Is Ace Combat a real sim or arcade?

[REVERIE]

I'm confused since some fans have a sided argument concerning to this.

[Naruto 607]

Technically, it's a combo of both, arcade and simulation, a.k.a. "simcade".

Some may say this as a simulator, some are not, but I don't mind if people are arguing about it. However, I've seen people complained about this game being a simulator while those who played Ace Combat before opposed it. If you have seen a thread that has been "hot" about it, you know why it is "prone" to big arguments, like politics.

[Nissan GTR 50th]

Ace Combat is no way near a simulator, the PSM mechanic defy every law of physics. At least AC4 and some of the past games wasn’t that bad in terms of physics.

[628]

Flight stick purists say this has irl fighter jets thus it must be a sim. So, it is.

JK,

Originally posted by Ali ACF:

Ace Combat is no way near a simulator

[RAWRmonger]

Ace Combat is not simulation, at all. Nowhere realistic enough.
It's an arcade flight game (with some great attention to detail).

Simcade, as said above, also isn't a bad choice term either, because games like Afterburner make Ace Combat look more centered between arcade and sim spectrum.

[akisrs]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMb-Y1sFuxA&t=302s

[deathspeed]

Arcade sim all the way, and it never pretends to be anything else.

[startrekmike]

The big contention I have seen on this forum (mostly from some rather committed individuals) really comes down to how one defines "simulation" and which definition is most important. In the most general sense of the word, most games are "simulations" of something but since you are asking if it is "real sim" or "arcade", I think we can go to the more specific approach where "real sim" means a realistic simulation of how a aircraft, its systems, and its weapons work. Likewise, we would also have to consider how realistically the missions are structured.

With all of the above taken into account, Ace Combat (as a franchise) is a set of air combat games that may have realistic looking aircraft but have no realistic or authentic elements beyond that. The universe the games are based in isn't realistic, the aircraft don't fly realistically, and the weapons and sensors are also entirely unrealistic. None of that means that it isn't fun or good. It just means that if one is looking for a combat flight simulation experience, Ace Combat was never, ever the place where one will get that.

To be bluntly honest, I think even "simcade" may be a bad way to describe Ace Combat. Again. I don't say this as a negative but if I were to look at this from the perspective of a racing game fan, I would put games like the Forza series, Dirt, F1, and Gran Turismo firmly in the "simcade" category because they are simplified but still have some realistic (or at least authentic) elements that anchor them somewhat towards the "sim" side of things. The cars may not behave exactly as they should but there are obvious gameplay elements that try to convey a sense of overall authenticity even if it isn't realistic in the individual details. Ace Combat doesn't do any of that. It has no real interest in any kind of realism beyond the visuals of the aircraft themselves (not the fictional aircraft obviously but the ones based on real airframes).

For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would want to try to make the Ace Combat franchise to be anything more than a fun, story driven air combat action game series. Trying to argue that it is or isn't a "sim" kinda seems to miss the point. We know what combat flight sims look like (DCS World, IL-2, Rise of Flight) and we know what "simcade" air combat games look like (War Thunder). I am not sure why anyone would want Ace Combat to try and compete on the level of those other titles when it was clearly not intended to do so. It is a fun, arcade action air combat game series.

[Det.Bullock]

Arcade with some "sim-ish" elements sprinkled in, like, I played games with more arcade elements.

[Capt Lawrence]

its an arcade it has nothing that would be considered sim. You cannot over G your pilot cant pass out you cannot fly your plane to hard and rip the wings off.

That being said its a crazy good game with crazy fun story. Emphasis on crazy

[cyäegha]

to use motorsport games as an analogy, both iRacing and rfactor are simulators

gran turismo sport is sim-lite, but it lacks things like tyre carcass modelling that make it fall short of a true simulator

forza motorsport is a simcade, and forza horizon is an arcade game

ace combat, comparatively, is almost absolutely arcade, as nothing in it even remotely corresponds to reality and for every element that AC7 did more immersively or was a closer approximation to reality than previous AC titles, it did two things that diverged further from reality

this doesn't make ace combat bad in any sense of the term, just that it is most decidedly not a simulation, and no AC title would qualify as a simcade

[Useless Bunny]

Yes, it's a real sim where your plane is not affected by g-force, carries hundreds of missiles, railguns, super laser beams and nukes.

[BigCheese]

It's straight arcade, but fun. Best played with a controller and I own a hotas.

[Grulemugg]

It's not an arcade it's an videogame for PC and console, obviously. It is a flight simulation that puts you in the cockpit of a fighter jet. The level of simulation is very realistic with regard to the graphics, very poor with regard to the physics and non existent with regard to vehicles, weapons and systems.

[Naruto 607]

Originally posted by Grulemugg:

It is a flight simulation that puts you in the cockpit of a fighter jet.

Uh, excuse me?

Originally posted by Grulemugg:

very poor with regard to the physics and non existent with regard to vehicles, weapons and systems

Still counts as an arcade regardless of what you think.

[628]

Originally posted by Grulemugg:

very poor with regard to the physics and non existent with regard to vehicles, weapons and systems.

THEN IT IS NOT A SIM YOU DELUSIONAL.