- Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has a lot of demonic or hell overtones, what with "Galm" squadron (Garm), the 6th Air Division, 66th Air force Unit, and Cipher eventually being called the Demon Lord. There's one stage, a recreation of the firebombing of Dresden in World War II, where Cipher escorts bomber squadrons to destroy Belkan munitions in the city of Hoffnung. The bombers indiscriminately drop all over the city, prompting one enemy to say over the radio, "Abandon Hoffnung!" It's a Bilingual Bonus (hoffnung means "hope" in German) but I never noticed the reference to Dante's Inferno before: "abandon all hope ye who enter here." — Zephid
- Speaking of demonic references: a few players thought that Ace Combat Zero's main theme, "Zero", was too derivative of its predecessor, "The Unsung War" (to the point of sharing the same lyrics describing the Razgriz legend, even though it is not mentioned once in the entire game). Other fans have tried to find a deeper meaning behind the song's composition, e.g. "Do the flamenco guitar motifs = Cipher originated from Sapin?" or "Did Cipher have a direct connection to Blaze and co.?" But the story of Galm Team resembles the Razgriz mythology more than Wardog Squadron ever did. At no period in Ace Combat 5 do you doubt the intentions of your character and your fellow wingmates; while your military allegiance changes and the last third of the game draws the warring nations into Grey-and-Gray Morality, your lionization as the manifestation of Razgriz is more an extension of Yuktobanian soldiers fearing your capabilities, plus a whiff of Belkan propaganda, than anything else. (Wardog was re-named Razgriz in an act of Appropriated Appellation.) In ACZ, despite which Ace Style you take, you start off as a nondescript mercenary - with the sole goal of destruction for personal advantage - and your buddy, Galm 2, is presented as a Memetic Badass instead. In other words, an Anti-Hero paired with the Famed In-Story. Mission 12 (where you witness Strangereal's Hiroshima and Nagasaki) is when Cipher and Solo Wing Pixy's character arcs are drastically altered. As the Allied Forces and Belka "squabble" over the material gains and losses of a potential peace treaty, every sortie the Demon Lord partakes from then on is to achieve a real end to the conflict behind the scenes, to prevent further death. When Cipher and Pixy meet for the final time, who is the hero and who is the demon? At the conclusion of Mission 18, the new Razgriz is slain by the former, and in a cyclical fashion (like a Möbius strip), begins to seek out his own redemption.
- Indeed, the Razgriz poem (and A Blue Dove for the Princess) may be best understood as a psychological allegory - confronting one's inner demons - rather than a literal supernatural being.
- And the Arthurian symbolism! Including an important one: When Pixy defects, he is frequently referred to in royal terms, such as "Cinderella" in Mission 12 by Wizard 1 and as Avalon's "Sleeping King" on Gault 1's epitaph. However, when Pixy ultimately appears, he flies the ADFX-02 Morgan, named after King Arthur's nemesis. If Pixy isn't the true 'King in the Mountain,' then who is? Well, who pulled out "Tauberg's Sword"?
- The F-15C Eagle, Cipher's signature plane, can carry just enough munitions in real life to take down the forces at the Round Table, destroy the launch control devices at Avalon Dam, and take down Pixy's Morgan without re-arming, meaning that the final sprint of missions is theoretically possible even without Ace Combat's' use of a Hyperspace Arsenal.
- Mission 8 is named "Merlon." Wait a second, shouldn't that be "Merlin," to go along with the rest of the game's heavy King Arthur references? Not this time. A merlon is the solid upright section of a castle wall's battlement, i.e. the raised parts that defending archers hide behind to avoid return fire—something you're going to be wishing you had when Excalibur starts firing at the end of the mission.
- Why did Brett Thompson decide to interview enemy aces about Cipher (who other than Pixy would have known him for about a few minutes during a single battle at most), instead of the ground crew and company executives at Axe and Hammer, who would likely know him better? Well, Operation Valkyrie happened, where the Valais Air Base you've been spending most of the game stationed at is bombed to hell by the Hresvelgr. Most of the ground crew were probably killed in that attack, and the survivors (like Eagle Eye and PJ's girlfriend) understandably might not want to be interviewed or are under a legal agreement like an NDA not to discuss other employees.
- Every ace team's choice of planes has a solid reason behind them:
- Rot Team is essentially the poster boys of the Belkan Air Force and between that and their nationalist pride, it reasonably follows that they fly the only fighter aircraft in the game that is operated by Belka's Real Life counterpart, Germany, the Eurofighter Typhoon.
- Grun Team flies the relatively weak F/A-18C because they're unpopular with the BAF for their relative disregard for regulations, and so don't have the opportunity to be assigned higher-end aircraft like the other ace teams.
- Indigo Team is noble and comparatively aloof, so it's fitting that they fly the Gripen, which is produced by Sweden, which is known for its neutrality. Also, for their long knightly Belkan heritage, it's appropriate that they fly a plane of (North) Germanic origin, rather than one of American, Soviet/Russian, French, or Japanese origin.
- Schwarze Team flies MiG-31 Foxhounds because they need the extreme speed and XLAA capability the plane offers to run down deserters who may themselves be flying supersonic fighter jets, as the MiG-31 is designed as an interceptor against fast-moving aircraft.
- Gelb Team, aside from being a reference to the infamous Yellow Squadron from Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, is a two-man team that is extremely skilled and flies perfectly in tandem, and in real life, there were exactly enough Su-37s built for their squadron.note In reality, only one Su-37 technology demonstrator ever existed. Rather than a second, the systems tested on the Su-37 were simply applied to prototype aircraft by Sukhoi. Also, the logical difficulty of keeping a rare, prototype airplane like that in good repair fits well with their constant maintenance issues.
- Schnee Team embodies the soldier ace style ethos - they don't fly for glory, pride, or wealth, but out of duty and to win, even if it means being shot down. As such, they employ sniper ace tactics with the F-14D's XLAAs (AIM-54 Phoenix) and ECM cover from an EA-6B Prowler, neither of which are the fanciest planes for those roles (befitting that they are not exceptionally ambitious, and as comparatively cheap planes with those capabilities, it fits with the fact that Schnee was willing to be shot down to achieve their goals (indeed, they were shot down several times over the course of the war)).
- Silber Team was originally going to be all F-4E Phantoms, and the two-seat plane was often used for training, fitting since aside from squadron leader Kellerman, the squadron consists entirely of rookies from the Kellerman Institute. The change to F-16Cs is a little harder to fit in, aside from it being a very common (and just above entry-level in Strangereal) plane, which at least in the setting works as the kind of plane that a pilot who hadn't yet otherwise specialized might fly.
- Espada Team flies two mismatched European aircraft (Espada 1 flies a Swedish J35J Draken and Espada 2 flies a French Rafale M), which fits with both the obvious European inspiration of their home country of Sapin, even if the real country of Spain doesn't operate either of their particular aircraft. It also emphasizes that AWWNB is not a mono-national organization and that their forces aren't necessarily particularly well organized. Espada 1's choice of a J35 Draken, a fairly old and obsolete aircraft which had been retired in real life by 1995 suggests an overconfidence in his abilities, operating a significantly older aircraft than his wingman.
- Wizard, Gault, and Sorcerer all fly experimental aircraft in greater numbers than their real life counterparts ever existed in, which fits with AWWNB's theme of being equipped with stolen advanced prototypes and with director Anton Kupchenko (Gault 1)'s heavy involvement with experimental weapons development. Furthermore, Wizard and Sorcerer both fly American experimental aircraft, fitting with their Osean origin, given that Osea is a stand-in for the United States. Meanwhile, while Kupchenko is Belkan, his surname is Russian, befitting his squadron's use of the Russian prototype Su-47.
- Sorcerer's use of the F-15 S/MTD makes sense as the mercenary opponent as the F-15 S/MTD carries FAEB, SOD, and XMAA, all of which cause a wide range of destruction and are difficult to ensure are only employed against military (red and green) targets, but just fine if you don't care about the fate of neutral (yellow) targets.
- Meanwhile, Wizard's planes, the F-16 XL and YF-23, are openly suited to the knight style, as the F-16 XL carries SAAM and XAGM, which are precision weapons (despite the XAGM's indiscriminate targeting, its short range makes it rather easy to keep it only locked on red and green targets), and the YF-23 carries QAAMs, which are also definitely precision weapons.
- In the final mission, Pixy embodies all three Ace styles:
- The name Cipher could refer to the covert nature of his identity in-universe or to the broader Aesop of the game; that people are rarely able to be morally decoded and categorized easily. It could also be a Louis Cypher allusion, in line with the many demonic overtones associated with Galm Team.
- AWWNB's ideology is flawed from the start: if you ask other players about what kind of person Cipher is you'd probably get all sorts of answers. The same could be said for other aces and the people in-universe. The old Pixy at Avalon Dam claimed Cipher and him are two side of the same coin, while the truth is every human is a vast gamut of colors, all inherently different. The metaphorical boundary will never go away because everyone is their own border, as current Pixy seems to realize.
Both this game and
Ace Combat 2 feature "yellow" targets: either wounded soldiers or civillian objects that, by the laws of war, should be spared from destruction. In both games, the player character is a mercenary, however, in
2, destroying "non-targets" earns the player a penalty by reducing their reward, while in
Zero, their reward is
increased for destroying such objects. This, combined with
the bombing of Hoffhung, shows that the Allied Forces aren't just retaliating against Belka's aggression, they want its people to suffer.
