Welcome to Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown!

Ace Combat is a series that I am basically very new to. The only game prior to this one that I had played and finished was Assault Horizon. The key difference between Assault Horizon and Ace Combat 7 is (besides that Assault Horizon is a bad game and AC7 is a great game) is that Horizon takes place in our real world while Ace Combat 7 and the rest of the series of games prior to it take place in an alternative version of Earth known as Strangereal where history is entirely different, although real world aircraft companies and their aircraft still exist (i.e. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc).

Ace Combat 7 takes place in the year 2019 during a conflict known as the Lighthouse War and you play initially as a member of Mage Squadron known as Trigger and through a chain of critical events, you end up moving between different squadrons, fight ace pilots and above all else, dive deep into a battle between man and machine as human pilots and their drone counterparts fight for control of the future of aerial warfare with a massive Space Elevator looming in the background.

The gameplay is absolutely solid, the music is beautiful, the graphics are beautiful as well. It's such a pleasant sight to behold in an era where most companies just regurgitate out the absolute worst games out there with barely even a year of development and boast about how it's the best game of the year. (not saying all companies are like this, there are a few notable exceptions) The only real downside to me is that the story didn't really have this punch to it like I was hoping, it was mostly callbacks to Ace Combat 4 and 5 and on the Multiplayer side, I'm not very fond of it only having two gameplay modes. Battle Royale and TDM, no Co-Op like Infinity had.

As somebody who's pretty much new to Ace Combat, I'd give Skies Unknown a 8.5/10 However, with help from Agent-Louisiana144, I have begun the process of making an AC OC, pilot of that blue F-4 Phantom II that is flying under the alias of Phantom Rider for the Osean Federation. I plan on showing more of him in the future.