As the franchise celebrates its 31st birthday, Bandai Namco continues to release the missing Ace Combat soundtracks, enriching its catalog today with a legendary installment: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (titled Distant Thunder in Europe). The 48-track soundtrack (about 2 hours of music) is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and YouTube Music.
A truly foundational title, Shattered Skies laid the groundwork for the narrative style of subsequent entries. It is particularly remembered for its stunning graphic-novel-style cutscenes, which help add depth to the antagonists of Yellow Squadron. Musically, Ace Combat 04 is equally legendary. Its quartet of composers (Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Keiki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Okubo, and Katsuro Tajima) built the foundations of the orchestral and electronic approach found in the rest of the franchise. This style would continue to be developed in later games by the same team, united under the Project Aces banner.
Fun fact: on streaming platforms, Bandai Namco seems to have misspelled the name of their own game. "Shattered Skies" has thus become "shettered sky" on Spotify and other music services.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was announced at the latest Game Awards. It will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series on October 2nd.
Find all listening links for ACE COMBAT 04: Shattered Skies (Original Soundtrack) by Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Hiroshi Okubo, Keiki Kobayashi, Agustin Barrios Mangore, Katsuro Tajima on its dedicated page:
→ https://nwpl.ing/ace-combat-04
