4/5 ★ – fez219's review of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.

My favorite Ace Combat game so far! Although it’s not quite as ambitious as the branching missions and heady story of 3 (the Japanese version — the American localization ruins that), it’s got overall tighter flying and mission design to make up for it. The story is an interesting tale that’s sort of parallel to you, and I enjoyed it. The flying is great and feels really good even in 2023. There are a few too many overly long “bomb a million things” missions, but there’s some more clever ones too. The music elevates things, especially when the best missions pull the rug out from under you or you’re doing trench runs in the finale. It could have been longer, but what’s here is focused and fun. You unlock a mission select and new game plus at the end, which is a nice touch considering these features weren’t necessarily standard to games at the time. Ace Combat 04 trying to reinvent the wheel and that’s totally fine. What’s here is a focused action game that’s easy to blast through in a night or weekend when you just want some gold old-fashioned aerial blasting.