Ace Combat

Markov's actual motivation was revenge against America for his wife being killed by NATO bombing during their intervention in Bosnia, so whatever he told other people to recruit them was at best a half-truth. We don't get a deep dive into their politics, but they're consistently referred to as "Russian ultranationalists", so they're presumably people who want to see Russia as a global power again and are willing to start a world war to do it. Given that we don't really hear them using any communist/anti-capitalist rhetoric even in passing that I recall, they're probably harkening back more to Imperial Russia than the Soviet Union.

The most we get is the friction between Stagleishov and the rest of NATO over the former's stubborn insistence on doing his own thing rather than subordinating himself to the French commanding officer that was put in charge of the NATO-Russian mission. It could be interpreted as a hint that he (and the NRF by extension) believe the incumbent Russian government is demeaning the Russian nation by cooperating with its former enemies instead of building up power and influence to challenge them on the global stage.

Another thing that really bugs me, but from Ace Combat 6: During the Anea Landing mission, why the hell are the non-military facilities in the area (e.g. the oil wells) valid targets? They're Emmerian facilities, and this is the first step in retaking the mainland, so it makes sense for Emmerian forces to preserve as much of those as possible. It would've made more sense if the Estovakians try to destroy as many of those as possible, and you get extra points at the end of the mission depending on how many are left standing.

Speaking of AC6, when enough operations are won to complete the first phase of a mission and trigger an objective update, what exactly happens to mission targets and other enemies in operation areas that you didn't destroy if the mission update doesn't involve them at all? Do they just de-spawn, or turn inert?

Edited by MarqFJA on Jun 20th 2022 at 11:19:29 AM

Destroying infrastructure makes a location

1) indefensible

2) not worth defending

So it might make your enemy retreat rather than dig in and fight

So even if it's not ideal, it's still an advantage to an attacker

Regarding the targets, they just instantly disappear (unless it's the bigger targets, they just go inert). Same thing happens in Ace Combat 7 and even Project Wingman.

Yeesh, that's just silly. They could've at least kept them around for extra points, turning the now superfluous mission targets into regular enemies.

Apparently it was something of a complaint past Ace Combat fans had, hence why it was designed that way - apparently a few folks hated how you could get killed in literally the last few seconds of a mission. Doubly so since some missions even locked down your weapons during that brief period.

Still, doesn't seem to make sense to me either.

So the South Korean KF-21 happens to have three Sin Lin - erm, "strikes" on it's tail wings.

Please be a subtle viral marketing campaign indicating we're gonna get the KF-21 in AC 8 pleasepleaseplease

EDIT: Oh yeah, speaking of which... Ace Combat 8 is officially in development now, and a new company named Bandai Namco Aces Inc is in charge of development. And the CEO happens to be the guy that made Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. Link Here

Edited by SgtRicko on Jul 5th 2022 at 6:38:03 AM

... I really wish they'd do a proper export of AC3.

And I wish they bring back squadron intro.

Squadron intro?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yjY_C5SUI&t=52s

Ace combat zero has squadron intros by introducing you and enemy fighters. It was very cool.

Oh yeah, those. Yeah, I would like that.

Squadron intros for the jets who arrived late to the most important battle of the war for some reason.

Hey now, the squadrons always had a legitimate reason for why they arrived late:

• Mission 3 (The Round Table): Belka didn't expect Galm Team to trounce the patrols that were already there, so they sent the squadron as reinforcements. Indigo Team in particular was returning from another assignment before being redirected.

• Mission 6 (Diapason): Gelb had been overworked by the Belkan Air Force in its desperate struggle to hold the Hydrian Line, to the point that even basic maintenance kept being skipped in favor of sending them back into the fray ASAP. No wonder they arrived late; they were probably stuck refueling and rearming after one of their other sorties.

• Mission 10 (Mayhem): The battle had been firmly in Belka's favor, with the Allied Forces having suffered 40% casualties by the time Galm joined. Once the tide turned, Belka sent in Schnee and Silber as reinforcements, though going by the complaints of some Belkan pilots, the Belkan high command were dragging their feet about it (presumably out of pride). Schwarze wasn't even trying to reinforce, they only entered the air battle because they were hunting down the defector Wolfgang Buchner, who dived into the furball in desperate hope of losing his pursuers (kinda worked; he was shot down by either Cipher or future Grabacr leader Ashley Bernitz); prior to that, they may have been performing their usual duties of shooting down Belkan pilots who were backing out from the air battle once the tide turned.

• Mission 15 (The Talon of Ruin) and 16 (The Demon of the Round Table): The ace squadrons weren't late in the first place; Espada immediately sortied once Galm entered the vicinity of the XB-0, and Sorceror/Wizard/Gault were already in Area B7R when Cipher and PJ arrived.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jul 6th 2022 at 8:20:00 PM

How come I've never heard of this OAV until now?!

Edited by SgtRicko on Sep 30th 2022 at 10:17:15 AM

Loving the amount of detail that went into this faux-Ace Combat briefing. Really does feel like something Project Aces would craft as either a tutorial mission, some surprise ambush or bossfight.

I love the dancing ribbons after each mission. Sometimes I'll do stupid shit during the missions just to see my ribbon draw a dick in the after mission briefing

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Deluxe Edition soars onto Switch this July

This edition has all of the DLC, so it’s a pretty good offer. I do wonder how well will the game run on the Switch’s hardware, I imagine they’d have to make compromises somewhere…

EDIT: Bit of a correction: The DLC included is mostly the earlier plane packs along with the 3 DLC campaign missions. The later stuff such as the Top Gun Maverick planes are not included.

Edited by SgtRicko on Jan 17th 2024 at 10:19:41 PM

The official site expects it to run at a resolution of 1280x720 (same as the original console releases) and 30 fps (half of the original frame rate maximum), but the latter is very unlikely to be consistent, given how choppy some parts of the trailer looked.

Oof, that's definitely gonna affect gameplay. Framerates tend to be a lot more noticeable in games that emphasize high speed and movement; add in the more hectic missions like the Raid on Farbanti or the aerial battles around the Lighthouse Space Elevator and I can imagine some significant framerate dips.