Completed Ace Combat 4.
The game is short. 18 missions and about 2 hours of actual gameplay.
The problem with the game is the rather tedious mission structure. You’re often just given 15 minutes to score enough points in any way you see fit. And while the idea of picking your targets in any order is interesting, nothing is more frustrating than running out of time.
The contrast is most obvious between Mission 10, where you have to try to hit an enemy submarine dock, and Mission 11, where you escort friendly transport planes.
New planes become available as the game progresses, and you’re supposed to buy them with the money you earn from completing missions. But after you get the EF-2000 midway through the game, there’s not much point in buying anything else.
Also, maybe because of the point system, but friendly units don’t actually shoot anything, as far as I can tell.
You get some cool jets at the end: the F-22, F-15 ACTIVE, and for the final mission, the Su-47.
It’s impossible to call Thirteen a nemesis, because Mobius 1, the protagonist, is ever silent, and they meet only twice throughout the game. The first time, you just need to escape; the second time, you shoot him down.
Of course, the final mission has you flying through multiple corridors. But either because I was playing with an analog controller, or because I was prepared, or maybe simply because it’s easier than later installments, I managed it on the first try.
The hardest part was figuring out what the game wanted from you, because the two corridors you have to fly through are parallel, but the third one is perpendicular to the first two, so you have to circle the island to find the entrance.
Still, it’s a cool mission, with cruise missiles launching and lasers sweeping the sky.
