History VideoGame / AceCombat

** Title Unconfirmed, but occasionally referred to as "''Ace Combat 8''" - the next iteration of the series was [[https://twinfinite.net/2019/09/ace-combat-7-interview-future/ confirmed to be in development]] in August of 2021, but no details have yet been released.

* {{Americasia}}: The Osean Federation downplays this and combines with FantasyCounterpartCulture by being Strangereal's version of the United States of America with a healthy dash of Japanese ethnicity, decided use of the [[UsefulNotes/KaijuDefenseForce Japanese Self Defense Forces]], and their military ranking system.

* {{Americasia}}: The Osean Federation downplays this and combines with FantasyCounterpartCulture by being Strangereal's version of the United States of America with a decided use of the Japanese Self Defense Forces and their military ranking system.

** The earliest example of these fantasy aircraft being the XFA-27 ({{Fan Nickname}}d, the "Phoenix"), a recurring fan favourite. It's a nimble little knife-fighter of a jet that can spam four missiles at once, and it looks like it came in from ''Macross''. It's just a shame it can't turn into a mech. The sixth game gives us the CFA-44 Nosferatu, a plane so high-tech it nearly destroyed the economy of the nation that produced it (much like its vampiric namesake) - it can fire ''twelve'' missiles at once, it has twin railguns, stealth technology, and can deploy a pair of supporting {{Attack Drone}}s. To hammer home the point of how utterly insane these fiction fighters are, in the third game ''Electrosphere'', the Eurofighter Typhoon is one of the ''[[WithThisHerring lamest]]'' planes you can acquire. In RealLife the Eurofighter Typhoon is one of the few jets in the world able to match the F-22 Raptor.

** The only detail you'll get about the player characters is their gender. To that end, most of the games' stories focus on people affected by the protagonist's actions (''04'' being the biggest example). A few of the games have played with this, notably ''Electrosphere'', where it turns out the PC is [[spoiler:an [[TomatoInTheMirror AI]] running several different versions of the same conflict, designed to test if one pilot could turn the tide of a war and whether he can kill a specific person.]] Hell, one of the most detailed protagonists so far is [[VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar Blaze]] - and all that's known about him is his gender and his hair color. [[VideoGame/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception Gryphus One]] also has one identifying detail: judging from the way he is described as a veteran and how AWACS Crux constantly addresses him as "sir" and acts very subordinate to him, it can be inferred he is a commissioned officer. If this is true, he would be the only player character who is one in the whole series, as opposed to a mercenary or a low-ranking pilot. In that same game, Mission 13 also has a few lines of dialogue from Falco One, who is [[HeroOfAnotherStory the hero]] of ''Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion'' and he mentions he has a son.

* CallingYourAttacks: From ''04'' and beyond, characters use the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_%28code_word%29 "Fox" brevity codes]] when launching missiles (''04'' using Fox 2 for the standard heat-seeking missiles and Fox 1 or Fox 3 for missile-based special weapons), with later games adding more appropriate codes as necessary (''5'' reshuffling what missiles go by Fox 1 or Fox 3, adding Pickle for unguided bombs and Magnum for air-to-ground missiles, etc).

* OldSchoolDogfighting: the emphasis of the series. All balancing and adjustment is centered on the idea of close-in knife fights between planes, even though [[HomingProjectiles long-range missiles]] have reduced, if not eliminated, the prevalence of such things. As a simple example, the F-14 Tomcat may be armed with (something that looks like) the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix AIM-54 Phoenix]], but the weapon system cannot be used [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-visual-range_missile beyond visual range]]; instead, you can fire eight of them at once. (Even though the F-14 can only carry 6 at a time.)

* JustPlaneWrong:
** Averted for the most part, although it does indulge in RareVehicles quite a bit. Also subverted as some implausibly cool-looking superfighters have been successfully modelled as airworthy under the limitations of early 21st century flight technology.

** Questionable with the ADF-01 FALKEN: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmcyoLif8-A It flies well enough in X-Plane,]] which is one of the most realistic flight sims, but some things have been done IRL that simulators could not replicate and vice versa. Short of an extremely rich and well-connected fan building his own, we may never know. It's also one of the most over the top Superplanes, oddly (see SerialEscalation below).
** The X-02 Wyvern, a fictional super-plane, has forward-swept swing wings, which would be likely to snap off under high-G maneuvers; those wings swing ''inward'' to form a large delta wing, which is certainly good design but requires the leading edges of one (or both!) wings to be soft enough to merge together when the are swung ''and'' strong enough to withstand the rigors of flight; and the diagonal canards and tailplanes swing ''downward'' to join the giant delta wing, which [[RuleOfCool looks awesome]] but must result in a great deal of yaw instability at supersonic speeds. (Flying wings ''do'' work, or the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit Stealth Bomber]] wouldn't be able to fly, but it also doesn't break the sound barrier.)

** The F-22 Raptor (which is only in service with the United States Air Force) is in service with just about every nation in Strangereal.

** [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality For balance reasons]], every plane in the game is armed with a gun, even those that don't have them in real life (such as the F-117A, the F-35C or the EA-18G), as well as dozens of missiles (such as, again, the F-117 and unarmed tech demos) that, unlike in reality, are viable and equally effective against both fast air targets and unmoving bunkers. ''6'' also allows every plane to perform tight High-G turns, which would normally tear some of said aircraft apart.
** Sometimes justified when the game uses production or prototype concepts of planes and weapons before the final testing is finished (e.g., the production model of the Raptor is used in [=AC4=], after the first two games use the prototype [=YF-22=], and in trailers for [=AC7=] Raptors are shown using external weapon pods, which were in testing for the [=FA-18C=].)

** Most egregious is that there doesn't appear to be any kind of interventionism in Strangereal. Two countries can go to war with each other for reasons ranging from legitimate "not wanting to take in any more refugees" as in ''04'' to simply "wanting to test out their leader's new toys" as in ''X'', and other countries (not even the superpowers like Osea or Yuktobania) will never involve themselves or attempt to broker a truce [[BystanderSyndrome unless the conflict spills over their border]]. This is especially evident in the Aurelian War of 2020 (the aforementioned ''X'') and the Anean Continental War of 2015-2016 (''6''); both wars took place on the borders of a major superpower (Osea in the former and Yuktobania in the latter) and neither country was known to have stepped in. Erusea is able to occupy Usea, a continent roughly the size of Asia for no less than two years, while utilizing a massive railgun network to maintain air dominance, yet no other nation ever intercedes on Usea's behalf, though this is [[AvertedTrope averted]] in ''Ace Combat 7''; at the beginning of the Lighthouse War, the ''official'' two major factions are the Kingdom of Erusea and the IUN, but the IUN is essentially a proxy of Osea and its allies, and much is had about the opinions of other countries who side with either the IUN or with Erusea. Erusea manages to score major moral and strategic victories by not only severely damaging Osea and the IUN in the opening volleys, but doing so without inflicting a ''single civilian casualty'' thanks to their advanced drones, whereas Osea's counter attack not only manages not inflict any strategic damage at all but ''does'' cause damage to civilian infrastructure, turning several neutral countries against them as a result. A later mission also deals with escorting an Osean plane across the border between Erusea and an Osean-aligned neutral country, and the neutral country's army units express frustration at being able to literally see the Oseans battling for their lives in the air above but are unable to do anything about it since they're still on the Erusean side. The Eruseans, on the other hand, are anxiously ''waiting'' for the neutral country to make a wrong move, and even have combat engineering vehicles lined up on their side of the border simply waiting for the order to breach their defenses the moment it happens.

** Weapons are referred to with generic descriptors instead of real names; thus in for example ''Ace Combat Zero'' the F-14 Tomcat, Su-37 Terminator, JAS Gripen, and Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon all use [=XLAA=]s whereas the real planes would probably use different missiles for the long range role. The actual models of the missiles are all different and accurately based on a real missile at least similar to the missile's role, though; for example on the F-14 the XLAA resembles the AIM-54 Phoenix, whereas the Typhoon uses Meteor [=BVRAAMs=].

** Questionable with the ADF-01 FALKEN; [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmcyoLif8-A It flies well enough in X-Plane]], which is one of the most realistic flight sims, but some things have been done IRL that simulators could not replicate and vice versa. Short of an extremely rich and well-connected fan building his own, we may never know. It's also one of the most over the top Superplanes, oddly (see SerialEscalation below).

** Sometimes justified when the game uses production or prototype concepts of planes and weapons before the final testing is finished (e.g., the production model of the Raptor is used in [=AC4=], after the first two games use the prototype YF-22, and in trailers for [=AC7=] Raptors are shown using external weapon pods, which were in testing for the FA-18C.)

** The "Nukes are bad" message that's often presented in the games is even more undermined by the fact that the massive conventional wars the series portrays are only possible because Strangereal is a world where nuclear proliferation never occurred, and thus no doctrine of MutuallyAssuredDestruction arose to discourage overt conflict between superpowers. Even worse, the still-legitimate part of that message is broken by the fact that Belka, the only country in Strangereal known to have access to nuclear weapons as above, has since gone on to have a hand in, if not be [[TheManBehindTheMan directly responsible for]], ''every single'' bad thing that's gone on in the series since the events of ''Zero''. The only mainline games the Belkans and/or Gründer Industries ''don't'' have any hand in are ''Air Combat''[[note]]A self-contained conflict set concurrently to the Belkan War, which [[BroadStrokes Project Aces has no reason yet to acknowledge as canon except as Scarface 1/Phoenix's backstory due to what little narrative there is]][[/note]], ''Ace Combat 04''[[note]]A conflict which was caused due to the direct aftermath of the Ulysses asteroid impact[[/note]], and ''Ace Combat X''[[note]]A WarForFunAndProfit that severely backfires on the instigator[[/note]]). This turns what could have been a still-legitimate aesop of "nukes are bad because they could destroy the world if left unchecked and used with reckless abandon" into an overly-simplistic HitlerAteSugar moral, that "nukes are bad because only the bad guys use them".

** On top of that, no sense of military reduction or oversight is ever implemented for belligerent nations; Belka is able to keep a significant portion of its once mighty air force and military, and Erusea is able to rebuild and revitalize its military 14 years after a devastating two-year occupation of an entire continent.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The only player characters to definitely return in a later game is Mobius One (player character of ''04'', the arcade mode of ''5'' and the VR mode of ''7'') and Phoenix (protagonist of Air Combat and Ace Combat 2/Assault Horizon Legacy), though the later's paint schemes are entirely different.

** Most egregious is that there doesn't appear to be any kind of interventionism in Strangereal. Two countries can go to war with each other for reasons ranging from legitimate "not wanting to take in any more refugees" as in ''04'' to simply "wanting to test out their leader's new toys" as in ''X'', and other countries (not even the superpowers like Osea or Yuktobania) will never involve themselves or attempt to broker a truce [[BystanderSyndrome so long as the conflict never spills over their border]]. This is especially evident in the Aurelian War of 2020 (the aforementioned ''X'') and the Anean Continental War of 2015-2016 (''6''); both wars took place on the borders of a major superpower (Osea in the former and Yuktobania in the latter) and neither country was known to have stepped in. Erusea is able to occupy Usea, a continent roughly the size of Asia for no less than two years, while utilizing a massive railgun network to maintain air dominance, yet no other nation ever intercedes on Usea's behalf, though this is [[AvertedTrope averted]] in ''Ace Combat 7''; at the beginning of the Lighthouse War, the ''official'' two major factions are the Kingdom of Erusea and the IUN, but the IUN is essentially a proxy of Osea and its allies, and much is had about the opinions of other countries who side with either the IUN or with Erusea. Erusea manages to score major moral and strategic victories by not only severely damaging Osea and the IUN in the opening volleys, but doing so without inflicting a ''single civilian casualty'' thanks to their advanced drones, whereas Osea's counter attack not only manages not inflict any strategic damage at all but ''does'' cause damage to civilian infrastructure, turning several neutral countries against them as a result. A later mission also deals with escorting an Osean plane across the border between Erusea and an Osean-aligned neutral country, and the neutral country's army units express frustration at being able to literally see the Oseans battling for their lives in the air above but are unable to do anything about it since they're still on the Erusean side. The Eruseans, on the other hand, are anxiously ''waiting'' for the neutral country to make a wrong move, and even have combat engineering vehicles lined up on their side of the border simply waiting for the order to breach their defenses the moment it happens.

** ''Assault Horizon Legacy'' nerfed the tactical laser system from a near instant-kill beam of death (as in ''Ace Combat 5'' and ''Zero'') to a wiffle bat that needs several seconds on target to score a kill. It was also nerfed in ''Infinity'' and ''7'' for multiplayer balance reasons.

** ''Assault Horizon Legacy'' nerfed the tactical laser system from a near instant-kill beam of death to a wiffle bat that needs several seconds on target to score a kill.
** The Tactical Laser System in ''Ace Combat 5'' and ''Zero'' could instantly destroy targets that came into its path. Its reintroduction in ''Infinity'' and ''7'' had its damage nerfed heavily for multiplayer balance reasons, and requires you to keep the laser on the target for several seconds.

* EarlyGameHell: You often start off with planes that simply aren't very effective at what they do, have slow acceleration and deceleration, and basic machineguns and missiles. Half the fun of the games are the numerous planes and armaments you unlock with progression, almost inevitably ending up with the best in the world or even a SuperPrototype as you tear your way through formerly-significant threats like a hot knife through butter, epsecially on [[NewGamePlus replays]].

* RecycledPremise: ''Ace Combat'' contains a lot of cosmetic tropes from RealRobotGenre, and at times basically lifts plot points from ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''; in fact, ''Ace Combat'' in general can be considered a Mecha series with fighter jets instead of mechs.

** The "Nukes are bad" message that's often presented in the games is even more undermined by the fact that the massive conventional wars the series portrays are only possible because Strangereal is a world where nuclear proliferation never occurred, and thus no doctrine of MutuallyAssuredDestruction arose to discourage overt conflict between superpowers. Even worse, the still-legitimate part of that message is broken by the fact that Belka, the only country in Strangereal known to have access to nuclear weapons as above, has since gone on to have a hand in, if not be [[TheManBehindTheMan directly responsible for]], ''every single'' bad thing that's gone on in the series since the events of ''Zero''. The only mainline games the Belkans and/or Gründer Industries ''don't'' have any hand in are ''Air Combat''[[note]]A self-contained conflict set concurrently to the Belkan War, which [[BroadStrokes Project Aces has no reason yet to acknowledge as canon due to what little narrative there is[[/note]], ''Ace Combat 04''[[note]]A conflict which was caused due to the direct aftermath of the Ulysses asteroid impact[[/note]], and ''Ace Combat X''[[note]]A WarForFunAndProfit that severely backfires on the instigator[[/note]]). This turns what could have been a still-legitimate aesop of "nukes are bad because they could destroy the world if left unchecked and used with reckless abandon" into an overly-simplistic HitlerAteSugar moral, that "nukes are bad because only the bad guys use them".

** The "Nukes are bad" message that's often presented in the games is even more undermined by the fact that the massive conventional wars the series portrays are only possible because Strangereal is a world where nuclear proliferation never occurred, and thus no doctrine of MutuallyAssuredDestruction arose to discourage overt conflict between superpowers. Even worse, the still-legitimate part of that message is broken by the fact that Belka, the only country in Strangereal known to have access to nuclear weapons as above, has since gone on to have a hand in, if not be [[TheManBehindTheMan directly responsible for]], ''every single'' bad thing that's gone on in the series since the events of ''Zero'', even {{ret|Con}}roactively (the only mainline games the Belkans and/or Gründer Industries ''don't'' have any hand in are ''Air Combat'', which is set concurrently to the Belkan War, involved a relatively minor uprising which would be senseless for Belka to intervene in while in a major armed conflic and which [[BroadStrokes Project Aces barely wants to acknowledge as canon anyway]], ''Ace Combat 04'', the confict shown in which was caused due to the direct aftermath of the Ulysees asteroid impact, and ''Ace Combat X'' which is a WarforFunandProfit that severely backfires on the instigator). This turns what could have been a still-legitimate aesop of "nukes are bad because they could destroy the world if left unchecked and used with reckless abandon" into an overly-simplistic HitlerAteSugar moral, that "nukes are bad because only the bad guys use them".

** The "Nukes are bad" message that's often presented in the games is even more undermined by the fact that the massive conventional wars the series portrays are only possible because Strangereal is a world where nuclear proliferation never occurred, and thus no doctrine of MutuallyAssuredDestruction arose to discourage overt conflict between superpowers. Even worse, the still-legitimate part of that message is broken by the fact that Belka, the only country in Strangereal known to have access to nuclear weapons as above, has since gone on to have a hand in, if not be [[TheManBehindTheMan directly responsible for]], ''every single'' bad thing that's gone on in the series since the events of ''Zero'', even {{ret|Con}}roactively (the only mainline games the Belkans and/or Gründer Industries ''don't'' have any hand in are ''Air Combat'', which is set concurrently to the Belkan War and which [[BroadStrokes Project Aces barely wants to acknowledge as canon anyway]], ''Ace Combat 04'', and ''Ace Combat X''). This turns what could have been a still-legitimate aesop of "nukes are bad because they could destroy the world if left unchecked and used with reckless abandon" into an overly-simplistic HitlerAteSugar moral, that "nukes are bad because only the bad guys use them".

In 2011, the Strangereal series, specifically the third installment ''Electrosphere'', seems to have been {{retcon}}ned into the ''[[http://acecombat.wikia.com/wiki/United_Galaxy_Space_Force United Galaxy Space Force]]'' series, also tentatively known as [[TheVerse Namcoverse]]. Said series seems to unite many of the futuristic games previously released by Namco, where the Strangereal games are the chronologically earliest installments (see also Timeline.UGSFSeries).