The BIGGEST Ace Combat Game: an Ace Combat 5 Retrospective

Finally. A serious video about AC5. No sarcastic jokes, no pointing at small plot holes in the middle of the video, and overall the narrator is not trying to be a complete clown. Man, those are rare these days. Good job!

Hands down my favorite and being equal to ACZ as to AC5. The Unsung War the only AC entry to have the longest story in the franchise reaching nearly 30 missions and having tons of planes of you to choose from it. And of course the plot thickens until it leads up to a whole new level that you never imagined. This game holds a special place in my heart and I'll play this until my death bed. Everything about this game was so replayable, memorable and lastly a true experience from start to finish.

In the Tokyo 2020 they used “first flight” in the opening ceremony with other songs, for me this game is something emotional, I remember the first time I finished the game, almost got me in tears

It says a lot that nearly 20 years later the 8492nd still makes me angry and hearing Chopper say "This is Raaaaazzgriz 3!" Makes me smile. I can think of no other game that illicits such an emotional reaponse from me and this is just a silly plane game.

I’ve been waiting for this one. I loved Shattered Skies but The Unsung War was by far my favorite in the series.

I will never forget the epilogue of this game, the final rendition of The Unsung War playing in this somber, but hopeful tone. The image of the flags and text about Razgriz, followed by that beautiful shot of Kirk howling at the sky while the birds fly off from Sand Island. Gorgeous game with a great message that honestly holds up.

12:54 excellent foreshadowing for the international space elevator given the fact that at this time President Harling spearheaded its construction

The funniest thing about the entire 'trial for misconduct', there are black boxes on fighter jets too, and they are tracked very well on radar. Easy to point out they were not where the incident occurred. Plus, video recorders are often going too. It should be more suspicious if all that just disappeared.

Ace Combat 5 was the first Ace Combat that I've ever played and it stills holds up a special place in my heart. It introduced me to my love for both videogame and aviation, and beating it after all those years takes me back to those simples times of playing videogames and enjoying life without a care in the world

Ace combat 5 is my favorite of all Ace Combat games, the story, the amazing characters, the music all just amazing plus I think it has the most heart of the entire franchise

I remember playing this one, it was 3/4 in 2018, right after I finished all the chronological instalments up to AC5, it was right after i took a break because i couldn't really internalize 4, because 3 was amazing, but after a couple of weeks, i went back to 4 to play it again, and then started this game. this was the one that had a lot of budget, actors and passion across the border, this was a real joy to play. thank god i pre ordered 7 so now i have AC5 on PS5. not any of the AC games are hard to emulate.

Growing up, I played AC5 first, so it has a very special place for me. But then Zero came out, and I lived, ate, breathed, slept ACZero. Oh my god I loved it so much, and to this day, Zero is my favorite of the 3. I also played 4, and for some reason, just couldn't get into it as much. I think a loarge part of it was, I just didn't understand the story telling at that point. I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the cut scenes. I'm going to go back and play it and see how I feel afterwards.

Personally, i think ac5 was the best out of the three, ac4 it self is amazing with interesting ways of narrating the story, but it felt kinda empty on some missions. AC zero was amazing as well with refined physics from ac5 and ac4 with wonderful brotherhood but sometimes i feel that the relationship with pixy and the story could've been exploited more since it only has 18 missions. But i think Ac5 was the best of the bunch, 23 missions i think and an extra mission that you can play as mobius 1 and the story and the team made me cry, especially chopper's death and president harling speech and the yuktobania ship that switch to our side are one of many moments that shook my heart.

I liked being leader of the Razgriz, but I loved how Zero made me feared like a monster.

AC5 was my favorite of the Ace Combat games on the PS2 due to the story and the music. The Scinfaxi and Hrimfaxi leitmotifs in particular being cofavorites; those two submarines also led me into a brief period of interest in Norse mythology. Of course, the passage of time has changed my perspective of things and revisiting AC5 in this retrospective made some of those things apparent. For better or worse, the cutscenes were very cinematic but tropy in ways I don't like. E.g. the Yukobanian fleet being depicted in a very tight formation for visual effect but would in reality be too close to each other to be combat effective. Or the radio chatter lacking brevity and terminology one might realistically expect from military pilots and other radio personnel; although that could also be said of the other two PS2 games.

Wish I could have played this one. Amazing work! Ace combat needs to have an show or something these story are just so good!

Ace Combat 5 is a game that I, personally, do not like, but I will never say I don't appreciate it for what it is. For me, it stumbles a lot over its own footing and message (That is to say, it tries to reinforce its anti-war message by having the central characters constantly remind the player how bad war really is). In my mind, I've likened AC04, AC5 and Zero to the original Star Wars trilogy, albeit out of chronological order - For me, AC5 is the New Hope of the PS2 trilogy, laying a good retroactive foundation for the series to ground itself to, while having its faults and issues. It's still a great game, with very high and emotional highs (Namely, Chopper refusing to bail out during the battle over November City), while also having some of the lowest frustrating lows in the series, such as how overly scripted the game is, compared to both AC04 and Zero. AC5 is easily my least favorite, and in my opinion the least good, of the PS2 trilogy, but it is by no means a bad game. "Fifteen years ago, there was a war. A war that engulfed the world - The Belkan War." Doesn't quite have the same emotional weight to it as "I was just a child when the stars fell from the skies, but I remember how we built a cannon to destroy them, and in turn how that cannon brought war upon us."

Choppers death was the first time a fictional character to actually made me cry.

Oh boy, that scene of the kestrel sinking aways hits me hard.

I legit cried when Chopper died on the first time playing this as a kid