Aight, I'm only at mission 21 and this is my first ace combat game so idk anything else. This has bugging me, as far as I know Cope did not shoot any Sotoan's so how was he an ace pilot? I know D.D was faking his count but is that really it? I mean aren't there people who have seen him in a dogfight or something and just yk saw him running instead of shooting.

Still on my first playthru and those Ladons need a nerf, just finally beat it but everything i failed to stop it before they fired its last missile, I'd be pulling my hair!

While the first couple missions really took me hours of getting used to, (lack of high g turns and whatnot) the game handles almost exactly like AC 7 and 8 anyways, theres almost no noticeable difference at all, if you can pilot in those games, you can pilot in this one. And it WAS a relatively fun experience, but i can see why people have told me to skip this entry. The first missions are a huge barrier. I just wanted to say , if youre considering it, go for it.

Games pretty short though i wanna say start to finish would probably easily be less than an hour.

Did many people actually play this entry? Curious what your thoughts are, ill probably dive into 2 later tonight, what should i look forward to there?

AC zero literally feels like a technological predecessor to the Unsung war

For the record I've only play AC 0,5,7, and 8.

But in my opion Sotoa is almost on the same level as Belka.

They Tonitus spear civilian cities and threaten to strike more near the end of the game. Because they are sore losers. They have PoW work camps. And then at the game they go "Hey we are victims too. Enso gave us cool weapons we had to go to war and kill Usea civilians.

I've been using planes that are rating 1600 (specifically su 34) but I haven't been able to prpgress the missions that need rating 1600 or higher, does anyone know why? Is it a bug?

I seem to be missing the Morgan with my pre-order. No sign of it in the Aircraft Tree. I did pre-order the deluxe edition.

This might just be me, but I was extremely annoyed every time they kept bringing up the fake "ace" part in the cutscenes/story. This mainly stems from the fact that Rex is basically a real goddamn ace by like mission 4 of the story.

Like they keep talking about how our 10 ace count is fake, we don't actually have a single kill, yap yap yap. Meanwhile Rex has wiped the floor with the 33rd and 44th Lux Lunae units already.

Like I just kept thinking like there is no god damn need to keep using the fake ace thing, when I've shot down probably like over 50 different guys by Mission 15, not to mention all the "elite" Lux Lunae units and a damn land battleship.

I understand that its for story purposes, and the whole story is interesting and really good. But I'm like halfway into the campaign and its getting on my nerves a crap ton.

EDIT: since a lot of people changed my mind on some things and didn't realize what I meant in some parts
I'm mainly referring to the earlier missions (like missions 1 - 8) where trust in Wings was relatively high. I just never understood why they wouldn't act like Rex's kills were Wings's/Cope's and make up for said 12 kill deficit. If no one knew Cope was dead, and Rex was now Wings, why not treat Rex's kills like Wing's?
I mean feel free to prove me wrong, I'm not one to die on a hill for a simple opinion, but I just felt like there were so many things that directly counter the whole scenario.
Like I personally felt like maybe bringing up AI generated dogfighting videos, or directly showing that Enso overinflated the kill count after Rex took over, or something of that like would clear the issue I had.

The survey asked for feedback, and I gave it. Hopefully I'm not solo here.

I was convinced that the comment on Baxter "healing fast" in the prologue was a Chekov's Gun. Rex can talk to the dead, and Tasha appears to have enhanced senses and impossible maneuvering (what do you mean you can ride thermals in a 20-ton supersonic lawn dart?). (I have no idea what Coster has) I was so sure that in Mission 26 they would pull a bait-and-switch and reveal Baxter had a healing factor, up until that didn't happen.

YES WE (jk)

I was honestly pretty disappointed with the vinyl in terms of length (only about 15 minutes per side) and missing a lot of my favorite tracks from the game. I had grabbed a Japanese collectors edition along with my joker flight pack and was pleasantly surprised to see EVERY track from the game on the flash drive. (Along with things like lyric sheet music PDFs) I have a vinyl player. If I really wanted I can handpick my favorites and put them on a vinyl online. I really think the flash drive should have been the global standard with the vinyl being a more limited release.

How the fuck do I sink that thing in it's final ramming run? I've been spamming missiles at the fucking thing, and it simply won't goddamn stop.

Eight times mission failed.

I'm seriously fucking pissed, to the point I'm considering dropping the game entirely.

How the fuck do I win it? Playing on Story mode difficulty, if that changes anything.

EDIT - To everyone who suggested a high AoA and UGBs, that did the trick. Thank you! However, fuck that last bit of the last mission.

AC means a lot to me and heavily inspires a lot of my music! I think the replay viewer lends itself a lot to making cool music videos. I've never really posted my stuff before so please be kind 🪽

After completing Mission 30, the game doesn't actually end. Right before Tewy died in Mission 29, her mind got sublimated into a nearby drone and escaped, possibly an early, proof-of-concept, localized version of the Electrosphere, who knows. The drone secretly escapes far, high, and fast eastward.

...

The screen turns black, and it shows a title card:

MISSION 31

| REX |

...

This is where XO Piker stages an emergency meeting and briefing. She had been in contact with Rosie Falcinelli and La Chanteuse, and they found something disturbing. Turns out the war is not yet over. At least with Enso Order.

During their investigation and thanks to their world-wide intelligence network, they discovered that Enso Order still had one secret facility existing. Where would that be? An underground facility in mainland Sotoa, where their old capital used to be.

How did they come about this information? Back shortly after the Tonitrus Spears started destroying Enso Order facilities around the world, they managed to procure recordings and connections of several few disgruntled former Enso Order employees that were working in the old capital. These particular employees were native Sotoans, and they were realizing that all the war effort was absolute bullshit and fearing that they could be disposed of like the other locations, so they discretely defected and escaped with some information.

Back during Sotoa's rapid industrialization which decimated their agriculture, Enso Order struck a deal with Sotoa. Since Enso Order specialized in technological infrastructure, they helped Sotoa build megafloats including their eventual new capital, Ibirsh, and in exchange, Sotoa permitted them to build facilities in their old capital right on the mainland. Enso took heavy advantage of this and secretly built an underground facility and started extracting natural resources in the surrounding lands, in which they helped build the Sotoa war effort and war machines which led to the invasion of Usea, and also led to the research of the X-40 project.

La Chanteuse and Rosie then explain that since the Tonitrus Spears are no more, Enso Order had to do with a different method of physically destroying their final facility, by using UAV drone attacks to destroy the underground facility from within.

These defectors provided a full floorplan/map schematic of the facility. XO Piker brings up these plans and whaddya know, there are several large tunnels running beneath the capital, just large enough for a jet to fly through. The plan is for Joker Flight to prevent the destruction of this facility, as it is the last true surviving evidence of Enso Order's diabolical schemes, and enemy's plan is to send their UAV drones to fly in and hit critical infrastructure to bring it down. These UAVs are produced and launched out of separate facilities near the main underground facility. Currently, some of the defectors of Enso Order have barricaded themselves to prevent the tunnels from opening, however Enso Order is doing everything they can to do so and destroy as much of their evidence as possible.

But that was not the true kicker. The real meat is what was flying in one those drones. In an intercepted transmission, you could hear Tewy's voice, even though she's supposed to be dead. She says her mind is not her own, she can't seem to "move", and Enso did something to her, her only motive is to keep flying and fighting.

That's when Cope chimes in your head.

Cope: "Holy shit. Is that... what happened to me? Being in your head?"

Because of the absolute urgency of this mission, Joker Flight once again has to sortie as soon as possible, as not only are they the only available flight, but the best flight possible on the FCU side. The other squadrons that took part in the defense of Cima Island either had already flew back to their respective bases or were grounded to due damage/lack of fuel. Both the Endurance and Cima Island base only have enough fuel and munitions for this sortie, as they can't afford to waste time getting resupplies.

This meant Dealer had to stay behind as his AWACS plane, an E-2D, was not fast enough to catch up, and precious fuel had to be rationed for Joker Flight's final sortie. Dealer could still relay information in the Endurance's communications array, but at a limited capability compared to his AWACS plane.

Joker Flight sorties one last time, with D.D. watching and speaking to his smartphone live feed.

D.D.: << There they are everyone. The Wings of Theve... no, the Hand of Hope, taking flight one last time. >>

...

Mission 31 starts with a small cinematic. And for the AC04 fans, "Rex Tremendae" plays. Pretty thematic if you ask me.

Rex,
Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me, fons pietatis.

The sky is overcast, with a big break in the clouds over the city. Sunrays shine down throughout. It almost looks biblical with the lighting. The scene shows UAV drones trying to destroy the city around the facility, preventing any chance of anyone trying to investigate Enso Order once the underground facility has totally been destroyed. War crimes everywhere, civilians begging to be saved waiting for rescue. They constantly fly over the main tunnel entrance of the underground facility, waiting for it to be open, as the defectors hold out as long as they can. Because of the fact that the entire Sotoan airforce has been annihilated in Mission 28, the city has no way of defending itself to shoot down the drones.

The situation looks grim and hopeless.

And that's where Coster chimes in.

Coster: << Come on guys.. Baxter would've told me to pump up some tunes already, so here you go. Rex, just do what you always do. >>

Coster then plays a recording of brand new song that Purple Magic never finished. Ever since the 2nd Retaking of Theve mission, it was always on his mind to finish their final song, and this is the moment where it plays. The song carries a subtle punch of hope and to carry on with your duties to the end.

...

Joker Flight shoots down as many drones, preventing them from bring about more destruction to the city, but they just keep coming, endlessly. With each wave and iteration, the drones seem to be... improving?! It turns out that dead-copy Tewy had uploaded some impartial copies of itself into the later waves of drones, making them partial dead-copys of Tewy as well. The main dead-copy of Tewy is flying about above in a new X-40 Nightmare, harassing Joker Flight, and trying to prevent them from destroying the drone deployment facility areas. Joker Flight pulls back a bit to regroup, trying to think of another strategy. The main dead-copy Tewy doesn't give chase, only to guard the facility as close as possible.

Joker Flight was practically fighting on fumes, with their munitions dwindling down.

Kate: << What can we do? We can only do so much. And I don't want to lose another flight mate ever again. >>

Tasha: << I promised myself I would never pull this trigger, but I keep thinking of what if a missile I fire hits a civvy down below? >>

Coster: << We can only do our best, right Rex? >>

But then, Dealer from the Endurance chimes in.

Dealer: << Joker Flight, several contacts detected! 17 bogeys. Bearing 022. Speed 900 km/h. Altitudes at 4, 6, and 8 thousand meters. But... they're not transmitting Sotoan signals... >>

Cope: << Wait... those are numbers I mentioned before, what does this mean? >>

This is where Tasha's dad came in super clutch: In advance, he had contacted his wife to see if the Yuktobanian Airforce can lend aid, and she readily agreed as she and several Yuktobanian Joint Chiefs of Staff saw D.D.'s broadcast. They send in a few squadrons and an AWACS to help, much to the surprise of Tasha. Who's this AWACS?

That's right, AC5 fans. The Yukes brought in none other than Oka Nieba.

Oka Nieba: << La la la! Listen to our beautiful voice! This is AWACS Oka Nieba, that means "Sky Eye" in your language. I've been ordered here by Anatasia's mother, Air Marshal Severskaya, and brought some of her old comrades too. >>

One of the squadrons that flew in was Tasha's old acrobatics squad, Team Zvezda, flying in Su-27/33/35S with their bright red & white livery.

They weren't equipped for combat and only chaff/flares, but their lack of weaponry greatly reduced weight and thus made them more agile, so they could do more acrobatic maneuvers to help distract the enemy drones. They speak on comms, expressing they're proud of Tasha after seeing what she was doing all this time thanks to D.D.'s broadcasts and social media updates.

Tasha: << You... you guys... >>

Tasha tears up on comms, seeing her old acrobatic team members and flying alongside with them again. And she was able to keep her promise to herself that she will never pull the trigger again since the end of Mission 30.

The rest of Joker Flight, Team Zvezda, and the other Yuke squadrons deal with the drone copies and to prevent them from sending any more. Which left Rex to finally fight the main dead-copy Tewy one-on-one and engage her in Ace Combat.

TGT X-40
MOON 11/SELENE

The main dead-copy Tewy then pleads with Rex on comms, since her actions are not of her own will, but she can at least speak.

Dead-copy Tewy: [[ Hand of Hope, I'm asking you to grant me passage to Hortus Regis Alti. Would you please? ]]

< YES | NO >

...

After a grueling dogfight, tougher than facing Shadow 22, Rex finally shoots down the main dead-copy of Tewy. She thanks him one last-time before her voice dissipates in static, and the drone explodes. Cope chimes in.

Cope: << Rest easy now, Tewy. Your Nightmare is now over. >>

The tunnels to the underground Enso Order facility are suddenly now open, the Sotoan Enso defectors held the door closed as long as they could, and a few drones fly in to destroy the facility and Rex flies in after them, alone. Déjà vu of AC7. This is where the the main theme OST of Ace Combat 8 plays, I'm thinking of the 30th Anniversary version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOjAO1qMBy0).

The drones wreck as much of the underground infrastructure as they can, however Rex shoots them all down through these tight corridors. He destroys them just before they can deal a real critical blow to the entire facility itself, however they do just enough damage that part of the tunnel starts collapsing, and Rex has to escape.

The exit is in sight, and the tunnel is collapsing all around Rex. Everyone around is watching a section of the underground facility collapsing inward on broadcast or in-person. The music stops right before the climax section. Radio chatter chimes in like crazy.

XO Pike: << Joker 1! >>

Dealer: << Joker 1! >>

Oka Nieba & Yuke Squadrons: << Wings of Theve! >>

D.D: << Hand of Hope! >>

Rosie & La Chanteuse: << Hand of Hope! >>

Coster: << Rex! >>

Kate: << Rex! >>

Tasha: << Ray! >>

Cope: << Go. Take back what's now yours. >>

And when Rex finally escapes the collapsing tunnel at the last second, flying back into the sky...

CERTE! PER CAELUM VOLA
ESTO LIBER, OH ESTO LIBER
VOTA RELICTA IN POSTERUM SERITO
FI VENTUS

CERTE! AETHERA DOMA
UBIQUE, OH UBIQUE
VOTA RELICTA IN POSTERUM SERITO

.....

Then the surviving Sotoans of the old capital look up to the sky, seeing that the Terminus Fingers himself had saved them. We also see the camera shift to the people of Ibirsh, and because of what they saw on social media, they too finally put their hands to the sky, to Hope itself.

All the drones have been disabled and destroyed. The ally Yuktobanian squadrons stay around to secure the airspace, under orders from Air Marshal Severskaya, as allied forces coming internationally are coming into the Sotoan old capital to secure the Enso Order facility, thus sealing the organization's fate.

Joker Flight takes in one last squadron formation. Just like in Mission 1 where it showed the intro card of their squadron, it instead says "Hand of Hope". They then fly off back west with the sun shining above them, back to the FCU, back to where everyone is waiting for them.

The story then ends as normal.

The ONLY thing that can outrange it, is the typhoon and mig 31. and the moment you want to use a dog fighter, theres literally nothing you can do. It has support and countermeasure in one package.

I dont remember ECM being this strong in ace combat 7. And I honestly dont know how to fix it. Im a solid dog fighter and occasionally swap to typhoon, but the IEWS is just busted beyond belief

I love the amount of detail they put in the game, so far a lot of the game has been, mwah, chefs kiss! Only thing though, I just tried was in mission 16. I tried blowing up the last two of the three container ships almost simultaneously. Hoping that would stop the drone launch. Unfortunately no such luck. I get it but man, some appreciation or notice of that would have been nice. Oh well, still love it though! They really did a great job with this game!

I keep seeing Foxhounds doing instant loops and other post stall moves, I have tried getting it to do anything post stall and literally can't. Are these players hacking or is doing a post stall in multiplayer different from single player?

Seriously they would be so cool to have as an option, with those players being secondary objectives to destroy during land or sea operations where they can do massive damage to ships or bases, with players actually having to organize to defend and attack each others bombers.

Maybe even have a mode where you play as the Sotan Super-Bombers and each is flown by two players, one as the WSO/Bombardier and the other as the Pilot encouraging team play.

A proper tunnel run, a mission in space, what else do you think?

Having now completed Ace Combat Advance, my 6th entry in this series. I've returned again to give my thoughts.

A little context on my expectations:

I am a massive Metal Gear fan, and the Metal Gear franchise had a singular GBC non-cannon (or rather AU) game aswell (MG: Ghost Babel). That game is actually pretty damn good. It has a solid length and utilises the mechanics of MG2:SS and MGS combined to great success. It tells a interesting story. And has creative fluid gameplay. It innovates on what the franchise is and did up to that point.

That is to say, I knew that the Game Boy system could do great story/gameplay mix games with decent length going into this. All these experiences made what follows all the worse in for me.

Gameplay:

Let's get to the worst aspecet of this game.

The 2d tank controll sceme, flying on 2 layers is alright... It works and resonably conveys the feeling of a plane, even if it is not optimal.

But far worse is what the missions are and ask of you.

1. The mission objectives are almost always ground targets, planes are near always optional as enemys. And thank god for that cause...
2. Dogfights can kiss my ***. The standart missile (which you get ~100 of) flies no further than I could throw it. The pilot probably does actually throw them with how abyssmal their flightpaths are. Now granted the special missiles are a little better but that doesnt matter anyway cause...
3. You can and should just ignore all enemy planes. Seriously (WTF?), since almost no mission asks that you engage in Air Combat™, simply destroying the ground targets and leaving is the best option. And you definitly want to do that cause...
4. You are squishy as hell. Granted, it never made much sense that the Ace Combat planes can just eat missiles like breakfast, but it sure served the game-feel. In this game, the enemies shoot far more and there are more of them, meaning that should you ever actually try to engage in any serious combat against air or ground enemies instead of playing every mission like a fly-by bombing, your plane is bound to get torn to shreds. Speaking of difficulty...
5. The game asks you to pick between easy and hard. Easy (as long as you restrict yourself to the fly-by playstyle) is easy as piss. Literally no difficulty, you will be finished in under 1 hour of playtime. Hard, is ball busting difficult. There is no balance, you will be hit by enemy projectiles, you will be killed. I don't know if the difficultys were playtested, I can't imagine they have been.
6. The radar. The radar can see miles further than you on the screen (as seen in my screenshots), meaning that you will just spend the entire mission looking at the radar. I think there were legit missions where I didn't look at the actual screen once.
7. The afterburner. You want to fly faster than a fucking tortoise? Well fuck you too, the afterburner has a overheat bar and no good reason for that. It's just awful and annoying as fuck. (as you can probably tell by my overuse of expletives)
8. The missions are all extremly short. I know I criticised past games for that but this time I'll take it as a blessing.

The one cool mechanic is your ability to, once per mission, call a refueling aircraft that restocks and heals you fully. Reminded me of AC4's returning to base system.

But all in all this game is just a miserable time to play, I don't know what the developers where thinking. No further comments ig.

Atmosphere:

As you can see in my screenshots, this game is ugly. The ground textures are a pixel vomit, the buildings are partially unintelligable as to what they might be.

In addition to that comes the acenine music. It's bad, really bad. (Shockingly enough the "THE WAR IS OVER!" screen is accompanied by a tune that is decent enough, and that I would've prefered by a long shot over the never-changing mess that was instead.)

The mission intro screens are actually quite scenic, but they make up a combined 2 min of screentime in an otherwise ugly game, this just isn't a good vibe or time.

Metal Gear (1987 MSX II) did that better than Ace Combat Advance (2005 GBA).

Story:

Very much in the spirit of AC1&2 the story is near nonexistant. From what I understand this game is non-canon anyway, but I did find it interesting that AC3's General Recources was mentioned as a mayor power.

Otherwise this game is just a lowpoint in terms of nonexistant story, it doesn't even make you feel like a merc-badass like AC1&2.

Length and replay value:

Thank fuck this game is less than an hour long.

I don't know why anyone would wanna replay this, but ig there is a secound difficulty and I never unlocked the final 2 planes (no idea how to get those)

(3/10) Bug free and managable on the easy difficulty. Sound from a techincal perspective.

And with that I will move towards Ace Combat Zero, to a hopefully far better game, see you then : )

Even AC8 massive mission: "Thousand Points of Light" feels "Smaller" then PW's Battle of Bering Straight and I realized it's just the missile trails doing it.