Having finished it since those early impressions, I can say that I think it's definitely a worthwhile buy for any Ace Combat fan with a 3DS (though not to the point where you should buy a 3DS just to play it) - it's certainly a
much better game than Assault Horizon.
Overall, I think it probably ranks around the same as Ace Combat X. The story in Legacy feels a bit hollow, since there aren't any between-mission story scenes the way there are in AC3-6, 0, and X, and there aren't really any 'super weapons' the way you might know them from more recent games - there's an 'experimental' super bomber plane that you have to fight a few of in one mission, but they're just slightly-oversized planes that take five or so missiles to take down, and there's a 'superweapon' submarine, but it's not much different from an ordinary submarine (or rather, what makes it different is a scripted event that doesn't have much to do with the sub itself).
However, I think that Legacy makes up for those downsides with two improvements that really do add to the game: The maneuvers, and the Ace squadron fights.
The offensive maneuvers, as a few people have said, are fairly similar to the ones from Sky Crawlers - except that they aren't nearly as powerful. The window of opportunity to land a missile on an enemy using a level 1 offensive maneuver is quite small, once you're past the first few missions - against proper Ace squadron planes and even some of the tougher no-names, the window of opportunity is often
zero, and all that the maneuver will do is put you roughly behind the plane, making it easier to get into chases. To actually score a "guaranteed" (and it's really not, always) missile hit against a good enemy pilot, you need to charge right up to the level 2 maneuver, and even then the window can be quite small.
And more importantly, unlike Dogshit Mode in Assault Horizon, the maneuvers in Legacy are
never required, no matter who you're fighting - but since the maneuvers
are there, the developers were free to make Ace squadron pilots
really good. You'll never run into an enemy plane that fires off an infinite amount of chaff and can never be touched by your missiles, but if you want to straight-up outfly the tougher aces, you're going to need to be
really good - it's definitely possible to do, but they're harder than in any other Ace Combat game.
The
defensive maneuvers are just a great improvement. They're not terribly complicated - move the analog pad in the direction indicated, and press the Maneuver button - but the timing on them can be
very tight (as in, 1/2 to 3/4 of a second or so), and it honestly is a lot more fun than the classic Ace Combat missile evasion method, which is just "Turn like a motherfucker". And just as the offensive maneuvers gave the developers the freedom to turn up the maneuverability of enemy pilots, the defensive maneuvers let them turn the ace squadrons
really aggressive. If you fly straight into an Ace Squadron fuzzball, it's not uncommon to find yourself pulling off seven defensive maneuvers in ten seconds as they
swarm you with missiles.
The Ace Squadrons, as I touched on, are just better, meaner, and more vicious in Legacy, compared with other AC games, but apart from that, one thing that sets them apart from the Aces in other games is that each squadron has its own theme, and distinctive attack patterns. The Lancer squadron (the first you run into) uses the gimmick where they all fly into the distance, get in formation, and all charge straight at you. Other squadrons will alternately disperse, form into clusters, and then try to pin you in between both halves, or have a number of different formations and patterns named and based around pieces on the chess board. While Yellow Squadron in Ace Combat 4, or Ofnir and Grabacr in Ace Combat 5 were really cool and imposing opponents from a
story perspective, in-game they were basically just like any other planes except a little harder to dodge and a little harder to shoot down. In Legacy, every Ace Squadron you run up against has a distinct personality, both in terms of radio chatter
and in terms of how it actually feels to fight them, gameplay-wise.
If you have a 3DS and you like Ace Combat, I'd definitely recommend picking this up, especially if you feel like you need something to wash the taste of Assault Horizon out of your mouth.
I'm wondering just what the heck that will be useful for. Maybe aircraft rotation or something...
In the PS2 (and AC6) games, L2/R2 or the triggers controlled your throttle, and L1/R1/LB/RB controlled your plane's yaw. In Legacy, you can only control the yaw via the D-Pad, which is obviously sort of awkward. That, and I don't think there's a good way to look to your left, right, or up with the 3DS's controls, whereas the second analog stick would take care of that no problem. So basically, a couple nonessential-but-nice-to-have features like that, and the more comfortable form factor would be the reasons to use the slidepad shell.
I have Ace Combat fever right now. Though it's going to be hard to go back to PS2ish graphics, since I'm playing Ace Combat 6 right now, which is beautiful.
