Task Force Mode and the Pacific Strike campaign is singlehandedly the best thing this game could've gotten. Don't get me wrong, the first two campaigns they made were good and the countless user made campaigns on the workshop are heaps of fun but starting off Pacific Strike with a small persistent task force and struggling through it until you build a personalised powerful fleet is one of the most satisfying feelings ever. I hope the developers continue to implement the Task Force system in future official campaigns and updates.
I love having the option of choosing between 3 different commander nationalities (USA, Australia and Japan) and being able to play as an Australian commander is just peak. Top notch voice lines for all nationalities, was a huge surprise hearing the Australian lines for the first time and couldn't help but smile and feel a little pride.
I love the meta game progression of Pacific Strike, you have a list of ship classes to choose from, they all have their own availability dates, each ship class has a persistant number of ships you can acquire and if you lose them during the campaign they're gone for good. Some missions don't let you resupply and rearm your fleet after completion so you have to spend your weapons wisely otherwise you might screw yourself over for the next mission. It adds so much tension to the game and makes it feel like every decision you make has to be meaningful and has impact. The campaign also has several optional missions that if you complete them successfully makes your playthrough much easier in the long run such as unlocking better loadouts for your ships, reduced enemy presence in future missions and knowing where certain enemy assets are at the start of a mission.
Personally I believe the best way to enjoy the new campaign is to pick a commander nationality and try your best to lock yourself to only using ships and aircraft from your nation with maybe an exception or two as well as any free assets the campaign gives you after certain missions. For my first playthrough I chose the Australian commander and went with an all Australian fleet and by the end I had a US Long Beach and a Belknap cruiser as well as some American aircraft since I really needed the long range air defence capabilities. With this in mind I would say playing only as the US is easy, the Australians as medium and a good satisfying challenge and the Japanese as incredibly hard and masochistic. That being said, play it how you like because each nation definitely brings their own flair and mixing and matching assets to create a truly powerful task force that covers each others weaknesses is the best.
My only gripe with the campaign and this may be because of a skill issue is that they throw an incredibly difficult fight at you only 5 missions in. The campaign does a great job at easing you into the gameplay loop and story and then suddenly at mission 5, I had to fight a Kirov-class missile cruiser with its 300 nautical mile range anti-ship missiles with my ragtag fleet of Australian destroyers and frigates whose harpoons only reach 65 nautical miles. It's not impossible to win per se, its just its a massive difficulty spike and if you choose to stick to a single nation like I did, is quite difficult to complete with zero losses (RIP RAN Melbourne, you were a real one).
If you do plan on playing as the Australians and are doing a replay of the campaign, I recommend grabbing the Royal Australian Defence Forces and Project Southern Cross mods off the workshop as they expand the Australian roster and add some very capable and much needed ships. In my current playthrough I used the debug menu to allow the entire roster and chose the Australian carrier as my flagship and obviously while its not as powerful as the US supercarriers, its been an absolute delight learning how to maximise the potential of her air wings in every mission and immersing myself in the idea that my Australian fleet is punching above their weight and massively contributing to NATO forces in the conflict despite not having the best ships or aircraft but still being able to make do with some careful planning and well timed coordinated attacks. All in all, a very good update and I am very much looking forward to seeing the next update for Pacific Strike and taking my elite Australian carrier task force through it.
