How good is this game?

I just completed the story mode myself.

In the beginning, I thought the story was too typical, but after realising I was fighting a coup alongside Russian forces, I liked it. But I wish they had not named the ace Markov, it's simply too close to Makarov from CoD... And Warwolf just doesn't work, I know it's a reference to Wardog, but...No, just no.

I enjoyed the length of the missions. Although there are only 16, it feels like more since you cannot really rush them like you could in earlier ACs.

For a general feel of the game, there is no doubt that it is an AC, but it is not like the others. It is most definately more violent than previous ones.

And DFM and ASM... I hate it. I mean it looks cool and all, but... I really dislike that my gun seems to do no damage whatsoever andd that some dogfights, a lot in fact, are scripted so it does not matter at all whether you shoot or not. Really annoying.

However, I love avoiding other plane's DFM with cobras and spins and kulbits, that's awesome. Especially a cobra from cockpit view is staggering. Another thing I found very enjoyable was

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The soundtrack..well.. it's Ace Combat, it's nothing less than epic as usual! Lovely music that I will listen to when flying in MSFS.

I wish there were more helicopter and bomber missions, though. I hope there might be some coming from DLC. It was rather enjoyable dashing through

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For some reason, I would have enjoyed more being a faceless ace/being myself than assuming the role of the four different characters during the story mode.

Customizing colour of your aircraft is a great feature, you can do some interesting combinations and personalise more than before. I would prefer if I could do more than alter the colors, though.

All in all a good game, just not as good as Ace Combat 3 or Ace Combat 5. 7½/10 from me. The scripted DFM and ASM kills it for me.

And my reaction the the special weapon of the PAK FA (0.00-0.03) as well as the lack of a Falken or X-02 (the rest of the clip):