4Gamer TGS 2017 Demo Impressions Summary

The other half of 4Gamer's Ace Combat 7 coverage from TGS 2017 has landed, and it's…well, the same single player demo that we've already seen plenty of coverage on. Nonetheless it's a short article with one or two new fragments of insight, so there's nothing lost in summarizing it.

• The content of the TGS demo is basically the same as that we already saw at E3 and Gamescom. The main difference is that PA finally included Japanese subtitles so the Japanese press could actually understand the dialog, though 4Gamer doesn’t actually comment on what they thought of it. There’ll be a Japanese language track with a cast to be announced.
  AWACS Inori Minase confirmed.
• F/A-18E and F-14D are still the plane choices, 4Gamer opting for the F-14D because…you know perfectly well why.
• As expected, you can skip the launch and takeoff sequences.
• Much like Famitsu, 4Gamer is also impressed with the atmosphere and feeling of acceleration during carrier launches.
• Also much like Famitsu, 4Gamer is impressed by the clouds, which they say evoke a sense of realism.
• “The fighters maneuver with the right feeling of heaviness. The feeling seems apparent when, for example, I’m pulling back on the stick, raising the nose, and ascending.” Could it be AC7 is modeling angle of attack?
• As we know, clouds in AC7 interfere with radar and reduce lock-on distance dramatically. Droplets form on the canopy, your plane vibrates in the turbulence, the controller provides feedback while in turbulence as well…actually that might be new info.
• Like the previous demos, once you bag the Viper Cs, the Arsenal Bird shows up and throws a bunch of MQ-101s at you. After you shoot down a few of those, you attack the Arsenal Bird itself, but after you make a few passes, the battle is interrupted and the gameplay ends with the Arsenal Bird still intact. 4Gamer does reveal that it’s possible to attack the engines straightaway, so the sequence probably isn’t divided into very many stages.
• The author says they couldn’t pull off a post stall maneuver because of their “lack of skill.”

I wonder if some of the same behavior used for clouds will also be applied to jammer pods. That could provide an interesting dimension - maybe even make the things useful.

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