Thankfully, the graphics are not one of the things that suffer in Ace Combat 5. It’s clear the graphics engine is almost identical, though I would assume a few improvements have been made. This isn’t a bad thing as Ace Combat 4 was the most attractive dog-fighting game I had ever seen. The only reason it isn’t any more is because that title has now been given to Ace Combat 5. You can fly high into the air, see the dark sky above, and look down at the clouds and topography. You can then zoom down nearly vertical (assuming your plane can handle it) and seamlessly approach the ground until you’re scraping the treetops. The landscape in the game is wonderfully varied from cities to canyons to snow fields, forests, and grassy plains.

The environment is only the start though. The planes are presented in a very realistic fashion and, ones that aren’t fictional, are faithfully reproduced. The variety of planes offered is much greater than the previous games (though this presents problems of its own which I’ll talk about later). As radars only do so much, one of the biggest parts of actual combat flight is physically looking around your plane. This aspect is usually not a well implemented mechanic in most flying games, but the engine here handles it very well. It’s actually very important in some missions, such as one mission which has you flying against planes with special radar jammers that cause multiple “lock-on signatures” to appear around them; so you’ll have to actually be looking around your plane to find your targets.

It’s also little things that contribute to the visual experience in Ace Combat 5. With things like full mission replays with multiple angles, and the ability to move the camera to your missile to watch it blow something up, it’s always a visceral experience. Also, unlike Ace Combat 4 which used still pictures for its cut-scenes, Ace Combat 5 features some excellent FMV work. Unless I’m mistaken, it also seems like they reworked the FMVs so the lips even match up to the English dialogue.

One of the things that impressed me the most about Ace Combat 5 was the soundtrack. I had never seen a dog-fighting game with a good soundtrack, much less one that was better than most games out there. I was stunned. While not quite as good as Ace Combat 4’s soundtrack, it’s still one of the best soundtracks out there. While Ace Combat 4 had a more melodramatic theme to its music, I mean the last mission featured a choir singing like something out of Final Fantasy VII, Ace Combat 5 has a more contemporary feel to it.

On the flip side of audio, we have the sound effects. Guns, missiles, explosions, after burners, what more could you want in a game like this? The game also boasts excellent voice acting. While it can be difficult to follow the dialogue when dodging missiles and trying to nail targets, the quality is still high.

You’ve probably played games like Ace Combat 5 before. Rather than being a simulation type game where you have to worry about flaps, wings, landing gear, etc… it takes a more arcade-style flavor. The game focuses on blowing things up rather than serving up ultra-realistic flight mechanics. That’s not to say the physics aren’t realistic in the game, but you just don’t need to worry about micromanaging all the things you would have to worry about as an actual pilot.

Of course the biggest change with Ace Combat 5 is the introduction of a squadron. Rather than going it alone, you have limited control over two to three other planes during missions. You can give them orders such as attack, disperse, and cover. While they are pretty responsive most of the time, there are occasions when they stubbornly refuse to listen, often causing you to fail your mission. Additionally, you can tell them when and when not to use their special weapons. Since you have to not only buy planes for yourself but for them as well, the process of keeping track of your planes is also a bit more complicated.

While I’ve been referring to this as a “dog-fighting game,” Ace Combat 5 actually has surprisingly little dog-fighting missions in it compared to its predecessors. In fact, you’ll spend almost half of the missions protecting another unit. Sadly, this is one aspect that causes Ace Combat 5 to fall a little flat. There doesn’t seem to be a great mix in the mission types. There seems to be an overabundance of protection missions and missions vs. ground forces, especially in the beginning of the game. While the dog-fighting missions pick up more near the end of the game, it just feels a bit skewed most of the game. Some people might prefer this, but I’m not one of them. A positive aspect is that Ace Combat 5 is longer than its predecessor. Ten missions longer, if I can still do my math correctly.

The story in the game is also deeper than the one in Ace Combat 4. As the name suggests, it centers on the seedy underbelly of a war whose true factors are unknown to the general public. One final game play note is the lack of any two player mode, which is unfortunate.

Aside from the game being longer, Ace Combat 5 also seems harder than previous titles. I had to die at least once on just about every mission before I could finish it. Sometimes it was due to something stupid like a wingman flying into me (another problem), or due to the fact that there was just no way I was going to be able to complete the objective until I knew exactly what was coming. A frequent factor was me running out of missiles and secondary weapons. For some ungodly reason, the ability to exit the mission to re-supply was taken out of the game. Frequently it was impossible to finish a mission until I knew just how many “extra” objectives might appear and extend the mission length.

There were two other small things that really got under my skin. Both have to do with certain types of missions that happen right after each other. First of all, you aren’t given an option to save between these missions. That is irksome by itself, but when this happens for three missions in a row? Well, that’s when I just get plain old pissed off.

Another aspect of some of these missions is the inability to pick a new type of plane between assignments. This is fine, unless the missions are radically different in nature. If I’m going on a mission to support ground forces and am primarily going to be engaged in ground based troops, I’m going to pick the best plane for the job, frequently a very slow plane that’s not very nimble. When the next mission involves avoiding 10-15 super ace pilots as I try to make my way through them to escape the area, all would be gravy. Except when I’m forced to use that same slow ass plane that can’t maneuver to save its own life, literally.

Like I said before, Ace Combat 5 is a great game, but it hangs itself with lots of small things, and here are a few more. I have a serious problem with the interface for buying, selling, and selecting planes. Ace Combat 4 was nice; they were all in a row, I could easily see what I did and didn’t have, and could make easy comparisons. Ace Combat 5 is a pain in the butt. There is no structure to easily see which planes you do or don’t have, and you’ll be constantly moving up and down this huge list trying to remember what you were looking at.

This problem is made exponentially worse by the fact that you have to keep track of planes for four people. Additionally, there are more trade-offs between planes in this game. Since you can’t buy new secondary weapons for planes and the absences of few “super” planes, you’ll keep many in stock. Rather than just “the best air-to-air plane” and “the best air-to-ground” plane, you’ll have a couple for different situations. Additionally, only certain planes can be launched from aircraft carriers, so you’ll need some of those as well.

To put the final nail in the coffin, when you’re picking planes from a mission, it actually lists the planes that you don’t even have, making things extra cumbersome. Plus the fact that the window which tells you how the selected aircrafts air and ground values measure up to what’s needed for the menu doesn’t work at all. Fun times, no?

Thankfully these issues are all rather nitpicky, and ultimately Ace Combat 5 is a terrific game. These problems do exist though, and hurt the game to a considerable degree. None of them make the game not worth playing though. Ultimately, if you liked Ace Combat 4, I promise that you’ll love Ace Combat 5.