Awesome / Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

• Ace Combat 04. Mobius One starts as a simple rookie, rushed into a last stand to fend off bombers going after the last remaining allied air base near the occupied mainland, on the other side. By the conclusion of the game, the pilot has a squadron to his name, has destroyed the rail cannon network that had facilitated the enemy invasion, shot down almost every elite Erusean pilot, flown into the guts of a massive ICBM launcher and pulled it apart, liberated two cities and in the arcade mode of Ace Combat 5, his tactical skill and effectiveness are equal to that of an entire squadron. Repeat: Mobius 1 makes up an entire fighter squadron... by himself.
  • Even better: His rising levels of badassery is shown entirely through Gameplay and Story Integration. First, you're just a rookie fighting off bombers and ground targets. Then mission four has you really dogfighting. The next mission all of your allies are slaughtered by the Yellows. A few missions later, and you manage to land a hit on Yellow 13. You then begin carrying the entire army's morale solely by your skills, culminating in destroying Stonehenge and actually SHOOTING DOWN Yellow 4.
  • And Mobius 1 is still kicking ass 9 years later. Free Erusea was dumb enough to try again in 2014. Imagine their faces when they saw an IUN-PKF F-22 Raptor with the ribbon insignia...
• Mission 08: Shattered Skies, the Battle of Comona (the mission being to defend a satellite launch from aerial attack) may be described as a "furball", or a giant air-to-air brawl with missiles, complete with Awesome Music.
  • The best part is that this is your first real chance to hit a member of Yellow Squadron.
  Ally: A Yellow's hit and trailing smoke. Whose kill was that?
  Yellow 13: Who was it that shot me?! See who's responsible for that shot!
  Unnamed Yellow: It's a ribbon!
• The first time you shoot down a member of Yellow Squadron while attacking the huge cannon system that has killed countless buddies. Then the game throws it in your face that the plane had a faulty engine! And it was still tough to take them down for many gamers.

  • Somewhat balanced out by the fact that in a first playthrough, the player won't really have a plane comparable to Yellow Squadron's Su-37 Terminators in the first place, and gameplay-wise there's no actual difference between the Yellows — whichever you shoot down first is story-wise considered to have been Yellow 4.

  • Then stepped up during the battle for San Salvacion, where a few Yellows are over different parts of the city; each one shot down is worth far more points than any normal target, but there is no in-story note if you kill any of them beyond Sky Eye shouting "Got a Yellow!" when it happens.
  • Then outdone by Mission 17, Siege of Farbanti — capping off the attack on the Erusean capital and the decapitating of their military is the honest-to-Crystal Dragon Jesus splashing of Yellow 13 and his last four wingmen, no Worf Had the Flu excuse to defend them here! Except for the fact that most of Yellow was a bunch of hurriedly trained rookies, with the sole beautiful exception of Yellow 13.
• The sequence leading up to, and the stage "Emancipation," always gives goosebumps. While not the start of ISAF's offensive (that was Operation: Bunker Shot), it marks the point where ISAF has gained the decisive advantage and the war's outcome sealed.
  • Yellow Squadron is in the air with you during this mission. If you seek them out, you can shoot them down here, too.
• Moment of Awesome for players here: In the mission 'Lifeline', your squad takes down an oilrig and a refinery to cut off supplies for an invading force. Then Yellow Squadron shows up, they're supposed to be better than you and your objective is actually to RTB as quickly as possible. The devs cranked the AI up to eleven on this incarnation of the Yellows just to drive the point home. They were shocked when they read various internet forum posts describing players actually landing hits and being disappointed to find out that the planes were invincible at this stage in the game! (On ace difficulty, it takes two regular missiles to take out an enemy but just one for you to go down, meaning these players went 5 vs. 1 on the best AI in the game and landed multiple hits without getting shot down!)
  • Not to mention the craptastic plane YOU are flying at the time vs the superfighters piloted by the Yellows.
• The start of the final mission is a excellent example. Throughout the game, you are the only Mobius aircraft in theatre, causing so much damage that the mere sight of your plane terrifies the enemy ("There's a ribbon on that plane! It's the Grim Reaper.") Because of this, when you enter the mission Megalith and are greeted with Mobius Squadron you really get the feeling that, this is really the last chance, it's win or die here.

  Sky Eye: "Sky Eye here. All Mobius aircraft report in."
  Allies: "Mobius Two on standby." "Mobius Three through Seven on standby." "Mobius Eight on standby."
  Sky Eye: "Preparations are complete, ready for battle. All aircraft, follow Mobius One."
  ["Megalith ~ Agnus Dei" starts up]

  • For that matter, even the opening of the mission qualifies! You get to see how imposing Megalith is, complete with meteors, lasers coming from the facility and Ominous Latin Chanting:
    Rex,
    Rex tremendae majestatis,
    qui salvandos savas gratis,
    salve me, fons pietatis.
    Translation:
    King,
    King of tremendous majesty,
    who freely saves those worthy ones,
    save me, source of mercy.
  • Also, the reaction of the enemy planes. Yellow Squadron at this point has been decimated, so all of your enemies wear their symbol on their planes. They didn't expect to see their enemies doing the same thing.
  Gene: You're not gonna believe this, Jean-Louis! All of them have ribbon insignias!
  • Once you take care of the remnants of Yellow Squadron, you have to take out the three generators; It's a thrilling feeling to do three tunnel runs just to blow out the three generators, and you can even hear (but unfortunately not see) Bravo 1 and the other infantry units fighting for their lives until you blow out the third generator, in which case they make a mad dash into the sub control room, and open the entrance to the central heat vent. After taking care of the rest of the now opened missiles, you make one last Airstrike Impossible into the central heat vent, and blow up the de-facto Final Boss with a missile or two. And once you do...
  Sky Eye: (As Mobius 1 flies out of the exploding Megalith) Target destroyed! There he is, I got Mobius 1 on radar!