Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

So i'm 8-9 levels in. To be honest, i'm not really liking it. As usual, your wingman don't do anything, and that's fine, but I am spending a signficant amount of time always having a missle lock on me. My UI is red more than it isn't, and it's just:

1. dodge
2. fire
3. dodge again

which gets really fucking boring. Moreover, you can, as usual, only select targets in one direction with Y (xbox controller here). There are so many stupid targets that's impossible to prioritize and get the SAM or VLS or whatever is shooting missles at you

Wingmen are okay, I can get them to kill some targets. But they are not AC6 level of competent. Some of the missions are a bit limited, but it seems like in the end they are opening up more. Still not on the scale as AC6, missions seem to be more funneled and limited in approach. But there are some good ones but I do feel like they are focusing a bit more on simplistic missions. I like the missions where they give you 20 or so minutes and a bunch of areas to attack and ideally operations but those seem to be fewer overall in this game, with the operations concept not present at all. Targeting is not as bad as AC6 as there are less enemies but I do not find it as smooth as AC7 or other previous games so it can be a problem every now and then but generally not that difficult.

I'm not done with the campaign yet, but the story seems quite average. Very Japanese as usual. I think the story peaked with AC4 as it was less cheesy and the most serious toned.

Do I like it? Of course. But I think it could have been better. This is one of those series where each entry does something better or worse than another.

Ace combat 4, that was with yellow squadron right?

Rev. Night said:

Ace combat 4, that was with yellow squadron right?

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Yes. IMO the best in the series overall, respective for its time. The story and radio dialogue were better and more serious in tone. Gameplay in Ace Combat 6 is quite good but the story hit a low point there. The enemy AI is more aggressive, but so is the friendly AI. You get sub-operations in most missions which makes replaying them a good bit different. So you can choose to defend bombers, or defend ground forces, take over an airbase and use it to resupply, etc. AC8 is more like AC7 but with slightly better friendly AI, you kind of just do your think. AC6 had a nice battle field feel to it that I was hoping they would go back to.

Ace Combat 6 recomp is here. Again the story is awful, but if you don't like clutter you may not like that one because there is a whole lot going on. At times a bit too much. But I love how it feels like a war going on around you, with other units doing their thing.

Will finish AC8 campaign tonight.



Sales surpassed 1 million already, making it the fastest selling game in the series. Dropped from the top 10 sellers on Steam, but if you exclude free to play games and Valve hardware, there really only are a few paid single player games like GoW E Day, Star Wars Galactic Racer, Hellrasier & Dragon's Dogma 2 that are outselling it currently. Add in some paid multiplayer games like Wardogs and Arc Raiders. All things considered it seems like it is off to a strong start on Steam/PC.

This is one of the few missions I did not get an S rank with on my initial try. Was a bit long at 35 minutes. I shot down 163 planes and only got an A rank.




Later missions do get better.

There is some stuttering, but quite infrequent in gameplay. Compared to most modern games it runs well, but occasionally it does have some issues. A restart might help. Cut scenes is where stutters do pop up and they are common. Sometimes they are okay, in some instances they were a bit more notable. I restarted after I noticed some more of them and that seemed to clear them up more, the game does compile shaders each start up. They did a good job for an older UE5 build. I'd like to see them port it to the newest version of UE5 as that might help cleanup the remaining stuttering.

There is some typical ray tracing "noise" which is a problem with most RT and PT games, which is disappointing as the graphics look good otherwise. I disabled motion blur but it seems like there is still motion blur enabled in cut scenes regardless, which is too bad. The graphics look great but between RT noise and blur the graphics could have looked a good bit cleaner.

MISSION 14 SUCKS A DRY DICK

Rev. Night said:

MISSION 14 SUCKS A DRY DICK

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It is the most boring mission in the game, but I finished it in around 10 minutes. I finished it on the first try without an issue. I'm redoing most missions to find and get the ace skins, I assume there is none in this mission because you're unarmed. I'd only ever replay this mission if I decided to do a complete campaign replay.

i keep getting shot down as soon as those 2 other dudes come in. it's fucking stupid, i have no flares, can't move, and can't evade. how do i dodge their missles?

Rev. Night said:

i keep getting shot down as soon as those 2 other dudes come in. it's fucking stupid, i have no flares, can't move, and can't evade. how do i dodge their missles?

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I'll have to try it again. For me I quite literally just flew fast and low. I did recall being shot once but it entered a cut scene and the mission essentially ended after that. Damage was quite low so I survived. I recall there being a point where Baxter gives you an option to go left and I think I followed his suggestion. Would be a real lame mission to get stuck on.

pendragon1 said:

hori and thrustmaster have branded hotas setups for this.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F3WMLjENCk

https://www.amazon.com/HORI-Ace-Combat-Playstation-Officially-Entertainment/dp/B0HGW3VGYL
https://www.amazon.com/Thrustmaster-T-FLIGHT-HOTAS-COMBAT-WINGS-Desktop/dp/B0H5FGJN2M

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Bought the Thrustmaster for PS5 and it gets the job done. The stick is a lot easier to use than a gamepad and far more precise after a short initial relearning of controls. E.g. I was having major problems hitting anything with the canon on the gamepad, but feels quite manageable on the stick and being able to set throttle anywhere and just leave it there feels much more natural than trying to deal with the triggers. Also don't need a table for it as it is wide enough to be secure on your lap.

Build quality is lots of plastic and feels quite cheap out of the box. The build quality was really disappointing when I compared it to my warthog hotas+pedals setup, but it works well in game and I forget the cheap build quality when I start playing. The warthog setup requires me to move lots of stuff of my desk to clear space and takes 3 USB cables while the T-Flight is small enough that I only need to push some stuff a bit further in, connect the USB-C plug and good to go. Basically 5-10 mins vs 30 seconds setup. Mostly used the unit in my recliner with it resting on my lap and haven't missed having the joystick on a desk so far. Will use the T-Flight for couch gaming and short sessions on PC, but probably bring out the warthog setup for lengthy sessions as it feels much more premium, more precise and has enough buttons that I rarely need to use my keyboard. The ease of setup is partially why I bought it as I rarely play games that require a joystick due to the lengthy setup and tare down process. Basically for a 1 hour session, I would spend 10-15 minutes just rigging and putting stuff away so reducing that to less than 1 minute makes me much more likely to play games with a joystick.

Only 8 or so missions into the game so far, but it's a lot of fun. Cheesy story and very arcade gameplay, which is series staples and to be expected. The game doesn't take itself to seriously and is good at making you feel like an ace pilot. Has been decent enough variation in the missions that it doesn't feel repetitive, which was a problem in AC7. Wingmen do a good job of doing what I tell them to do, but feels like the need to be micromanaged quite a bit. Nice to have them ward off incoming missiles without having to do evasive maneuvers when you ask them to cover you. Also a bit easier to take down enemies when my wingmen are distracting them and sometimes killing the enemy planes.

Flying feels good though and expert controls feel intuitive after playing the tutorials. I did struggle a lot when trying the standard controls as it felt quite unresponsive and overly complicated to get basic stuff done.

I'm playing it on steam with Xbox controller. It's a lot of fun. The first playthrough is rough at times, but like previous entries, you get a future jet at the end. You can then use this for all that old missions.

I have most of the medals and every mission except one on Ace S-rank.

The one exception is mission 28. There is a known bug where the shadows have infinite flares and spam them non-stop. Waiting for that patch

Ace Combat Zero was added as a separate game in my Steam Library now which is nice. Finished the campaign 3 times, have all planes, shot down all aces. Multiplayer is fun but very grindy, with no real point as it is so casual. Team death match and death match seem to be locked 95% of the time. I do like the other modes but they are repetitive and whoever gets the better jets/parts gets all the kills. AC7 multiplayer gated lower tier planes together and you could play team death match which was funner than killing bots.

I find if you skip the cut scenes there is more stutter in gameplay, I assume it uses cut scenes to load or re-compile shaders? Not a problem unless you already finished the story a few times and just want to get into the mission. I only wish there were some more missions where they give you a time limit and let you choose your own approach. There were a lot less of those compared to previous games.

Rev. Night said:

I'm playing it on steam with Xbox controller. It's a lot of fun. The first playthrough is rough at times, but like previous entries, you get a future jet at the end. You can then use this for all that old missions.

I have most of the medals and every mission except one on Ace S-rank.

The one exception is mission 28. There is a known bug where the shadows have infinite flares and spam them non-stop. Waiting for that patch

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Have not had that, but use SASMs (with extra damage parts) and you can 1 shot the bombers, and they work well for the aces as they do not require a direct hit. Otherwise it seems like gun hits are most effective for them.

ok so the patch finally dropped, at least on my machine.

Patch + F-46 SASM + special missile upgrades = ez pz for mission 28 shadow part.

Even easier would have been if I had my teammates been E18 or E46s and only allow them to use special weapons during the shadow fight.

Still, I got all missions S rank on ACE, and also just got the 'buy all upgrades' achievement

Rev. Night said:

ok so the patch finally dropped, at least on my machine.

Patch + F-46 SASM + special missile upgrades = ez pz for mission 28 shadow part.

Even easier would have been if I had my teammates been E18 or E46s and only allow them to use special weapons during the shadow fight.

Still, I got all missions S rank on ACE, and also just got the 'buy all upgrades' achievement

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It is quite easy to get S on all the missions on the mode that is harder than normal (2nd highest). I got most of them S on my first try except Mission 28 and maybe one other. This was attempt 2 with an F-22, 4AAM & QAAM:




F-15C + SASM was even easier.

Ace Combat 6 is much harder in comparison, and collision damage in this and AC7 are toned down (instant death in previous games). And wreckage does not seem to kill you which I can understand for missions like 28. Still a fun game and I hope they do a bigger campaign DLC, something like 7-12 missions. Bring back Operations from Ace Combat 6 or give us some larger missions where we can tackle the objectives our own way.


The Nanite implementation is quite amazing in this game. Copy/pasting a screen from Digital Foundry:



The detail here is... outstanding. For a flight game where you zip through at such high speeds there is so much detail here. All with almost zero pop in, only a few sky scarpers in the distance will pop in when almost out of visual range. Just compare this to Spider-Man 2, an action/fighting game where you climb on and fight on roof tops:



Ace Combat 8 is getting close in geometry detail. That is simply amazing considering it is a flight game.

Digital Foundry's video is worth skimming through:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbTc_AUkVFk

Anyone play ac zero belken war? it was free for me

Rev. Night said:

Anyone play ac zero belken war? it was free for me

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Yes, it works great. Played through it many times on PS2 and PCSX2. I did one campaign run.

This is a bit different as the campaign is not 100% the same depending on your play style. Some missions you get three options, which are essentially entirely different missions with different map boundaries and objectives. The ace squadrons you go up against will also differ depending on your play style. The two easiest options to get is to shoot down targets that turn yellow after being hit (mercenary), or leave them be (knight). Soldier is a bit harder, you need to kill maybe half the targets that turn yellow when damaged.

Each style will result in different aces that appear in some missions, or entirely different missions. But most of the missions are the same. A single campaign run took me around 5 hours without any unlocks. You can download a save converter tool and use someone's completed game save if you just want to play the alternate missions after your first campaign run without redoing every single mission.

Cools! The mp for ac8 feels a bit like a grind. I wish there was co+op for campaign

Rev. Night said:

Cools! The mp for ac8 feels a bit like a grind. I wish there was co+op for campaign

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It really is. I actually like it... but the grind has killed my enthusiasm. People who buy the seasons pass progress faster and get higher leveled planes with more parts = you can't really compete. It takes forever to get your plane to level 20. You mostly play Co-Op or Team vs Team with AI on both sides. There are only a few in rotation. The problem is the gameplay is simplistic, so what is the point of an excessive grind?

Playing purely against humans in team death match or death match essentially never happens as the modes are locked 98% of the time. But I'd probably get slapped by someone with a level 20 jet anyway. Despite the multiplayer being bigger I preferred AC7. Players were tier gated so you could have a few different sets of planes, an F-16 for low tier, Rafale for medium, F-22 for high, etc. and enjoy playing against people.

Co-op modes are fun but even ignoring lack of mission variety the planes at higher level fly further and shoot further. In some matches I get practically no kills against AI because those that have high level planes out speed & range all my targets. Maybe they will change how it works and I hope they do because it seems like it could be fun.