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GamesRelay Score
Great
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Name: Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
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It's been over a year since we last saw an Ace Combat game, riding on high expectations from its previous releases, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War doesn't really bring anything new to the series, nothing that certainly hasn't been done in its previous games. However, this doesn't make it a bad thing, as long as it offers an enjoyable experience then who's to care whether it's new or not, right? Thankfully Belkan War certainly is an enjoyable experience, to new players and fans alike.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War takes place 15 years prior to Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, revolving around a conflict between the great nation of Belkan and the Allied Forces. The story however feels very familiar for players of the previous games, with it taking place 15 years prior to The Unsung War, a lot of the aircraft are the same if but a littler earlier in design. The Ace Combat series has always pride itself on offering players great air combat with an intricate story, Belkan War is no exception to this, presented from the perspective of a journalist who is looking to uncover the truth behind the Unsung War, the story is based around two mercenary fighter pilots callsign Cypher and Pixy. A lot goes on between the two pilots which comes to a head later in the game, it becomes very interesting and engages the player in some thought about the whole conflict in general and whether certain actions are right or wrong during a time of war.
The campaign is set over twenty missions, they have been filtered of most of the missions we aim to forget thankfully, escorting defenceless targets and seeing how long you survive missions haven't been removed in their entirety, they have been made few and far between though. The majority of the missions often place you straight into the action seeing you dogfighting the other pilots while destroying ground targets and other objectives, everything about Ace Combat is here and the enjoyment of getting a lock on and then blasting the enemy out of the sky is ever present. Throughout the campaign you'll come across various points where you get a choice of choosing which direction you want to go in through the mission, they all follow the same conclusion but if you prefer air-to-air combat over air-to-ground then it's nice to be able to choose which to play while still progressing the story. Still present is the ability to head out of the map for repair and resupply, though as with the other games, the large mission areas leave you flying to the edge for quite some time before reaching them and then having to head all the way back.
One feature Belkan War does have is a ranking system, during missions you're ranked as either a mercenary, soldier or knight depending on your performance. This can be a factor of a few things, mainly, players who destroy everything they come across regardless of the hostility towards them will be ranked as a Mercenary, players who are merciful on neutral targets will take the rank of Knight, and the players who strike a fine balance between the two will end up being ranked as Soldiers. These different ranks effect what type of enemy ace squadrons you end up facing throughout the campaign bringing some marginal differences, but while they look different, they mostly act exactly the same.
You'll see most of the same aircraft return, from classics such as the F-15 and A-10 Thunderbolt, along with some cutting edge top end aircraft like the YF-23 which never made it into full production, there's a lot of aircraft to choose from but not all are available from the start. While playing you'll accumulate money to purchase new aircraft and while it's tempting to go and spend it on the best one you'll see, saving your money for one of the later aircraft will really help your chances through the campaign, making the later missions much easier.
The enemies you encounter however do still have some problems with their AI, locking on to enemy aircraft is still fairly easy unless you come across one of the ace squadrons, the planes while having some manoeuvrability act as fairly good targets but not challenging enough, the ace squadrons however will have you in some of the most intense, fun and challenging dog fights you'll face during the game. Dying is something you'll face quite often, the game isn't forgiving either, at the end of a mission you'll have a surprise waiting for you that will test your piloting abilities bringing you near to death, if you do die, you'll have to start the mission over from one of its checkpoints. It isn't too difficult mind you, it's challenging enough to be enjoyable, but not too difficult to make it frustrating. The only things you have to worry about are your speed, missiles and not crashing into the ground, since your main gun has unlimited ammo and your aircraft has unlimited fuel, it makes things more accessible, and with not having to worry about blacking out while pulling a high G-turn either, it keeps it fun without becoming a simulator.
Replayability wise their are multiple difficulty settings for you to choose from, they seem more to make the damage you take higher than actually improving the difficulty overall, however the ace squadrons do become unbelievably difficult on the hardest difficulty. Going back and playing the campaign again will let you choose different missions to take as mentioned earlier so if you want to experience everything you'll need to go through it a few times, you can also unlock medals for various accomplishments, these are just for show however and don't really add any overall value.
The graphics are as good as ever, the aircraft and landscape are shown in high detail with some great views while flying. You can take three perspectives while flying, cockpit view and two exterior views the cockpit view is the most pleasing since you can see all the buttons and dials even if they aren't real they do look authentic, it helps immerse yourself in the role of a fighter pilot.
Multiplayer is present in Belkan War, however it's a basic two-player mode which contains a few scenarios ranging from dogfighting to air racing, it's disappointing that the game doesn't include online play however since the PlayStation 2 is capable of it, providing you have an adapter, it would of made the multiplayer aspect so much more rewarding being able to fly against a group of real players in aerial combat, but perhaps we'll see that in a later game.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War may be missing some originality, but overall you still get the same excitement from playing. Adding another layer of polish on top of a near perfect series it's hard to improve on something that has already accomplished what it wanted to do. With an excellent music score on top, it gives the game all the more pleasing only equalled by its great look. Despite the games similarity to its previous incarnations, for fans of air combat games and fans of the series alike, this one is definitely worth picking up.