What game are you wasting time on?

[DDZ]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

 

[Swigen]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

 

[GrainWetski]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

Dragon's Dogma is the answer to every question you might have.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

Witcher 3 uber alles.

 

[Swigen]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

Dragon's Dogma is the answer to every question you might have.

Are you sure!? Dragons Dogma is on sale for $17.99 now on PSN but I just don’t know... Are there bare titties in Dragons Dogma? I see “rated M for partial nudity?”.

 

[GrainWetski]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

Dragon's Dogma is the answer to every question you might have.

Are you sure!? Dragons Dogma is on sale for $17.99 now on PSN but I just don’t know... Are there bare titties in Dragons Dogma? I see “rated M for partial nudity?”.

Why is it so high for $onycucks? Was like 8 on Steam during the winter sale.

 

[Swigen]

Just finished Red Dead Redemption 2 so that’ll free up some space. Should I waste my time on Dragon’s Dogma or Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Should I play Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Final Fantasy 12?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and then Final Fantasy XII

ALL WRONG.

PLAY DRAGONS DOGMAN

Should I play Dragon’s Dogma or finish Witcher 3 dlc?

Dragon's Dogma is the answer to every question you might have.

Are you sure!? Dragons Dogma is on sale for $17.99 now on PSN but I just don’t know... Are there bare titties in Dragons Dogma? I see “rated M for partial nudity?”.

Why is it so high for $onycucks? Was like 8 on Steam during the winter sale.

Fighting dragons As a dude in a belly shirt is neat and all but I asked for titties.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Yeah, you can create a waifu and run around in underwear.
If you want real nudity, buy the game on PC and install some mods.

 

[Beastro]

Based on the discussion going on in this thread I went and had a closer look at the 1984 Alien game that was released on the 8-bit computers. It's a game I've known about for years, but never got around to playing until now.

The premise is exactly as in the film: The game takes place aboard the Nostromo and stars six live crew members, one dead crew member, one pissed-off cat and one murderous Alien. The goal is to have the crew get rid of the Alien, which can be accomplished in three different ways:

1) Scuttle the Nostromo and have up to three crew members (plus cat) aboard the shuttle, while the Alien is left behind and no other surviving crew members.
2) Blow the Alien out of an airlock.
3) Beat the crap out of the Alien using the various tools and weapons aboard the Nostromo. (Yes, really.)

This is further complicated by various factors. For example one of the crew is an android who will attempt to sabotage any actions taken against the Alien. Another problem is that each of the crew are supposed to have different personality traits which should affect their actions, but besides them having a morale rating I have yet to confirm this. Throw in the 35 different rooms scattered across three decks, 40 parts of the ventilation system and the timer counting down until all the oxygen runs out, and the end result is one challenging game. What makes for an interesting addition is something I hadn't mentioned yet: Which of the Nostromo crew dies first and which of the crew is the android is randomized each game. That means one can't count on the Nostromo crew to 'stay in character' and any one of them may ruin the player's plans.

Oh, and the whole game is in real time. When giving crew members orders one has to wait a few moments for them to (try to) carry them out. That's very impressive considering it's a 35-year old game using around 50Kb of RAM (depending on which version you're playing).

This means that this is a surprisingly deep game. There's a lot to things to juggle around; micro-managing six different characters simultaneously while having to worry about the cat, the Alien, an android and the time limit quickly builds up lots of tension while playing. There's also how the game plays on the threat of the Alien's presence, rather than the Alien's presence itself. The player will hear doors opening and closing without knowing who's using them, and the Alien sometimes leaves tracks behind like open air vents. This would be an immensly enjoyable game even for today's gamers were it not for one huge problem: The UI is laughably ancient. Everything is done with lists and menus and messages crawling across the screen. Each of the 35 rooms is named in the sidebar, but not on the map itself, adding needless confusion unless a player draws up their own map (and another for the vents). Lastly the player never has an overview of where the crew are located, at best the currently selected player's location is marked on the map, and the message bar informs whether anyone else is in the same room. That means players will have to memorize and visualize themselves where all the crew members are and what they're doing.

The graphics and sound are minimal but functional, and cannot be put at fault due to the age of the game. But if anyone is willing to take on the cantankerous UI, overlook the outdated retro style and want to sink themselves into a deep and challenging game, this game may be just for you.

(Of the three versions available (C-64, Spectrum and Amstrad CPC) I recommend going with the C-64. It has more and better sounds, better graphics and runs at an acceptable pace. The Spectrum and Amstrad versions run at a higher graphical resolution but they also run too fast, making them more difficult for no reason.)

I don't usually go in for the idea of a remake, but that sounds like the best target for one.

Too bad one wasn't done 20 years ago or so. Now it would probably bare little to no similarities with what your described.

Finishing ace combat 3 for to conclude the psx series,FUCK THIS GAME.
-STORY
Obnoxious,convoluted,wanna be cinematic garbage with flat boring characters with a faux philosophical bullshit about soul/ai. It is trying to be ghost in the shell,hell even one of the major characters looks like kusanagi.
The game is extremely cinematic,1/3 of your entire game will be spend watching cut scenes that appear at the begging and end of each mission.And in most of these you will mostly be listening to characters yapping on about their agenda or some very boring news clip.
The story also features branching paths,which is the only good thing about the story.

-Quality of the mission briefing screen
Flat and boring as the rest of the game. They don't even give you 3d models of enemies.

-Mission variety and gameplay
The only good thing about the game play .You get escort,flight competition,photographing,high altitude air combat,etc.Couple this with multiple branching missions,and you get a big improvement over ace combat 2.And each mission feels distinct enough also.
Graphics wise,the variety is nonexistent,you get a grassy terrain and a city and it repeats itself constantly.

This game also introduces a ranking system.And the ranking system is tied to each mission differently,wait a moment?
Yup,this means that you have to guess what gives you a A rank each time you start the mission.But what you will be doing is just opening up a FAQ to see what the requirements are.A example,you have to get a certain mount of points to get a rank,how much,well without a guide,you have to keep replaying and guessing,how fun.
Sometimes it is tied to time,sometimes it is tied to a certain objective,sometimes it tied to the amount of enemies killed,and sometimes it all of those things together.
Oh,and you only get one extra mission for getting A rank on all mission,wupidu.
This coupled with planes unlocking automatically means you don't have to play the game good whatsoever and if you do,your reward is simply not worth it.

Unfortunately the game play itself suffers as well.I will cover more in the difficulty segment.

-Planes
You no longer unlock planes by buying them.They now get automatically unlocked by just passing missions.You also can't select al your planes for each mission,most of the mission have different planes.,this is extremely disappointing. You do get a 2-3 extra planes if you pass all mission with A rank,but they are not worth it.
The planes also have categories and selection of weapons now,which is a missed opportunity.Most of the missions int he game will be tied to air combat,so multi roles are just not worth it because fighters shoot down ground targets easily.
The multiple weapons thing fells like a gimmick.Canon range is irrelevant considering gunning planes down you to be close anyway.
The different missiles are mostly just for show.Short range feels pointless,the mirv can easily miss since it requires a lot of time to actually deploy multiple rockets and it requires most of them to hit anyway to do damage.
You can get a bomb,which is not bad bad,but rockets can do the same thing easily.
I just feel that most of the innovations around planes is a big missed opportunity that later ace combat games get right.

--Difficulty
Nonexistent ,except the ending bosses.Most enemies in this game feel like lifeless dolls instead of enemy planes.The moment you get a lock on you can fire and it will hit in 9/10 cases. Some later enemies try to maneuver,but all you have to do is just stand still and turn around.
At least in the previous game the ace pilots were trying to dodge your missiles,here there are no ace pilots and no dodging..
And then there are the bosses.Ace combat bosses were always monstrous slow targets because of a simple reason,else they would be a pain int he ass.
Boss enemies easily outmaneuver you and your missiles so you have to hope your missiles actually hit them.It is just basic speed boost which you can't easily counter.
Also trying to select your enemy is a pin in the ass.The game throws a lot of aircraft t you and your radar just loves to select random further from you targets,instead of the closest one.And later some enemies get mashed up between a minimum of 10 planes,so good luck selecting the one you want.

This is the first ace combat where i don't see a purpose to actually shoot or dogfight anything except the main target considering the ranking system.And because of the ai,it just doesn't feel good to shoot other planes. Extremely disappointing.

-Unique stuff and extra content
The generic mission replay,music player are all here. Typical ace combat extras,but here the mission replay has more value considering you can replay any mission with any plane.

-Overall verdict
The game just feels very bland and boring to play.It feels like a expansion which was made by another company.Not worse then air combat 1.but certainly way below 2.

That's terrible. It's still a game on my list waiting to be played. I knew a lot was changed from how Ace Combat 2, but I never thought it was that much.

[AC2] The stats have been balanced finally,so most planes are useful, and you should have no problems beating the game with a f-4 if you want to.

Some missions are impossible or near impossible to do that with (I tried, played the fuck out that game back in the day). The biggest example of that is the high altitude interception of the flight of high speed aircraft containing B-70s and SR-71s mission. Lower tier aircraft like the F-4 simply cannot maintain that high altitude without stalling. IIRC, you can just do it, but any corrections drop you down and you cannot afford to do that in the mission given everyone's speed.

I'm sure some autistic speed-runner types have succeeded doing that mission without issue, but it's simply not fun at all given that stalling in the game arbitrarily drops you nose down at a 90 degree angle rather than leaving you literally falling in mid-air.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I don't usually go in for the idea of a remake, but that sounds like the best target for one.

Too bad one wasn't done 20 years ago or so. Now it would probably bare little to no similarities with what your described.

It IS a good idea for a remake. A modern remake would be somewhat different solely because of the UI overhaul, but the gameplay can easily be kept intact... or even improved.

Alien: Blackout is surprisingly similar to this game, but approaches things from a different angle and only has a fraction of its gameplay depth. Imagine an Alien game like the 1984 one, but with Blackout's UI. It would be quite something.

On a related note: In the time that I've been delving into old games I've found only two that I recommend 100% be remade and released today: PSI-5 Trading Company and now Alien. Both are brilliant games that suffer from archaic UIs.

 

[Dux]

Mission Critical ... Overall a thumbs up, unless the game turns to shit towards the end.

Turns out I was nearly finished. That was one short game; I clocked in at 7 hours 26 minutes. It was also very easy, and didn't stump me once, which is pretty rare since I am incredibly shit at adventure games. I would not have liked to have paid full price for this back in the day, but for £3 it was worth it. The plot ended up being a mixed bag, sometimes thought-provoking and entertaining on the level of a good Hollywood sci-fi flick, other times a bit contrived. There's not too much to say about the game, really -- not one for the annals, but not bad either. It did ditch the 3D for some very nice 2D screens towards the end, which only highlights what a bloody shame it is that the whole game wasn't done in the same style.

TLDR: Mission Critical is worth it if you have a few hours to spend on a decently entertaining sci-fi story, though as an adventure game it's too easy.

I also played through this game recently. The switch from mid-90's 3D-ish graphics to handdrawn images were a bit jarring but when the pictures are as gorgeous as that it's difficult to mind their inclusion. If I were to pick one visual aesthetic from the history of gaming it would definately be like Mission Critical's endgame. I can't get enough of graphics like that.

As for the game, it was quite obvious that the developers worked really hard to make the world seem believable - at least initially. So much detail to everything. It was good for the immersion. The technical jargon largely passed over my head, though, if I'm honest. I'm no space engineer. Frankly, I'm not that smart, either. The largely metaphysical, philosophical ending was a bit of a mixed bag, simply because the first part of the game conveyed a grounded and realistic sensibility: like Star Trek yet with a lot of the fantastical elements stripped away. As for the ending, I can't say I minded it much. It reminded me of the corny Star Trek and that's okay in my book. I wish Michael Dorn had been in it more, though.

 

[Strange Fellow]

The largely metaphysical, philosophical ending was a bit of a mixed bag, simply because the first part of the game conveyed a grounded and realistic sensibility: like Star Trek yet with a lot of the fantastical elements stripped away. As for the ending, I can't say I minded it much. It reminded me of the corny Star Trek and that's okay in my book.

Yeah, the tone of the game changes quite drastically when the player leaves the Jericho.

Spoiler

The second half of the game, Persephone in particular, reminded me of the Gateway games in a lot of ways, as they, too, deal with technologically superior "alien" species and manipulating their instruments. My biggest gripe with the plot was really the time-travelling shenanigans, the reasoning for and limitations to which weren't particularly convincing IMO, especially considering the fact that, as you say, the game starts out in a very grounded fashion. The plot wouldn't have worked without them, but still, I wouldn't have minded a scaled-down approach that took better advantage of the central conflict between the Alliance and the UN, which in the end was "reduced" to pure philosophy for the second half of the game.

Still, I did enjoy the overarching theme of laissez-fair technological advancement vs. responsible development, which was very nicely tied to the events of the plot throughout the game. I thought the ending was very clever, as well, with the irony of the no-holds-barred policy of the Alliance resulting in mankind being contained in an artificial species-wide old folks home, while the UN ending has a colony ship survive and headed for unbridled freedom in a new star system.

 

[MajorMace]

I got addicted to the remaster edition of Resident Evil first of his name.
I never felt like playing any of the original RE despite the praise they usually get.
I expected something along the lines of You're a dude trying to survive a zombi-filled mansion while jump scare-level of scripts entertain you.

How wrong I was, this game is fucking awesome. May have to do with the remaster edition being absolutely legit.
So right now I just play through this game a second time with Chris. Good shit.
I'm especially pleased since people also praised Dead Space and this one kind of bored me after a few hours, I specifically disliked the magical critical path indication thingie.

PS : For completely different gameplay aspects, this game actually reminds me of MGS. Like, the whole gameplay, design, art direction etc bend together in a most satisfyingly consistent way.
PPS : I also feel like the bondfire music from Dark Souls was inspired by the Safe Room music of RE1. Which makes RE-MGS-Dark Souls the holy trinity of japanese elite design school.

 

[someone else]

Finished Far Cry 4, good combat and weapons, formula-tic progress. Fun yet hollow.

 

[flyingjohn]

Finishing ace combat 3 for to conclude the psx series,FUCK THIS GAME.

That's terrible. It's still a game on my list waiting to be played. I knew a lot was changed from how Ace Combat 2, but I never thought it was that much.

[AC2] The stats have been balanced finally,so most planes are useful, and you should have no problems beating the game with a f-4 if you want to.

Some missions are impossible or near impossible to do that with (I tried, played the fuck out that game back in the day). The biggest example of that is the high altitude interception of the flight of high speed aircraft containing B-70s and SR-71s mission. Lower tier aircraft like the F-4 simply cannot maintain that high altitude without stalling. IIRC, you can just do it, but any corrections drop you down and you cannot afford to do that in the mission given everyone's speed.

I'm sure some autistic speed-runner types have succeeded doing that mission without issue, but it's simply not fun at all given that stalling in the game arbitrarily drops you nose down at a 90 degree angle rather than leaving you literally falling in mid-air.

You can skip ace combat 2 high altitude mission by destroying both transport ships int he escort bomber mission.This unlocks a secret level instead of the high altitude chase where you shoot down falling cargo which you can easily do with a f-4.

Also for ace combat 3,i haven't mentioned how horrible one of the boss is for one of the routes:


The screen effect is so annoying.Also the credits in this game are literally static pictures of clouds,no animation,a final fuck you to the player i guess.

 

[Beastro]

You can skip ace combat 2 high altitude mission by destroying both transport ships int he escort bomber mission.This unlocks a secret level instead of the high altitude chase where you shoot down falling cargo which you can easily do with a f-4.

Ahh, k. It's been a long, long while since I playe the game and the only major breaks I remembered were the two big branching mission lines near the end.

 

[Zenith]

SH4 has quirks regardless of version.

Spoiler

PS2 version has patterned dithering - a pretty bizarre choice, considering it also has random noise underneath. PC port is much brighter and the noise effect seems to be only at about a quarter of PS2 version's intensity.
Then there's the question of controls. The game features brief but regular first person mode bits, so a mouse would come in handy, but the game also ditches tank controls altogether. Coupled with the very helpful camera, trying to run in a straight line down a corridor becomes an obstacle course on keyboard. But in the PC version even a gamepad won't help much, since it only recognizes 8 directions and a single speed.

PC fan fixes are again mostly focused on widescreen support, which seems pointless to me in the first place, but then they apparently also trade a bunch of effects for it. It's too bad none of them address the noise filter, IMO fixing it would make the blur effect look more natural automatically. With SH4 especially it's not possible to just run post-processing on top, since the noise intensity is supposed to depend on your proximity to enemies.
Overall, kind of a pain in the ass. Emulating via OpenGL is probably the best option.

all versions:
worst noise filter yet, even worse with higher resolutions
PC:
half-functioning blur/DoF
wrong noise intensity
inferior controls
PCSX2 Software / PS2 itself:
patterned dithering
sub-480p only
PCSX2 D3D:
needs alpha hacks
lacks shadows
PCSX2 OGL:
color warping in main menu, possibly elsewhere
post-processing artifacts on image borders

 

[octavius]

After finishing the campaigns of HoMM 3: Armageddon's Blade and the half a dozen or so maps designed for single player, the next game on my chronological play list was Disciples: Sacred Lands, but talk about bad timing, releasing it right after AB. And it's even worse now, when you can play AB with the HoMM 3 HD mod, while there's nothing but using old monitor to fix the low resolution stretched image of D:SL. Also, the game seems to have been made redundant by Disciples 2, so I skipped it.

So I played some user made content:
Ramirez's Revenge and Death of Garrett for Thief, both quite good classic Thief FMs, the former looking a bit crude, though, and the latter with some amusing references to the works of Shakespeare and Poe.

Sleeper and Lord of Fend for HoMM 3, made by the same guy. Both are semi-open, but static maps. IOW, there's an unlinear way of doing things, but your enemies will never clash or surprise you, thanks to Border Guards.
Sleeper is a very solid map, and I recommend it.
Lord of Fend reminds me of the old Pride maps (the first really good HoMM 3 user made maps), in that you start with two heroes on different parts of the maps, who will have to co-operate in some way, to unlock the means to complete the map. It started out very promising, but unfortunately the second hero is just too weak and was never able to do her part, since the blue player had better stats and twice as many troops. With no useful skills (no magic or movement skills) or spells (no Blind) it was impossible. Might be doable if allowed to build a Portal of Glory (which the enemy also lacks) in her castle.
Of course, I could have done the retreat-a-secondary-buffed-up-hero-and-rehire trick, but it was obviously not what was intended.
Annoyingly, there's no YouTube LP of this map. Would have been interesting to see how others fared.

Decided to give 1989 game Dungeons of Kairn a try. In a desert of Ultima clones, this looked like an oasis in the world of old indies, and it was made by the same guy who made Aethra Chronicles, which is my favourite indie after the Proudfoot games Nahlakh and Natuk. But sadly only the Shareware version is available online, so that was a bummer.

Next pro games on my list:
Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire
Revenant
The Wheel of Time
King of Dragon Pass

Not sure if I will really play the first three of them, but KoDP should be interesting.

 

[Tweed]

I'm trying to finish Heroes of a Broken Land and once I finish it I'm never playing it again.

 

[Harry Easter]

Mage: Initiation. I just love those RPG/Adventure-Hybrids. Hero-U has the better writing and combat system, but the world of Mage is interesting and I'm curious how different it will be if I choose a different element at the beginning.

 

[Okagron]

Started a playthrough of F.E.A.R 1 on the high difficult. Haven't played this game in years but i'm having fun nonetheless.

 

[pakoito]

I finished the Obra Dinn game in a day. It's good. I won't remember it in 6 months but it was good fun for a day worth of gaming.

 

[DalekFlay]

After a long break from games I dove back in with a Dishonored replay. Yes it's brain-dead easy even on the hardest mode, but I still love that fucking game. Sue me.

Now attempting to play Mass Effect Andromeda, which has the same exact design issues the last Dragon Age did and feels like an offline MMO, but the combat is solid and the environments are nice. It's a mindless hiking and errand sim, but it's working for my brain at the moment.

Hoping to finally finish Pillars of Eternity after that. I got to the big hole in the ground and stopped, so not much left I don't think. Though I might do the second DLC, I dunno. The first was okay. Mainly I just want to get to PoE2, though opinions seem to differ on whether I should or not.

 

[Mustawd]

Dragon Quest 9. It’s a mediocre single player game that is apparently very fun played mp with friends. That’s what I keep hearing anyways.

In practice it’s brain dead combat that never challenges you or requires you to change tactics. The story, which I normally don’t care about, is nothing more than a multi part fetch quest.

The most fun I’ve had are with some of the side fetch quests. Although you’d think they’d be boring, some of them have requirements on HOW you must kill an enemy. It presents a nice little challenge that forces you to think about how combat works in order to time everything right. Unfortunately, these are too few.

I think I’m 5-7 hrs till Inbeat this game and maybe move on to some emulated SNES and Genesis games for a bit. Donkey Kong Country is next on my list.

 

[flyingjohn]

Continuing my ace combat retrospective,it is time to move on to the ps2 games.Here is my opinion about ace combat 4.

-EMULATION
The only way to play this game without any annoying graphical glitches is to play in software mode.No matter what settings you fiddle with in hardware mode(direct x or opengl) you will get annoying graphical glitches or missing effects,so just stick to software mode.

-STORY
The game befits from not having any central story line minus "enemy nation invades another country",which will appear in later games.
The story is presented in two forms.

The first are the mission briefings .They are simply solid and basically explain the situation in a very short manner.

The second part of the story is presented by animated cut scenes and it shows the life of a orphaned child living in occupied territory.
This is actually pretty well done.There is no cringe or melodrama,it feels very natural and is a nice way to present and give information about the enemy ace.The voice acting is boring since the narrator uses the same tone for everything.It is quite interesting too see something like this in a ace combat game.,shame the later games don't follow up on this style.

-Quality of the mission briefing screen
The mission briefing itself is boring(no models,can't evens elect enemies) but the after mission briefing is quite nice.It shows your entire movements in form of a red arrow which looks nice.

-Mission variety and gameplay
Well,this takes quite a setback compared to the previous games. 1/3 of the missions are score based missions,another 1/3 are gimmicks and the last third are the actually fun missions.

The score based missions are the worst offenders.You are given this huge map and a lot of targets(more then 80 mostly) and you have to gather the needed amount of points before the time runs out.It doesn't matter which targets you destroy.
This goes directly against ace combat guided mission nature and just fells like somebody made a big map,put a lot units on it and forgot to actually structure it accordingly.
Also,there is way too much ground targets in these missions for a air combat game.
Just not feeling this type of missions as fun or interesting,which is a shame.

The gimmick mission are either annoying or way too easy.Searching for small balloons in a fog without radar is not fun.

The good missions are mostly those focused on air combat,which are rare.

Now i wouldn't mind the mission variety if it also din't remove some stuff from previous games.There are no secret or branching mission whatsoever,which feels like a step back.

The score system is back and now it is much more simpler then ace combat 3.Just destroy a lot of enemies and you get s rank,which is fine by me.

-Planes
Awesome,it builds upon ace combat customization options and planes having designated roles.
Planes roles and subsystems all now combine to make each plane have its own set of identity.Choosing the multi role version of f15 feels actually different and worth it.
And since you can change your second weapon in missions,you don't have to worry about choosing the wrong plane.
Buying planes to unlock them is back,thankfully.
Secondary weapons are mostly missiles and bombs.But their difference is mostly delivery methods and range,which means all weapons are viable which adds nicely to the customization theme they are going with.

--Difficulty
Missiles have been given small but needed speed boost followed by their arc begin more straightforward then ace combat 3 upper lunch arc.They are still somewhat easy to evade,but now they close their distance more quickly and you actually have to dodge them.A nice and needed change.
Enemy planes have their ai reworked.Dome of them will actually change their course if you are getting a lock on them and they are more maneuverable..Also most of them are in a squadron,and they will target you relentlessly.
If you are fighting 3-4 enemies,2 will always be shooting missiles and targeting you,trying to stop you from shooting down their ally.
Air combat is extremely satisfying thank to these changes. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of enemy planes int his game.
Also the game add two difficulties above hard for people who feel the game is easy on hard.They change missile count,enemy behavior,etc.
Ace planes are now hidden on the map and you have to find them,which makes sense.

-Unique stuff and extra content
Fist ace combat game where you don't need to fidle with multiple saves to unlock stuff.All the typical extra modes are back(music,free mission),but they have added a time attack mode as well as having a campaign continue option.You also now the have the option of unlocking plane colors.So plenty of stuff to unlock.

-Overall verdict
A solid game,but i think it is overrated.The mission variety kinda kills any replay ability unfortunately.But i would still recommend to play the game if you are a fan.