By Andrew Stevens –
Taking flight in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Last month, I picked up the Deluxe Edition so I could play the campaign early, and I’m so glad I did, because it’s been hard to put down. Let’s take off!
I’ve always been interested in the series, but I never got truly into it. I wasn’t a PlayStation gamer growing up, so the series passed me by early on. It wasn’t until Ace Combat Assault Horizon arrived on Xbox that I started playing, and I later picked up and beat the 3DS entry, which I loved. I skipped most of Ace Combat 6 at the time, and while I enjoyed Ace Combat 7, it never captured me the way this one has.
That’s a little surprising, because obviously I’m a huge fan of aviation and video games, so you’d expect this series to be my favorite. For years it wasn’t. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is the entry that finally made it click, and now I have the drive to go back through the whole catalog.
The Ace Combat 8 campaign puts you in the cockpit of a pilot who takes on the name, “Wings of Theve,” fighting alongside Joker Flight to reclaim their homeland under occupation. It’s a story that’s intriguing and pulls you in, and the missions stay varied all the way through, so nothing ever felt repetitive. Everything is just fun to play.
The closer I got to the ending, the more intense it became, and it absolutely sucked me in.
Some of the later missions have you flying back to base to rearm and repair after taking damage. I loved the ones where the base is right in the action and you have to line up and land yourself instead of cutting to a separate takeoff and landing sequence. As an aviation fan, I’m always happy for an excuse to do a quick landing and takeoff.
Unlocking the F-22 was a personal highlight. I first saw one at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2006, when two of them showed up that day. One made pass after pass while the other seemed to float in the air high above. I’d never seen anything like it, and the raw power and sound of that jet stuck with me. In Ace Combat 8, I got to fly it for about five of the final missions, with the exception of a carrier-based mission that sent me back to the F-18 since I hadn’t unlocked the F-35 yet.
The campaign itself is just as replayable. Once you beat it, you can replay the whole thing on a harder difficulty, or pick any individual mission and choose the difficulty you want. I’ve done this several times now, and the best part is that everything you’ve unlocked comes with you. Having the F-22 fully set up and ready from mission one makes even the harder difficulties more manageable. It’s not a cakewalk, but it’s a lot of fun to fly my favorite jet through missions I originally played in something else.
By the way, the replays are so much fun to watch! Once I unlocked the F-22, I think I spent as much time rewatching the mission replays and searching for the perfect frame to pause on as I did playing some of the missions themselves. Capturing screenshots and a few video clips from those replays has become its own part of the fun.
The missions are great, but the soundtrack makes them even better. The music drives each moment home and elevates the whole experience. I don’t say this lightly, and I don’t want to fanboy too much, but this is the best score I’ve heard in a video game series in a very long time. There are plenty of iconic soundtracks, like the original Halo or Jet Set Radio Future, with their amazing, memorable songs. Also, the work Bear McCreary did with God of War is also a favorite! But this soundtrack delivers from start to finish, and it deserves to be in the conversation for the best of the year.
The Shadow Squadron theme especially stands out. Hearing it in the game means a bigger fight is about to break out, and it’s so memorable that I keep humming it all day. “Lurking in the Shadows” has been on repeat for me, and “A Lifeline in the Desert” is another great track. There’s a vinyl release, which is sadly already sold out, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for a restock.
As for multiplayer, I’ve played about six hours of it so far and really enjoyed it. The menus are the weak spot. They can be complicated and overwhelming at first, and even after you learn them, a break from the game means a minute of relearning where everything is. The online gameplay itself is a lot of fun, though. I’ve tried both the cooperative modes and the PvPvE modes, and the random emergency sorties, where you suddenly have to take on a group of top pilots, are a highlight. Multiplayer is a bonus for me, since the campaign comes first, but I’m looking forward to more.
Ace Combat 8 is, in my opinion, perfection for someone who loves aviation and video games. The missions, the pacing, the manual landings, the replay mode, and especially the music all come together, and I’d absolutely consider it a game of the year candidate. That’s also coming from someone who never fully embraced the series until now. This is the entry that finally sold me completely, and these new memories are what will motivate me through the replays of the past titles. I can’t wait to experience them all, and I can’t wait to come back to AC8 for more!
It also has real staying power. I’ve completed all but seven trophies, and the remaining ones are a long climb. One requires finishing the game on Ace difficulty, which unlocks only after beating Elite, and another asks for S-ranks on every mission at that difficulty. I won’t get there immediately, but I plan to keep flying the campaign until I do. As for the earlier games, I’m starting with Ace Combat 6 on Xbox 360 with my flight stick and throttle setup, then replaying Ace Combat 7, and eventually working through the originals on PlayStation and PlayStation 2.
Highly recommended. Rise Above!
