Ace Combat 5 - The Unsung War... really an unsung Legend

abhi89492i

Today, I'm gonna share something that I hope everyone on CraxMe could appreciate...

Short version: If you loved Top Gun, you'll be madly in love with Ace Combat 5 - The Unsung War.

Long "story" : Well, since CraxMe started as something which was primarily, about 'stories' - and I've just won a storyteller medal (which By the way had nothing to do with this post, I've been planning this one for a long time, I swear ) - I think its a good time to dive in about it.

If I had to select the best game of all my life, Ace Combat 5 would be my quick and unhesitating answer.

And its a strange choice - by gaming conventions at least.

Since its an arcade flight game. Compared to tonnes of action, adventure, racing, strategy, RPG, MMORPG and fighting games... and all the geners I missed.

But why?

Here goes...

I remember the first time I saw it. I was in class 10th, by that time a formidable opponent in smackdown ring of PS2, but I was, admittedly, kind of geting bored of the monotony surrounding it all. All the other 'mission games' - as we called them - were completed and completd twice. Then I see this guy, lets call him another A, another regular like me, playing something I'd never seen before - Flying a fighter jet that looked a bit too realistic from what I'd come to expect with PS2. I was mildly curious. Asked what it was about. He too had just started, 3 missions in or so, and gave an equally neutral reply. I let it go.

Then the next time I was in the shop, alone, waiting for my friends, I asked the owner to put in the DVD A was playing that fateful day.
*

When I was a kid, I had a bad habit, or atleast people in this game shop thought I had - I never missed introductions, tutorials and especially cutscenes.

And boy was I glad I didn't fall into herd mentality of saving a few pennies.

Do you remember, when at the start of a game when you do nothing, you get a sort of trailer about the game you're about to play? we called them "Demo" - and when I saw it for AC5, I was left completely breathless.

(This was it)



The realism, the music, the sounds, the graphics, and that "rock song" ... I felt like I'm an Alice in a fighter jet's wonderland.

After that I didn't even skip the opening credits.


Now, if we strictly talk about gameplay, its even more monotonus and repittive than smackdown - you fly a jet, you chase enemy fighters (or ground targets), you put a missile in their backside - in 90% of the regular cases, 2 should do it - then you go after another target.

But if its that simple, why I'm swooning over it head over heels?

Because trust me its not. Because you'll not notice that monotony if you pay attention to the 'bigger picture'. And its impossible not to.


I started noticing that I love Ace Combat 5 for reasons most regular shop gamers, even the owner, could not understand. I stopped smackdown, I occupied that big TV for hours and the regular multiplayers couldn't play their wrestling, they begged me to let it go. I was merciless.

See here, I learned another thing, but about myself : That I like well put together stories, much more than I realized earlier before. Even before I had to turn a single page of a novel.  

Ace Combat 5 broke many PS-2 conventions, indeed the flighter-arcade conventions with daring faith. It was a pioneer. It's creators believed that a game of this kind cannot be only about fighter jets. Ace Combat 5 floats high in the sky because of its awesome story, its delightful graphics, its unforgettable soundtracks - and surprisingly, (but perrhaps most importantly) ,for a game that's about machines that rain death from skies - its quiet but resolute "Anti War" tones.   

More than a game it was a War Drama.

But I know people don't believe hearsay or a fanboy, so here's some facts and numbers:

1. Ace Combat 5 is notable for being the "first" game in "history" to involve the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as for being the first to include licensed music, featuring Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry", which is used as the game's title theme. (The rock song i mentioned earlier)

2. The soundtrack as a whole took Namco 3 years of development, making it the largest and most expensive soundtrack in the company's history.

3. For the longest time, Ace Combat 5 remained one of the most requested and queried game on PCSX2 forums, the giants of PS2 emulation. But they couldn't figure out how to emulate it on PC despite all their dedication for a long while. Why? Well one of the reason was in order to depict the huge map world with graphically accurate details, the engineers at NAMCO had made several additions to the usual PS2 programming, they'd squeezed every bit of hardware horsepower to show their beautiful world, which in turn made it complicated for emulators too. an unintentional side-effect.

4. I know for modern games its a given but back then, for the in-game cutscenes, the player customization was thrown for a toss. What do I mean? See, in the variety of games which i played on ps2, the game either switched to fully animated cutscene when required for story/action purposes or when it didn't It would depict generic/stock presentation of character/vehicle. In AC5 I first noticed that in game cutscenes matched the type of aircraft you/ your wingmen were flying at the time. Its a great achievement, especially considering the high quality graphics it employs.

5. Reviews:

IGN gave it 9.3/10
Gmaespot 8.3/10
GameChronicles 97/100
Yahoo 80/100
GamersHell 95/100
Play Magzine 95/100
PSX nation 90/100





The whole metacritic score stands at 84%. Which is quite respectable given the risks NAMCO took and reviewers' gripes that it was more of an AC4 with minor upgrades.

*

About that story and 'big picture', you fly as "blaze" : call-sign 'kid', a faceless, voiceless Osean pilot (thereby adding an innate mystery and a sense of personal identity at the same time). You start as a rookie, among three others: Nagase, Chopper, and Archer. You actually go through a couple of msissions before you assume the flight lead. There's a briefing session before each mission, which is actually helpful, logical and dramatic. Planes have diffeent characteristics, so its not that planes unlocked later would be all-in-one. Some are good for ground attack, others fare better in dog fights, still others would be multirole. Each plane has a single special weapon that could be anti- ground/air/ship type.+


Missions themelves would vary. Remember when i told you earlier that you wouldn't notice the monotony? Well, its because of mission-variety. You would be engaged in a variety of Anti - Air/ground/Ship missions, yes, but each has a distinct objective. Sometimes you'd play escort for ships and aircraft carriers, other times it'd be an offensive mission for ground troops support. You would be on for Combat Air Petrol and then get called upon to guide a transport aircraft out of friendly SAM AA fire. You'll even fly in formation for a celebration of sorts (which quickly goes wrong). There's even a stealth/recon mission, where you'll be taking photos! (But sadly piloting the stealth aircraft for this mission made no difference, Maybe I was used to expecting too much from AC5, forgetting it was only PS2!). Sometimes one of your squadmates will be shot-down and you'll have to search for them, in a blizzard, searching for the direction of signal. At others, You'll have to fly in a canyon, where you can't go high, because enemy Air Defense will defnitely get you - and when all targets are taken care of you'll have to struggle against an elite enemy squadron, in those conditions! But that was not the end of it... taking it a step further, later in a mission, you even have to fly in a tunnel - JUST imagine flying a fighter jet in a GODDAMNED TUNNEL!!

Then there are boss fights!

incredible ones too...

You'll fight against giant submarines, enemy Aces, even huge...err, that'll be a spoiler, so lets just say space thingys, (but not aliens, , thank heavens!)


There are shorter mini-games in between: about taking off, landing and mid-air refuling.

All that time the big picture will continue to unfold slowly, over animated and in game cutscenes. Succesfully keeping it fresh in even longer missions, And believe me - Ace Combat 5 Missions could get LONG...  In-game, you'll listen to radio chatter - both friendly and enemy's. What do they think in the middle of a battle, about their surroundings, and the damage you're inflicting on the enemy. Your squadmates wil also pitch in, each with a carricature personality but hey, at least they have one! You even get to respond to all of it sometimes with a simple YES/NO? prompts. But these yes/no's could well decide what mission you'll be playing next in some cases!
When each mission is complete, you even get an "Action Replay", showing you how you flew in the heat of the battle, and trust me it looks real slick, even more than when you'd actually been flying the jet.

All of it eventaully falls in a chaotic, but still overall cohesive manner, showing a jigsaw puzzle that's greater than even TopGun. I'm not kidding. TopGun was all about characters, if you pause to think about it. There wasn't much of a plot. Here, maybe characters and dialogues, could, come off as a bit cartoonish (Its a game designed for children after all, way back in 2004! ), but the story will definitely make you go 'hey, that definitely feels personal and elaborate.'

Equally, the sense of Heroism is acute and palpable. . You and your squadron go from rookies to Aces, which elicit both fear from enemies and respect from friendly forces. Be they in air or on the ground or on the surface. You become a sign of hope for them whenever they see you in sky.



So how good it is?

SO good that if you play the game you'll understand why my username is that way!



Links for the ROM

Link 1 : https://romhustler.org/rom/ps2/ace-combat-5-the-unsung-war-usa

Link 2 : https://www.downloadroms.io/playstation-2-rom-ace-combat-5-the-unsung-war/


How to play it on PC : https://www.craxme.com/thread-21397-1-1.html

Dev

Your posts are so satisfying. We need some posts on horror games too.