Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

If you’ve ever wanted to play Top Gun but without Tom Cruise stealing your thunder, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is your game. It’s part fighter jet simulator, part soap opera, and all chaos in the skies. You’ll find yourself pulling Gs while dodging missiles, yelling Fox Two like a wannabe Maverick, and then crashing because you got distracted by the weather. Yes, the WEATHER. It’s gorgeous and will absolutely kill you.
The plot? Something about rival nations, betrayals, and a space elevator. Honestly, it’s like Game of Thrones but with jets instead of dragons. And the voice acting? Chef’s kiss. Every character delivers their lines like they’re auditioning for a Shakespeare play about aerial dogfights.
TL;DR: You’ll either become an ace pilot or eject straight into a thunderstorm, but either way, it’s ridiculously fun. Just don’t fly into the mountains. They don’t move.

I've never played an Ace Combat game before this, so I can't compare it to others in the series for reference. However, I can say that this is some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game. The sheer rush of some of the dogfights in the campaign is enough for me to give it a positive review, but I'll get into some specifics below.
The story is bad. Not downright awful, but bad. It runs a very bland optimistic, anti-war message throughout, but it's garbled by the story's framing between three different NPCs. I'm not calling for an edgy, gritty war story. We've had a million of those already. But personally I think AC7 simply bores the player with characters preaching about conflict in ways that doesn't really feel natural considering how the plot actually progresses. That doesn't even get to the last act of the campaign, which pushes the goofy meter to 11 as you take down what I can only call the precursor to Skynet. Fun? Absolutely. But don't expect any actual commentary on the military-industrial complex outside of the take that drones are creepy and a war conducted through unmanned technology isn't good. In this way, AC7 ironically glorifies the same wars it's trying to protest.
But who cares about a story? You're buying this because you get to fly wicked jets, right? Right. I'm not a flight simulator guy, but I can say this game feels very arcade-like, at least on Normal difficulty. Play on expert controls for the best control of your aircraft, but don't expect a true simulator. Controlling the pitch, roll and yaw was enough for me to get a ton of fun of doing loops around the jets I was shooting down. I enjoyed just about every mission, although there are some sections of individual missions that caused me some frustration (the end of Mission 20 is just unfair, even for being the very ending.)
Oh, and during each mission, you'll have a ton of NPCs, both allied and enemy, talking about how cool you are. all. the. time. It didn't get on my nerves too much, but I can definitely see how somebody would get utterly sick of it. I assume this is normal for the AC series and it does make for a good power fantasy, but it was grating by the end of the 20 mission run, which will probably be somewhere between 12 and 16 hours for you on normal, if I had to guess.

don't hate me for this but this game is for controller or flight stick sim, not on mouse and keyboard. So if you're planning to play this make sure you are planning to buy or have a controller at least. I don't recommend playing this on mouse and keyboard it such a horrible experience, buy Project Wingman instead

ACE COMBAT is made by people that have a profound love for aviation and technology, as well as the mental image that depicts Fighter Jets not only as the combination of varies inventions, refined through hundreds of years of human ingenuity and curiosity, meant to defy nature by giving ourselves wings out of steel that let us fly farther and faster in additon to making it also look F*CKING BADASSSS.
ACE COMBAT is and never was a correct depiction of aviation physics, it is the fascination you develope as a kid, when you imagine your paperplane soaring through the air and following you with insane speed, while you stare at a mental projetion of it through the car window.
ACE COMBAT is made by and for a very specific group of people, that had a even more specific exposure to certain media like Top Gun, Battle of Britain (1969), Tora Tora Tora (1970) or various aviation magazines or shows in their childhood.
ACE COMBAT doesn't sell you a simulation, it fuels the image of PLANES being the most spectular and awe inspiring vehicle ever. A vehicle that might or might not carry bombs or missiles to blow up some poor bastard in a far away country, that coud have never expected that machine from hell coming at him.
This game specifically enforces this feeling through beautiful graphics and scenarios, combined with addicting freeflow gameplay that makes everything look like a action movie. It plays like Call of Duty, if the player were a 19.7 ton heavy Stealth Fighter Jet.
You will also love this game for it's arcade style gameplay, engaging but not too complex story, cool and realistic designs, braindead ally ai, varriety of missions and enemy types, but also for the sake of JETS BEING THE FRICKING COOLEST THING IN EXISTENCE.

Ace Combat games are the pinnacle of flight sim video games. The game is entertaining and the stories are always great as well. I only hope they re-release ace combat 4,5,6 and even the wii ace combat on steam.

The game itslef is a known quality and I see no reason to start gushing about it even more (BURN OSEA TO THE GROUND - Dog).
The whole point of this review is to highligh how utterly brilliant AC7 is on Steam Deck. It's silky-smooth 60fps, controls are tight and there's no need to change anything in the settings. It just works.
If you're looking for a true benchmark game of your new Deck OLED - AC7 is your first pick by far. You'll be in awe, believe me.

Very fun game but can be difficult at times but still an amazing game that has good maps in my opinion and I like how the game doesn't try to be realistic that much and is more focused on player fun than realism.