There are only a few aspects of this game that truly bothered me (the time jumps and the ending being my main sticking points), but I still had a blast with the game regardless. While that view on the story may have sounded overly critical, ultimately, the actual plot of the game and the premise it’s based on don’t matter when playing Ace Academy, because it’s a game that focuses on the moment-to-moment experience first and foremost and the execution of the actual experience is so enjoyable that it overshadows the flaws of the story structure. In the end though, the story is nothing but average, becoming nothing more than the vehicle for character interactions. The only thing that truly stood out was the romance in the game, because of how natural it felt in comparison to all of the awkward romances we see constantly in VNs. Hell, even the main storyline about the main character and his GEAR doesn’t really go anywhere, because the story ends before that arch could develop into something cool and interesting. Although there are some aspects of the story like the backstories of certain characters that one can point to as being notable and engaging, the issue with the story really is that none of the developments make any meaningful difference in the terms of adding to one’s experience with the story: The characters don’t change in any meaningful way and the plot doesn’t develop far enough to provide any real gratification. While the story has a few interesting twists, such as mecha fights or a conspiracy surrounding our main character’s family, the story isn’t anything remarkable, and doesn’t do anything that goes beyond what one expects from an ordinary high school slice of life (with the occasional mecha). While one can tell from a plot summary that the story and premise contain mecha and sci-fi elements, what one may not get from them is that the majority of this game is a slice of life –nothing more, nothing less– and that can be a bit disappointing depending on who you are. Instead of going into a typical high school and living a typically boring life, however, our main character transfers into the prestigious Ace Academy that trains students to pilot GEARs, and throughout the game, we see him, disappointingly, live a typical high school life with a slight mecha twist. The protagonist (that the user can name) is an American student pilot who uses an old GEAR made by him and his dad, but due to circumstances (that aren’t revealed until late in the game), he and his sister transfer to the glorious Nippon Japan. Ace Academy is a Visual Novel made by western developer PixelFade Studio, that while maintaining the premise and culture of Visual Novels, bucks the trend of Visual Novels that focus on crafting a wonderful story to the detriment of the experience at a given moment.Īce Academy is set in the future year of 2049, a world where giant robots called GEAR have revolutionized the way people live to the point where they’re commonplace, even in many non-military applications. By embracing the culture of the Western Visual Novel community and Visual Novels in general, Ace Academy executes its premise in a way that it can only do with this approach, a hybrid execution of sorts. Of course, there are negatives to this approach, potentially leading to blander games that try too hard to be what they are not, but after playing a game like Ace Academy, I can confidently say that this viewpoint only scratches the surface of what Western Visual Novels are capable of. In the Visual Novel community, our opinions on the Western Visual Novel/EVN category of Visual Novels ebb and flow with every passing game, but a common criticism that has seemingly stuck around is that they are inferior imitations of Japanese Visual Novels because Visual Novels made in the west frequently try to emulate their Japanese counterparts. One of the best parts about playing a Visual Novel is that they are very powerful: powerful enough to shake up perspectives and powerful enough to give you an impression of something would have never even crossed your mind.
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