Recent reviews by Noelle

It would be really funny if they added pride capes, come on

I came for the queer-friendly character customization, but the best part is the wide range of characterization you can play for your character. A genuinely fun thing that I usually feel is missing in most other roleplay games.

I'm not even finished with this one but holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ oh my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ god yes my heart can't take it

Edit: having now finished the game completely. I can wholeheartedly endorse this toxic lesbian game.

Self harm for the military obsessed

Short, sweet game I found on a thread about trans stories in games. Didn't disappoint.

This broke me in the most trans, lesbian, polyamorous, queer, beautiful way possible. Play this now.

Sayori's has a strange ability to make male character that I completely thirst over.

It's clear other reviews are gonna tell you why this is a great game to buy better then me, so I'm going to rant abit comparing it to ace combat. PW does it's best to put itself apart from AC and has various improvements and flaws compared to AC that I think are worth talking about.

I think the best way to describe PW is that is completely on par with the older ace combat games gameplay wise, in all the good and bad ways. The way missiles guns and aircraft control hit a very AC04 level that alot of people crave. The weapon selection is also more balanced and refined then Ace Combat's sandbox approach to weapons, which alot of people like. However, this being the devs first AC style game to my knowledge, they did fall into some issues early AC games had. Target select, while usable, is somewhat jank compared to the modern AC games. I know why this is, PA has had about 25 years to refine the process and PW has just started out. However, I think its undeniable that there are some frustrating moments of trying to select the target you want. I think if they cheated like AC:Zero did by adding a boresight target selector, it would solve alot of this without the need to try and completely redo the code for target selection.

Also an element from AC04 is the difficulty, on steroids. Be warned right now, Hard mode on PW is Ace mode from Ace Combat. Merc mode is AoA mode from Ace Combat 6. This game, although does't have the old AC games trademark of dying in one hit on the highest difficulty, is hard. People who 100% ace combat games on ace may have trouble doing so on PW. This is a welcome addition to many that claim Ace Combat has be soften and isn't hard anymore, but I think they overstep it a tad too much some times. As I write this the worst offending mission is being nerfed on all but Merc mode, but I feel it is still worth mentioning.

On story, this game was actually really interesting to me, but I was semi-disappointed with the ending, even after the secret merc ending. At first PW seems like its just doing Vector Thrust's story but better. However, the writers have really gone all out to make this world nearly as interesting as AC's. I will mention real quick that the graphic design sadly doesn't match up to this world building, the emblems, flags, and roundels are nice but not the best. Monarch's emblem is the only one I considered to match up to the standards I'd expect from PA, but I will give them a break as PA and Bandai are kinda known for amazing graphic design, and it maybe an unfair comparison. PW's post grimdark world is amazing, and because of it it becomes even more heart breaking when it, well becomes slightly more grimdark. I am highly disappointed they kept monarch generic like ac protags, there was a clear side arc about who Monarch was and his history that by the end is abandoned, the whole ending lacks closure even with the secret ending. I can understand keeping things vague and vailed like what "the deal" was. But there were clear side plots left unfinished, semi-mirroring AC7's issues funny enough.

Despite all this, I expect PW to become one of AC's first real contenders for the throne of Arcade Flight Combat games. The fact that they have done this much with their first game in the genre tells me that they may even surpass Ace Combat itself given the time and experience. I recommend buying this game even if you only care about ace combat, as doing so will fuel innovation in the genre.

10/10 would buy again just for Virsenian Glory

When I first started playing this game, I noticed deep issue I thought were just quirks. I told myself that before I form an honest opinion about this game I should finish the campaign, and try some multiplayer matches. I did so, and I am now asking the question you should never have to ask about your star wars flight action game, "Is this fun?"

Before I get into everything, some side notes (You can probably just skip this, but I feel I should show some of the biases I may have judging this game). I play a lot of this genre, Ace Combat is my favorite thing in existence period. I also like flight sims and am learning to pilot IRL. I do not let arcadiness in an arcade flight sim cloud my judgement, in fact I think most of the time arcadiness can make a better game. Part of the reason I love Ace Combat is it perfectly trends the line between arcade and sim to the point that anyone who plays game can pick it up, learn the controls, and have a lot of fun with it. Another note is that I am a big star wars fan, and I crawl over anything to do with starfighters for obvious reasons. I also dive into some of the EU, canon and otherwise, so I like to think I got at least 80% of references in this game, which I'll get back to. Lastly, I will mostly be talking about the single player, as that is what I and most other people that play this genre look at first. Unless I specifically mention multiplayer, I'm talking about the campaign.

All the personal biases non-sense aside, I feel I have to start with the positives. There was so much I loved about this game, and I really wanted to love this game:
- The overall plot of the campaign is wonderful. I loved seeing the Starhawk get some canon spotlight as well as Sloane, Hera, and Wedge getting some more for themselves. Additional, I want to pat the writers on the back for keep as much of the force and jedi stuff out of this story ('what's her face' aside), in my opinion its a starfighter game and it shouldn't have room for that.
- I also thought the campaign did some cool and unique things. Seizing the star destroyer felt like they got their plot directly from spacedock's video and I'm not angry for it, I love it. It's such a unique mission idea and it fit the Starhawk story line perfectly. Also, small things about the writing for the imperials was wonderful. Things like Terisa's motivation being that she was an orphan and the empire gave her a home and Sol's.. well, entire character being about wanting to resort the senate and some of the various lines the imperials say about the state of the empire. It feels like a breath of fresh air, and almost felt like a true perspective on why people would join the empire. Admittedly it was still a bit cheesy and the quality of their standard for doing this waned back and forth drastically throughout the story, which is why I don't think it quite hit the mark. However, it's a large step in the right direction writing wise and I'm always happy to see star wars' writing improve, especially on games where they have been both the weakest and strongest on writing in star wars at times.
- Along side this, some of the campaign's moments were brilliant at times. Things like having fans think they are about to kill a fan favorite character like Hera during the dockyard assault are some of the nice tiny things they did in the story. My favorite moments however were the Y-wing trench run on the comms station and the trench run in the starhawk. This was the ♥♥♥♥ I paid for and the ♥♥♥♥ that got star wars to inspire the Ace Combat series. Despite all my issues with this game, this is a moment that will go on my list for say.
- Some of the weapon systems as well were just spot on for what I wanted out of this game. Dumb fire rockets, XMAA multi missiles straight out of ace combat, and as if that wasn't ace combat enough the stuck a TLS (Tactical Laser System) on the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bombers. Words can no describe how much I love this insane weapons that fit star wars to a tee but still add unique flavor. And for god's sake, I can give my Y-wing a gatling laser and LARP as an A-10 with a GAU-8.
- I also have to comment on VR, even if I am not in a position to have VR myself. It's great companies are throwing themselves into the VR pool, and I welcome any and all flight games that want to make their games VR.
- Last tiny detail was how they portrayed Grey's sexuality. It's nice to see more LGBT inclusion in games despite what others are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and moaning about. And as a plus, the story didn't make a big deal or dwell on it, which was nice.

Now, despite all these positives I just listed, I really hate this game. It has fundamental flaws that could have been fixed if the devs had an experience in the flight action arcade genre and there are some very "EA" qualities that make the game overall worse. Not to mention, the story mode despite the positives listed seems pretty forgettable and not fun to replay:
- The basic controls, I thought were going to be fine from what I saw in the trailers. I was mistaken. Some flight games are better with a control like ace combat, some like war thunder with mouse and keyboard, and most sims are better with a flight stick. This game feels like I should be playing it with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ steering wheel. For some reason, the devs wanted to make yaw the end all be all of turning. Yes, doing the normal flight arcade thing by rolling and pitching to turn is LARGELY SLOW then yawing to turn. I feel I shouldn't call this "clunky" because anyone that is bad at a flight action game can use the word clunky as an excuse for being bad at it. However, as someone that plays a lot of games in this genre; this maybe the worst basic movement/controls in the genre. This is including ace combat's "Standard" controls. I know I am seemingly rambling about this, but this tiny thing nearly ruins the whole game for me and majority of other that play this genre. Because of this, dogfights are not fun despite how much time I put in to trying to understand the game's dogfighting mechanics. I have to say the line again: "If dogfighting in your space dogfighting game isn't fun, you have made a grave error." I not even sure why they decided to do this. My best guesses are that they either thought people were too stupid to learn to turn with pitch and roll, or during testing with VR they found this method was less taxing on the VR users then the latter controls/movement.
- The biggest downside of the campaign's story is it's characters. None of them were endearing to the point I cared about them if I didn't force myself to care about them. Grey barely had a character, and alot of others were pretty one note. When I only remember my squad mates as: Hand, force girl, criminal, and Sinear or homosexual, senate, edgy, and edgy but cool, there is a slight issue with your character writing.
- I can't help but feel the level designs for the campaign only knew how to make good set piece, and not good gameplay. Don't get me wrong, there were great moment and other well designed moments I didn't mention. However, alot of it just was seemly unfun design. A good example is the restock hanger that is in some missions. On missions like the dockyard assault, the resupply is so far from your objective that I found that the game would start yelling at me for being idle any time I went back to supply. My guess on this is that they were given a story and told to design a level following it exactly, instead of focusing on gameplay FIRST.

Steam reviews have a character limit so I'm going to conclude here and list most of my negatives in the comments. To conclude, I liked a lot what they were trying to do here. However; a mixture of mistakes, lack of the devs experience in the genre, and IMO a different type of EA cash grab then normal, trying to get on the esports train. I really wanted to love this game, but I honestly wish Project Aces had developed it instead. Maybe then it'd be a quality addition to the genre.