into the strangereal

So over the past few months I have successfully played (almost) all of the Ace Combat video games. I did this before I knew about Jacob Geller doing the same thing, for the record, though I am excited to watch his video. There are a couple reasons why I did this: I am always fascinated by long-running series that maintain a stable continuity. I am always fascinated by alternate earth worldbuilding. And in the specific venn diagram center there is basically like, Ace Combat and whatever Kojima did with Metal Gear (I'll get there eventually). I imagine there are other examples, to be sure, but these were the easy ones to me. Ace Combat: Strangereal SkiesAce Combat is a game series that, with a couple exceptions, takes place in an alternate earth setting referred to in external game materials (not, to my knowledge, ingame) as 'Strangereal'. Because it is a strange real world. Get it? Ok. Technically speaking, the concept of the Strangereal universe didn't really happen until the fourth…