➤ Fly low 🎮

To understand what kind of product Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + is, a rather convoluted premise is required: despite a subtitle that could portend a port of the video game of the same name released in 2011 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game is actually a revised and corrected remake of Ace Combat 2, launched way back in 1997 for the progenitor of Sony consoles. The "+" that completes the name defines the fact that this is a re-edition of the product made over three years ago for Nintendo 3DS, and that today comes back on the market in a version specifically designed to take advantage of the features of the latest restyling of the Nintendo laptop. . So let's talk about the re-release of a remake that however borrows the title from another chapter of the saga that has little or nothing to do with it.. Is it all confusing enough? Well, then we can go and explain why the operation put in place by Bandai Namco cannot be defined as truly brilliant ...

Missed target

As usual, we refer you to our review of the original title to get all the relevant information on the actual game, while here we will focus on the features of this new version.

Unfortunately, as we will see, there are not many aspects that differentiate the Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + from the source product of 2011, however, led by a control system that contemplates the use of additional commands offered by the New Nintendo 3DS. The first element to attract attention is the small C-Stick placed on the right side of the console, which the developers of Bandai Namco have dedicated to the 360-degree management of the camera: a function that is certainly not essential but nevertheless appreciated, which serves above all to to be able to freely admire the new liveries of the videogame themed aircraft which we will talk about later. To be able to take advantage of the ZR and ZL keys it is instead necessary to select the "classic" command set in the settings menu, a mode that brings the control of the aircraft very close to that typical of the titles of the series released on home consoles: the main analog stick it is therefore responsible for managing the roll, while it is possible to yaw to the right or left using the two additional backbones instead of the (uncomfortable) directional cross.

Choosing these settings is preferable not only to have greater mastery on the plane, but also to give a boost to a decidedly lower level of challenge: unfortunately in this sense nothing has changed since the 2011 game, and it is possible to complete the campaign on a normal level in just over two hours without even a drop of sweat. The minimum wage of replay value is provided by a couple of bifurcations throughout history that lead to different missions and by the presence in some scenarios of the typical yellow blocks with the question mark of Super Mario, shooting which can be obtained special planes with liveries inspired by various Nintendo icons.

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + is a somewhat lazy re-edition of an unforgettable title

The 3D effect

Like many other aspects of the game, even the 3D effect of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + has not undergone significant changes compared to the original title: the same speech made on the occasion of the previous review is therefore valid, with a stereoscopic vision that adds nothing of particular to the playful experience given above all the lack of reference points in the immaculate skies that make up the vast majority of the scenarios.

My amiibo for a plane

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + allows you to unlock additional extra aircraft thanks to amiibo: a special option in the main menu allows you to bring the figurines closer to the touch screen to make Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus themed models immediately available and company. The clear superiority of these aircraft over those that can be purchased in the game with the credits earned in the mission, however, ends up further debasing a playful component (that of the sale of models and upgrades) which already in the original had a very intangible specific weight in the economy of game. It would have been nice to be able to use these colorful aircraft in some multiplayer matches, but Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + remains firm on the positions of its predecessor, categorically rejecting any innovation in this respect: even the scores achieved in the various levels and in the - far from exciting - challenge missions remain confined to your device, denoting an ostracized attitude of Bandai Namco towards sharing on the net which is truly incredible if you consider that any game nowadays at least allows you to view online rankings.

An aspect that immediately gives the measure of the very low commitment made by the Japanese publisher to give value to a re-edition that arrives on the market three years after the original (and definitely not at a budget price) offering as new content only extra liveries and a vaguely modernized control system: all while the gaps widely visible already in 2011, that is a technical realization without treble, a bite-free gameplay and a short and poorly accompanied single player campaign with rather sparse extra modes, reappear again without being been minimally retouched.

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It certainly cannot be said that Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + does its best to be desirable, showing itself as a re-edition that adds few elements to the formula of the original without taking care to improve those aspects that would have deserved a restoration work. On the one hand, therefore, there are not sufficient reasons to recommend the purchase of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy + to those who had already played it in its previous release, but on the other hand the Bandai Namco product remains - even with all its limitations - one of the very few serious exponents of the genre for the Nintendo laptop.  