Ace Combat 8
I sat on the fence about buying Ace Combat 8 on launch for a multitude of reasons, one being I’m pretty much an Ace Combat poser (only played 7), it being expensive (haha…), and my backlog… Unfortunately (or fortunately) my FOMO kicked in and when I saw some other people play it I figured “hey maybe I’ll play online with them”.
Well, I probably won’t be playing online with them, but I can safely say I didn’t regret my purchase at least! Which is kind of a crazy thing to say about a big game purchase from a big game company on launch lol.
Now that being said, I think for the most part Ace Combat 8 is pretty much exactly what it is on the tin. A fun arcade flight game! I enjoyed the gameplay a lot, which I guess makes sense since I enjoyed 7’s. There’s just something really satisfying about the dogfights and I loved the big scale missions and combat in the game. They do a good job with instilling this sense of scale and of course the game looks fantastic. From a purely mission perspective I thought this game had better missions than 7. With the exception of one mission that I did not like.
Story wise I don’t think Ace Combat 8 is necessarily “special”. It’s a pretty typical war story, nothing too shocking or mind blowing. Which honestly I think is perfectly fine. It’s games like this that make me think that you don’t need to reinvent the story telling wheel, you just need to execute things well. That’s exactly how I felt about so many moments in this game.
There was just so much fun with both the pilot banter and my god, the music got me so excited so often. Just from the beginning missions from when the Shadows show up, or when Coster starts playing music, it’s so good! And the callbacks near the end of the game, adding up to the motifs of each side’s themes, playing the music again, god I could go on about how I thought that was so, so, wonderful.
The characters were honestly really good too. Sure, they’re a bit tropey and there’s a lot of cheese, but I’d be damned if I said I wasn’t attached to them or loved their interactions. The villains were set up much better in this game than AC7 (specifically Shadow 22 and Tewy). Showing up more throughout the game helps, even if its just their units.
What I really wanted to shout out is the OST of the game. Obviously, I play a lot of games and something that’s always been very important to me is the music. I actually try to actively not listen to songs from games I haven’t played before because I really like listening to songs in context. I love listening to soundtracks because they let me relive moments from the media, which is one of the reasons why music in games/vns/movies/shows/anime/etc is so important to me!
Just starting from the TUTORIAL mission, I was already jamming to the OST. Purple Haze’s music is great, and I love the rock music, and I love love love how it’s an in game universe thing where Coster plays the music over comms. The other part that I love is the Shadows interjecting and playing their OWN song over the comms, and you play your own music back to counter it. The clash of the two sides also in the style of the songs was wonderful, it got me invested and I loved it so much.
One of the best uses they did was playing songs at certain moments. I would be 100% lying if I said I didn’t tear up or get excited when Dealer asked Coster to play music in mission 28. But of course, to me, the best and the entire reason why I’m talking about the OST to this extent is Hortus Regis Alti, which to me is my favourite song from the game. In fact, it places incredibly high to me in terms of favourite songs from any game ever.
Why? Because it does a lot of very special things to me. Obligatory spoilers inbound, etc.
The Shadows leitmotif plays very early. It’s a very catchy chant, and its very evocative of the types of “rivals” you’re fighting against. Haunting, and it sounds very much like a hunting chant from a nomadic tribe. Makes perfect sense! The ensuing instrumentals adds to it, and it really makes you feel like you’re on the run from a group of predators. And then every time from then on, when you hear the music over the comms, you know the Shadows are coming, and it’s such a perfect way to have them show up each time.
However the BEST part of this chant and leitmotif is how it evolves throughout the game. The more you play, the more Shadows you fight against, the song evolves throughout. Both as a way to show how the Shadows you fight against are getting better, but also how YOU’RE getting better as well. A way to show how each Shadow unit you fight against is different from the last too. It becomes this awesome song to dogfight to! This combined with the pilot banter, god, it’s incredible. But they keep that chant leitmotif throughout, letting you know THIS is the Shadows song. I got excited every time I heard that chant because it let me know I was in for a good time. They do such a good job with using the leitmotif but also changing the song during certain moments to fit the mood.
One special shout out to one of my favourite moments in the game.
“Joker 1, stay behind all alone and well… Take out all the Shadows. See? I told you this was a stupid strategy!”
“No.”
Just that moment alone made all the cheesy bits of being able to say yes or no before hand worth it.
However, the reason why this leitmotif is so special to me is there are two distinct changes to it. One of them being the song that plays when a woman starts chanting clearly through the comms, a beautiful melodic voice, followed by the absolute destruction of the fleet you were protecting, and of course Baxter…
That change was great because you go from hearing the Shadows chant being one of “oh shit its time to fight” to “what the hell- oh FUCK”, appropriately themed as the song is titled Nightmare. However it still uses that same chant leitmotif!
This is also sort of before it goes back to its most “evolved” form in terms of equal dogfighting when you fight Shadow 22 for real. The chant of course returns and it really does feel like a “you are the two aces of the sky” moment. It’s a fantastic boss fight and a FANTASTIC ending to an already great mission filled with already with an immense amount of music callbacks. Incredible ace squadron, incredible fight, incredible song. I loved the culmination of the Shadows theme here, or well, specifically this version of it.
The reason why I say “this version” is because the actual true final form of the song could be said to be (what I assume) is the actual original version of the song. Bringing us all the way back to my favourite song in the game, Hortus Regis Alti.
It’s the voice we heard in Nightmare, the woman chanting the same chant we’ve been hearing throughout the game. But it’s noticeably different. There’s a teaser with Nightmare with how melancholic it sounds, but the leading instruments being different really lets it sink in. It’s not this dramatic song filled with electric guitars, but instead its a much more calmer song.
And then the lyrics kick in. The mission is already dramatic, with Cope telling you to put Tewy out of her misery, and of course after we learn about her backstory and her motivations for everything she’s doing.
The song is beautiful. Sung in Latin, I couldn’t understand the song, but the singer does such a good job at conveying the emotion of the song that in the moment during the dogfight I didn’t need to. Then looking up the lyrics afterwards and it adds another sense of sadness.
I love, love, love, love, how the letimotif is used. Because when you look at the lyrics and learn that yes, the song the Shadows were chanting throughout is this song (sans lyrics), it almost shifts meanings. Because the Shadows use it as a hunting song, a song to announce their presence and their hunt, but the songs lyrics paint the picture of a nomadic people. Not necessarily a hunt, but rather a search for better lands after their old lands were used up. It’s like the Shadows almost perverted the songs for their own uses, turning a beautiful song about having to roam the lands, into a song meant to hunt.
Combine that with the history of Sotoa as a whole and I find it to be a very tragic story and a very tragic song of a people who were forced to leave after the rapid militarization of their land caused their land to no longer be fertile. And then it’s further sad how listening to Cope, a person who was a common Sotoan talk about how different he and Tewy/Toprak were.
I honestly wasn’t as into Cope at the start, but I thought the parallels between him and Toprak and Tewy were really good. Him calling them out for their “aristocrat” ways and how his way of survival was “nothing like the path you chose”, that was really good. A woman who was scared of the blood of lambs, but still sent out her soldiers to die at war. A pretty apt description of most higher ups during war hm? Though not to slander Tewy so much since it’s clear that it’s not exactly a choice she enjoyed, and not a choice she had much say in.
This is probably the first time I rambled about a soundtrack so specifically but that’s just how good this OST was to me. This miiiight be my favourite OST of the year? At least of any of the big releases for sure. Incredible songs, incredible usages, and incredible theming throughout.