Space Ace

Space Ace is one of my top three favorite arcade games of the 1980s. Don Bluth is a master of animation like no other. I had hoped this game would do better than emulators. And in some ways, it did. The remastering of video and sound is superb. A lot of gameplay options make it easier to play casually. However, the actual gameplay, which is what made the original game exciting, is crap. It's one of the simplest kinds of gameplay: wait for a certain move in a certain time window. It's literally child's play to program. But Digital Leisure somehow couldn't get it right. If you enable the hint display and move when it tells you to, you probably won't have any problems playing. But if you want to go full nostalgia and play using only the hints that the game's animation gives you, things go horribly awry. Half the time, the move does not register. You can keep trying to make it register, and it might or might not register at some random later point, which might or might not be before it's too late and you lose a life.

Fun FMV game.

When anyone under the age of 30 waxes* romantically about games of yore being free of greed and microtransactions reminds them that games like Space Ace exist. This game stresses the line between childhood nostalgia and the dawning realization that it was a greedy follow-up to the successful Dragon's Lair. I only played this a handful of times back in the day and never got far; it was too hard for most kids and too expensive (twice the price of most arcade cabinets at the time at a whopping 50 cents iirc). Playing it now this modern port really shows how the original devs of Space Ace really twisted the screws to squeeze out as many quarters as possible. Compared to 'Dragon's Lair' this game's scenes are extremely short and the margin of error is nigh-nonexistent. You can't even enjoy the animation because your eyeballs are frantically looking for the brief cue needed to pass to the next scene. This is a decent enough modern port, it does the job, the video quality feels authentic to the original laserdisc animation, and comes with some minor extras. It's missing a volume slider so you'll need to adjust the game's volume in your windows mixer, a minor annoyance but hardly a dea…

A Work of Art. If you find it too difficult, just watch the playthrough online or tweak the settings in the home menu.

Space Ace, developed and published by Digital Leisure Inc., stands as both a game and a preserved artifact of an era when arcade innovation sought to blur the lines between animation and interactivity. Originally released in 1984 as a LaserDisc arcade title, Space Ace was conceived by Don Bluth and his team, the same visionary animators behind Dragon’s Lair. The game represented one of the earliest and most ambitious attempts to merge the hand-drawn artistry of cinema with the excitement of video gaming. The Steam version by Digital Leisure maintains this legacy by offering a faithful recreation of the original experience, allowing modern players to witness the beauty and challenge of one of the most visually stunning yet mechanically unconventional games of its time. While its core remains unchanged, it continues to fascinate as a window into a period when imagination often exceeded technological limitation. The premise of Space Ace is unapologetically pulpy and perfectly suited for its animated presentation. You play as Ace, a bold hero who has been de-aged into a teenage version of himself, known as Dexter, by a villainous alien called Commander Borf. Borf’s evil plan to subjug…

Like Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace is less of a traditional game and more of an interactive animated short film. You watch the story unfold while executing on-screen prompts to survive and progress. The big difference? Space Ace’s prompts are noticeably easier to hit, which makes the whole experience feel more fair and enjoyable. Also, unlike Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace follows a more defined, linear sequence of events rather than randomly shuffled scenes. That alone makes it feel more cohesive and less disorienting. The classic version still offers no prompts, just like Dragon’s Lair, which means if you want a rough time, go for it. But if you’re a fan of Don Bluth’s animation (and who isn’t?), Space Ace is worth experiencing at least once - if only to appreciate the gorgeous visuals and vintage Saturday morning cartoon vibes. For retro-minded gamers, this may be alluring - but whether that allure outweighs some frustration will depend on your patience and tolerance for trial-and-error.