2026-4 - Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere - ★★★★☆

★★★★☆
Playtime: 14 hours

My only previous experience with Ace Combat is 7, and I got me one of them Android Handhelds (AYN Thor), so I figured why not give earlier games a shot? The upcoming release of Ace Combat 8 and Alice Snakewitch's post about the series were significant factors as well.

Infamously, Electrosphere was heavily reworked for its original westward release, dropping a whole disc and losing pretty much all of the cutscenes and dialogue between missions. I acquired and played a translated version of the Japanese release with all of that stuff intact. I got the True Electrosphere Experience, which is almost more of a standalone cyberpunk game than the third game in a series. It sowed the seeds of the Strangereal setting and its shadow still looms, but it's so tonally different from the rest that it doesn't really feel that connected.

My understanding from playing 7 and reading/hearing about the series 4-onward is that it's all basically just a real robot anime but the mechs are planes. You got your nations and ideologies and player characters who are unstoppable gods of battle carving through dozens, hundreds of enemy pilots every week's episode mission. That's the mode I'm used to, or at least know to expect.

In Electrosphere, you feel more like a cog in the machine. Despite the number of decision points that alter the story, all you're choosing is who gets to hold your leash. Which evil corporation would you like to work for, Blackwater Amazon or Google Raytheon? Or would you prefer the feckless, corrupt, moribund Neo United Nations? Perhaps the transhumanist 4chan cult led by the only man to ever cuck himself? No matter the route, nobody really "wins" or truly achieves anything of note. Even the infamous true ending just hammers home that all this conflict and destruction boils down to the petty, pathetic tantrums of small-minded assholes with too much power.

My journey of Watching Science Fiction Anime 21 Years Later continues to pay dividends; I don't know if I would have appreciated the game as much if I still lived in a world where I hadn't seen Ghost in the Shell. Cool stuff. I plan to go through the PS2 Ace Combat games next, so keep an eye on the site for those.