Fun, but no Ace Combat 4, which is my gold standard for the genre. Planes feel floatier, no really fun x-planes despite the future setting, and you don't really get played up as the super-ace hero. The Assistance Off mode is a gimmick any decent AC player doesn't need. And it's annoying that the "protect" targets are covered by a gigantic icon.

The story is equally dumb. You are an Air Force pilot who gets forced out despite an excellent record as a member of a highly elite flight group, the High Altitude Warfare-eXperimental squadron along with your wingmen. So, you take a job with a PMC who, in a slightly startling turn of events, declare war on the US while you're guarding an American carrier group, and you, not so surprisingly, decide your employers/now former coworkers are assholes and kill them, rejoining the US military. The rest is predictable.

6.5/10