TLDR: If you want to play a casual ww2 air combat game without an expensive joystick or get sick of warthunder because of grind and server issues, this game is for you.


First impressions so far:

EA : Game is early access and it shows by lack of content. But it has much more content than its competitors like "aggressor" and "tiny combat arena" so it feel much more like a game rather than a tech demo. If you can't decide between them this one has much more meat.

Gameplay : If you have played warthunder realistic battles, it plays very similar to it. Controls with keyboard and mouse was responsive and almost same as warthunder.

Bugs : Havent encounter a game breaking bug. Only one visual bug where wreck of some planes floats in mid air.

The Conclusion : Fun little game for a cheap price in its current state.

EDIT: Not only is this game now MASSIVELY improved in apperence and gameplay, but the developer has demonstrated an INCREDIBLE amount of initiative and responsiveness about fixing any difficulties that EA players had with their rewards. All you had to do was say "hey man, my planes didn't show up" and your codes were passed out within minutes.
PLEASE support this developer... he's an absolute mensch.

Once upon a time, there was a sim publisher called "Dynamix".
(Yes, i am dating myself a bit here.)
They made the "Aces" series of sims, Red Baron, and A-10 Tank Killer.
You had dozens of aircraft in each game, and each aircraft had unique weapon and handling characteristics. Graphics were very good (within the limits of the hardware of the day) and gameplay was involved enough to require a good understanding of your weapon system. What they DIDN'T force you to do was worry about prop pitch, fuel/air mixture, starving a carburetor, or managing turbo lag. You got in your aircraft, pointed the front towards the enemy, and went into battle.
Yes, this vastly oversimplifies air combat.
Yes, this is an enjoyable way to play a flight sim.
Anyone could play these games, dropping themselves into legendary aircraft and trying their hand. Sadly, combat flight sims have drifted farther and farther into the realms of specialty games since IL-2 that games like this no longer exist. You either have pure cinematic BS or something that requires you to have a couple hundred hours of solo time in a high-performance prop plane to understand.

'Vincemus - Air Combat' seems prepared to remedy this situation. You can enjoy it in minutes, get decent in a couple of hours, and thoroughly understand it in a couple of days. It also provides you with a good variety of aircraft - all included in the base cost *GASP*... what a novel concept! It seems to want to be a spiritual successor to those "F'lite' sim" games of olde.
Now, it's not perfect.
It's still EA and unpolished.
LOD models are little above the standards of "Aces" and the ability to pick out a target is hampered by that. The names in the HUD also often cover up the target. The camera gets off-center easily during hard maneuvering, and recentering doesn't seem to work. There is no first-person view option (a sorely missed feature). The AI needs a bit more work (but what game can honestly say theirs doesn't).
But even with these issues, the game is JUST PLAIN FUN.
It's worth the price for sure, and this is doubly true if the developer pushes this project to its full potential.
Please support this guy.
He's doing the Lord's work for gamers.

I've been looking forward to this one for a little while, and here are my thoughts.
This game is very early access. It's pretty bare bones right now, but that's okay because it's an early access game and it only costs 15 bucks. In the words of the developer:

"The Game
Vincemus is an WW2 arcade semi-realistic air combat shooter, with the aim of having a balance between realism and arcade, developed for the use of mouse controls. Its goal is to give large expansive maps with multiple combat experiences fighting air, ground and naval targets of different origin."

This is a simple WW2 era combat flight experience that controls nice and feels good with a mouse and keyboard, more so than any other flight sim I've played yet, and that's what matters. I think the developers have done a great job with making a solid foundation here for an affordable combat flight game that's easily accessible for those who don't have the space or resources to keep an expensive HOTAS setup around, and those who want a light and fun combat game that doesn't take 6 months of Youtube University classes to learn or hours at a time to play. I'm excited to see how this one develops and I'm happy to give this one a thumbs up.

The devs make it pretty obvious that this game was designed for use with a mouse and keyboard setup in mind, and for now that's probably your best way to play and enjoy this game. Leaving a negative review on a $15 early access game because it doesn't work well with your Thrustmaster T-9000 is a lot like giving a negative review to Cities: Skylines because it's lousy to play with a Rock Band Drum Pad. There are plenty of realistic sims out there that will work just fine with your nice HOTAS setup, so maybe you should go and play IL2 or DCS instead of dropping a lousy review on an indie dev team because you couldn't understand that they made their game to be played with a mouse despite them clearly stating that fact in the description.

10/10 played the africa campaign immediately, got mad on 4th mission, rage quitted, went to bed, woke up, completed 4th mission, played the 5th mission, got mad, rage quitted again, took a break, played the 5th mission again, won, got mad on 6th mission, rage quitted, wrote review

Well, so this is a "neutral" situation, in my opinion. First off, War Thunder desperately needs some competent competition. I was hoping this would be it, and who knows it may be some day. But today is not that day. That said War Thunder has had 15 years of development, so it's fair that this one doesn't come close. Also this one seems to have a small, or solo dev team.

The game does a lot of things correct in my opinion, and others need work. So, for the things it does well. First the game is low in cost, and was even cheaper during the recent sale. Second, the game isn't terribly grindy. There definitely is SOME grind here, because stock aircraft aren't completing many missions. To me that's great as it's one of my biggest qualms with War Thunder. Further I'd say the tutorial in this game is pretty good, and I think it's cool that it rewards you with a free P-51C. The sound in this game is also very good in my opinion. From the explosions, to the different weapons, and aircraft engines, all were done well. I also like that the aircraft upgrades act as a sense of progression along with the multiple theaters with multiple missions. All very well done, and quite cool.

Now for the bad. So, in different missions you will have wingmen, though they're not actually wingman because they're usually in inferior aircraft, and don't particularly care what you do. They are decently effective though. However, there are different missions where I felt very alone despite having other aircraft around because the enemy aircraft mostly seemed to go after me. So much so that they will alter their course if I get close enough when they were moments before heading into a head-on pass with a friendly aircraft. Additionally, on these missions I'm expected to be both CAP, and CAS. That doesn't make much sense to me. My aircraft would typically be configured to fulfill one, but not both of those roles. Further, having to dive to the deck to deal with AA, and then back up to 5000 ft to deal with 4 bad guys isn't ideal and again a situation where having wingmen, or even "a" wingman would be helpful. So I guess the AI, is my issue, or perhaps even design choices by the dev if these choices are intentional. Also, enemy pilots are flying their 109s like they're bi-planes.

Second, the flight model needs some work. There's zero energy modeled in this game. In a P-51D if I'm at 10,000 ft, and I take it to the deck at a 30 degree angle, I do gain *SOME* speed, but nearly as much as one would expect. Further when I pull up, I don't lose energy. Almost none is lost. So, to this point I get that the game is listed as "semi-realistic", but regardless of that fact energy and energy retention should be modeled if possible. Different point, I'd love to see the game include more aircraft, and SOME day maybe even include Korea, or later conflicts. Maybe Vincemus II?

In conclusion, the game IS worth $♥♥♥♥♥, and is absolutely worth it on sale. But as it is, I wouldn't expect too much overall, and it's certainly no War Thunder killer - at least not yet. Maybe it will be some day, or maybe that's not the devs intention. It'd be a recommend from me if some of these issues were addressed. Otherwise it's a neutral rating from me due to the frustrations the issues I listed bring about.

Very good war thunder esque singleplayer ww2 plane game. Nails that super neglected middle ground between arcade games and simulators.

Do you like War Thunder, but hate the grind?
Do you like Ace Combat, but want more World War 2?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes Vincemus is the right game for you.

You should go into this game with the following exceptions.
1. It's an Arcade game. Do not go into this game thinking it's a simulator.
2. The developer is either one person or it's a very very small team, so expect some Indie-ness.

There are some area's that need some work, the AI is a bit dumb. The mission can be very similar and there are some missions which feel like your beating a dead horse.

Aside from those trifling complaints, the flight controls work well for mouse and keyboard; the planes feel different and there is a good sense of flight and speed. The developer could increase that later component by forcing the action closer to the ground and reducing the perceived range of flak and tracers; but this isn't a deal breaker.

I will add, for a game with such a small team, the graphics and effects are well done; my only complaint is that there is a good deal of "bloom" or "shine" which I cannot seem to get rid of.

Exactly What I Was Looking For!

I loved playing IL2 Sturmovik, but I wanted a single player arcade control version of it, like War Thunder. And this is it!

It’s such a fun sandbox. And the dev even put in an invincibility cheat like an old school console game, I love it!

controls were jank at first, but i managed to figure it out, however the game has poor optimization, the dev shouldd stop focusing on new features and instead focusing on getting rid of the stuttering issues. other than that the game is good, but i cant currently recommend anyone buy it until the game is properly optimized

If you like RB in War Thunder then this is how the game plays and feels.
If you're a fan of arcade flight games then I recommend this game for you. currently the game is pretty bare bones as far as graphics,effects and content go but that's to be expected with an EA game. Looking forward to what the Dev has in store for the game.