"Shattered Stones": Retro review of Ace Combat 3: Electrophere (Western release)

Overall Score: 4.4

B+

Gameplay: 5
The gameplay is a solid evolution of the gameplay of Ace Combat 2. It comes in the form of crisp, responsive arcade-style flight-sim. By that I mean it doesn't necessarily follow real world physics and you don't need to worry about things such as blacking or reding out when pulling high-G maneuvers. In this regard the game strikes a great, maybe even perfect balance in a scheme that can appeal to both hardcore flight sim fans and more casual players.

The control scheme makes full use of the PS1's dual analogue and Dual Shock controllers, though it is also compatible with other controllers like the OG PS1 digital controller and the Namco NeGcon.
Left stick - controls pitch and roll.
Right stick - look
L1, R1 - break, accelerate
L2, R2 - yaw left, yaw right
Triangle - target select
Circle - missile
X - machine gun
Square - map
D-pad - look
You can also change to the more simplified controls where the Left stick also turns the plane as opposed to rolling it left and right. Ace Combat 3 essentially set the gold standard for console flight sim control schemes.

One big change from Ace Combat 2 is the introduction of optional weapons. You can now change out your machine gun between a light rapid fire gatling, a slower firing heavy gatling, a very slow firing large bore cannon, and a rapid fire laser cannon. Missiles come in the form of standard missiles, short range missiles with larger magazines, cruise missiles, and bombs. However this happens automatically, rather than the player manually changing between weapons. If the player selects bombs or cruise missiles in their load out, targeting planes will automatically equip the regular missiles, with targeting ground targets will automatically equip the bombs or cruise missiles. While at first it seems a bit clunky, it still does add another layer to the Ace Combat 2 based gameplay. This is fully developed later in Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies for the PS2 (I may or may not review PS2 games in the future), where the player can freely select between weapons.

Mission levels also vary from dog fights over cities, to ground attacks in a canyon area, flying down a ravine and staying below the ridgeline to avoid insta-kill anti-aircraft weaponry, and even a mission taking place in space. Several of the later levels will challenge the player's piloting skills by sending them to fly down though tunnels and engage in a dogfight within a geofront.

Given that it makes full use of the dual analog sticks, the digital setting is a bit gimped, and the as a result plays absolutely terrible on a touch screen interface.


Graphics and visuals: 5 
Easily one of the best looking games of the PS1, maybe even one of the best looking 32-bit games period.

You can choose from the 1st person cockpit view and the 3rd person view. In the 3rd person view you can see your fully animated aircraft model. You'll see the afterburner flame when you accelerate, you'll see the air breaks deploy when you slow down, and you'll see the control surfaces and thrust vectoring activating as you maneuver your plane. The 3D models of the fighters are fully rendered and you're free to use the game's camera to look around at your plane from various angles.

Clouds have also been added in and modeled, and details of objects and the ground will fade out as you climb. All this happens very smoothly with little sudden pop in that one would see in earlier 3D games. However you will see some strange texture warping when traveling close to the ground a very low level, however this seems to be a common thing with the PS1 as I've seen it happen in other 3D games.

The US version opens with an opening anime-style movie, consisting of various clips. While the video looks nice, these are actually cobbled together from various cutscenes from the Japanese version that did no appear in the Western releases (more on that in the Plot section). In the US version there are no cutscenes, instead the plot is told though in-game text between missions.


Stability 5
The game runs very well, I can't even recall having any sort of glitches, freezes or memory card related issues. I haven't encountered any major show stoppers. Though there's nothing really special about this as Namco generally puts out high quality games.


Plot: 2
I'm just going to flat out say it, the plot to the Western release sucks! It is completely bland and generic.

The player character is a pilot with the Universal Peace Enforcement Organization, the armed wing of the international Neo United Nations. The plot centers around a conflict between two rival international corporations, General Resource (formerly known as Grunder Industries from Ace Combat 5) and Neucom Inc. (formerly the EASA from Ace Combat 4 that developed the X-02 Wyvern), each with their own private militias, that predictably turn market competition between the two into into a shooting war. In steps the UPEO to check the two. Later on a third faction, the Ouroboros, that has been manipulating all parties appears. As I mentioned there are no cutscenes, in-game or FMV, and the plot is moved along by in-game text screens.

The plot is about as deep as the original Doom. While this might have been ok had the game came out much earlier, like in 1996, in 1999 this is unacceptable considering that Ace Combat 2 came out two years prior with a solid plot and a branching storyline (though both paths lead to the same ending).

But hold up, you might be wondering why I said "the Western release sucks", what's the difference. Well Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere actually has a pretty complex story with themes of political intrigue, loyalty, and transhumanism, along with branching paths and multiple endings. The story in the Japanese version is moved along though cutscenes and character dialog segments.

 Same as with the Western release, the Japanese plot features two rival corporations, the UPEO and the Ouroboros, however in the Japanese version you can choose different paths and either stay with the UPEO, or alighn with one of the other factions, with a surprising plot-twist at the end. The plot twist being that the pilot is actually an AI running in a simulation computing possible events in a hypothetical war between the different factions. While at first it might sound kind of weird, but if you think about it, it's very Ghost in the Shell-esque and kind of typical of Japanese media of the era (late '90s).

Major characters, the Fitzgerald sisters, Finoa of the UPEO Special Armed Response Force, and the elder sister Cynthia of Neucom Inc's private militia, the Neucom Emergency Unit. Neither of these women make an appearance in the Western release. 

While Namco's justification was that the plot was too complicated and would have confused Western audiences and as a result they wanted to just focus on gameplay. They knew that reasoning didn't fly and only pissed off Western gamers. Subsequent Ace Combat games were carried over completely intact. To this day, there are Western fans that want a complete translated release of the Japanese version. Whether or not this will happen is anyone's guess, though given that Ace Combat 7 will be returning to the same universe that AC2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 0, and X took place in, rather than real world Earth like Assault Horizon (yes the italics is mine and intentional because that game is Ass), Joint Assault, and Infinity took place in, and that Namco dropped the much reviled "Dogfight Mode" (more like Dog crap Mode) from Ace Combat Infinity and (by all indications) the up coming Ace Combat 7, it does seem that Namco is listening to their fans to some extent. It's not likely, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did a fully translated Western digital release over PSN.

Hence why I titled this after one of the tracks in the game "Shattered Stones", Namco "shattered" the plot when they brought the game out of Japan.

If the plot was carried over intact, I would have given it a score of 4 or even 5.


Music and art style: 5
The soundtrack of Ace Combat 3 is wholly an electronic style. Tracks range from fast tempo tracks like The Execution, to more haunting tracks like Gordian Knot, to something more mellow like Montage (that appropriately enough plays on a level with rain effects). Purchasing the soundtrack gets you two disks, the OST disk and the Direct Audio disk, getting you a total of 42 tracks.

The game takes place in the 2040s, and appropriately the art style is more futuristic. Cityscapes feature futuristic buildings and include an artificial floating city, and an underground city. About half the selectable planes are completely fictional, while the others are futuristic versions of existing aircraft.

General Resource militia (General Resource Defense Force) F-22C and the UPEO Su-43. Notice the sealed canopy making use of the COFFIN control interface of both aircraft. Both designs have also had minor tweaks to them, the F-22C has wings that look based on the YF-23, while the forward canards of the Su-43 have been reworked and resemble a cobra's hood. The UPEO and GRDF generally use updated variants of existing aircraft, though the UPEO does have a few fictional aircraft in it's inventory. 

Two of the completely fictional designs in use by Neucom Inc.'s militia, the NEU. To the left is the R-102 Delphinus #2 fighter, to the right is the R-352 Sepia space fighter. The NEU exclusively uses fictional designs. Though in the Western release they're also in use by the UPEO. 

As mentioned the cities also have a futuristic design to them. Though this is more the bright shiny technology built kind of futuristic city, rather than the dirty dystopian metro sort.

To the left is Expo City, a city that gets to have front row seats to several aerial battles. You can see a few of the large futuristic buildings, in this shot. To the right is the floating city Megafloat. 

The changes to the existing aircraft are enough to make them look like from a different era, but at the same time they remain instantly recognizable. They don't look too out of place in a future setting, but they also don't look too different as to be something else. Where as the fictional designs of Neucom Inc. all share a curvy organic look to them. Their names are all derived from sea life, indicating their designs were inspired by marine life. In going with these gentle curves in their designs these planes have a unique and distinct look to them, rather than looking derivative of something else.

Final Verdict: Must buy for arcade style flight sim fans. 

Butchered story aside, the game is still a solid game and remains an enjoyable, fun experience. The music fits very well with the setting and the futuristic designs provide for a nice change of pace, especially with their unique and distinct styling. Despite being a 17 year old game, the gameplay still holds up well to today's standards. The gameplay, and control set up has been carried over into the other entries into the franchise (except Assault Horizon) with even the PSP games having a control setup based on Ace Combat 3's. 

Given that the popular version of a future setting today is some post-apocalyptic, or a dirty, grimy dystopia is, the clean, advanced technology kind of futuristic setting is a bit of a breath of fresh air.