You can be my wingman anytime.
Namco’s Ace Combat series is one of the company’s most enduring hits, and has been a solid part of its lineup for decades, selling over 20 million units in the process – yet the origins of the franchise are somewhat murky and certainly not as well known as, say, the Ridge Racer lineage.
This is somewhat ironic, as Ace Combat began life in the same fiery, amusement arcade cauldron as its car-based cousin – in fact, the very first instalment arrived in the same year that Ridge Racer was born: 1993. However, Air Combat was powered by Namco’s System 21 polygonal arcade board, which wasn’t capable of texture mapping; it would fall to its sequel, Air Combat 22, to deliver an experience that offered more graphical impact. That’s the game which is now part of Hamter’s Arcade Archives series on Switch and Switch 2.
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