BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy - Nintendo 3DS

I have 100% completed this game, and it was a blast from start to finish. If you like planes and/or ace combat, you'll get a kick out of this.I must admit, getting used to only one stick for flight control was a little difficult at first, as I am used to the "standard" setting for ace combat on the PlayStation 2, but once I got the hang of it (I'd say about the 3rd or 4th mission), it really took off from there, pun not intended.There are so many planes to fly that some kind of feel similar, but really, it's like comparing french vanilla and vanilla ice cream. They're similar, but different enough to earn a separate label.Just a heads up, the game can drop in frame rate when things get hairy and a lot of stuff is happening on-screen. I know for some people that's a huge turn-off, and ordinarily, it would be for me, too. But really, I was having too much fun to care. It felt more like a slow-motion camera shot than anything, but that might just be the fun in my eyes.The game does look really pretty. The ground models are as basic as ever, but the planes are gorgeous. 3D is fun to fly in, if you can handle it. It's even more fun using the cockpit view with 3D on, but I personally liked using the 3rd person view with the one stick control. I think it helped my brain to transition from one plane style to another (i.e. Ace Combat on PS2 to this), but it defiantly was a fun thing to do every so often. The 3D did seem to cause the frame rate to dip a little more easily than when it was turned off, but the main reason I turned it off was to prolong battery life. Otherwise, I would have left it on.All that to say, definitely a fun game and worth a purchase. Highly recommend it.

This is the best flying game ever. Message to Namco more varieties of aircraft, airports/air-bases landing and on ground playing and takeoff options would make this a 11 out of 10 game.This game is like Asphalt 3D in the air...yes that good.

wow, lots of shoot them up with this title.highly recommended for everyone.get one soonthat is all folks

If you're a fan of air combat, then this game will hit all your targets. Having played the console release, this one seems like an actual upgrade to the formula. 3DS version is very similar to older games with a very arcadey gameplay, but it's not dumbed-down, call-of-duty-on-wings version. Planes don't regenerate health, special maneouvers don't turn the game into a corridor shooter and you're not forced to constant scripted sequences.Gameplay-wise, it's a traditional AC game with fast action and challenges that might surprise you if you don't keep track of all your surroundings. It's not really deep, but there is a nice level of customization that can change the flow of mission pretty easily. Extra challenges, branching story mode and pursuit of all the unlockables will surely keep you hooked on for hours.From a technical point of view, it is a very solid game as well. Planes are nicely detailed, textures are very well made (reflections and specular maps work nicely) and ground doesn't look bad either.I really enjoyed the orchestrated music and frequent radio chat. It's really good to use headphones, as they make sound much clearer.The game is cheap in multiple retailers, but even if it was 30 bucks, it's still worth it. This is definately one of the most underrated games on the 3DS, and every fan of good fighters action should have one on the shelf.

When I read the review for Ace Combat Assault Horizon on the PS3 and 360 (namely that it was terrible) I was worried about the version on the 3DS. What a difference the addition of the word "legacy" can make.As a veteran of the series who has watched the evolution over time I can say that while this one takes some steps back, it's overall a step forward, especially for being on a handheld platform.First, it introduces some simplifications that while they may sound like a bad idea for the Ace Combat series, actually seem to fit in perfectly. First the addition of action maneuvers (or whatever they are called). Basically, target enemy > get close to them > let a gauge on screen build up > when it gets full, hit the y button and you end up behind the enemy with a perfect shot lined up. If you don't let it fill all the way you can still get behind them but they are in a much better position to dodge. This may seem like sacrilege but it fits in perfectly because let's face it, Ace Combat has never been realistic in the strict sense of the word (it is more realistic than say...Call of Duty but that isn't saying much), but it has always been cinematic and most importantly a blast to play. It also perfectly meshes with the issue of not having enough buttons to do traditional Ace Combat controls. Also introduced are evasive maneuvers which basically are let missile get close to you > press Y + direction displayed on screen to dodge, possibly putting the enemy firing at you in front of you as they roar past. It's cinematic and really adds a sense of action to the game. Also, enemy aces can use these maneuvers as well, so that doesn't make things too unbalanced.Second, it makes the "upgrade" system seen in the PSP versions of the game and makes it work for all available planes. So you have engines, wing bits, and armor bits, and cockpit mods that you can tack on to planes to make them behave differently. Quite fun especially to really spec a plane a certain way (no defense, all speed mobility and stability if you feel lucky or skilled). Adds a way for people to really play "their way" in the game instead of being shoehorned into a certain play style. Also added were color schemes where you can change the colors yourself. I love this but feel it didn't go quite far enough (only two change-able colors, cool but feels kind of limited). Still, big improvements from the standard fare.As for the game itself, it's pretty standard Ace Combat fare, which is good! Blow things up get money buy planes fly through spaces intended only for large cars save the world defeat aces. What else is new. If you played and liked the good console iterations of this series, you'll like this one. The missions are shorter than those on its console brethren but I didn't find myself holding this against it as there is still plenty of content to go through. One slight issue I have with this iteration is that the ranking system for each mission is not necessarily "blow up all the things", some of them are "blow up the required targets in x time" which is really disorienting coming from the console versions which were always "blow up x number of things to get y rank", but this is probably more preference than a real complaint.Now this game is far from perfect. The simplified controls can make for some problematic situations the console versions simply don't end up with. For example the fact that to stop flying upside down you have to let the game auto roll you. This is not a huge deal most of the time but I have crashed a couple times because I couldn't pull up fast enough flying upside down and you really miss that ability to roll independently of yaw.Another place the game falls down is the 3D aspect of things. For some reason whenever I play this game I can't get the 3D to feel right, unlike the other 3DS games I've played. Not really sure how this works but I usually find myself seeing the cockpit or something double when I'm looking at the screen right. I usually play the game with 3D off for this exact reason.One other issue is that they seem to have screwed up unguided bombs for some reason. In most of the iterations of the game unguided bombs were the mother of all anti ground weapons. Landing them on ships with turrets or groups of things usually meant many things blown up all at once. The mother of all these bombs was the FAEB. In this game I can't hit squat with that weapon and watching the replays it's obvious the thing goes off but something about how the explosions are dealt with is wrong so it ends up blowing nothing up. This is much less of an issue than were this a console version as the missions are much less target rich and taking anti ground missiles is usually more efficient, but one annoyance I did note.Another step backwards was with the rocket pods. They were actually good in Ace Combat 6 but they have seemingly once again been relegated to Ace Combat Belkan War and earlier levels of uselessness. Minor complaint but something I noticed.Overall though, these are minor issues compared to the fact that a good Ace Combat game is on a Nintendo handheld. It feels and plays like an Ace Combat game and that's what's important, while at the same time optimizing the controls for handhelds and advancing some aspects of the series.