thetruegentleman posted:

So, now that we're at the end, I can't help but think someone was really hoping to remake or expand on Ace Combat COFFIN. 3: Electrosphere (AC:3 Japanese version spoilers. Yes, there is a major difference between the English and Japanese versions):

1. ZOE isn't just an AI that's crazy good at flying; it actively holds a grudge against Phoenix, and it overcomes its fail-safes to try and kill him.

2. ZOE hacks Scarface's flight computer; NEMO can hack even better in AC:3.

3. In AC:3, Nemo can't actually target several people before the end missions. He was actively learning how to fly from at least one of them, much like ZOE did from Phoenix, and probably learned from the others as well.

4. The ending song from Legacy has a particularly interesting bit: "Why do you still challenge me? You can't win, it's not your destiny. Like the moth who flies into the flame, you won't return, you'll lose your name". Consider it in context with the above, and it plays out like this: ZOE attacks Phoenix and loses, but oddly enough, ZOE keeps attacking Pheonix even well after it should have recognized it had reached its limit. As an end result, the project is canceled, and ZOE loses its name...

And yet, the program seems to have continued to exist, as eventually, the "gently caress ethics" branch of Gründer forms Neucom and re-starts development of AI based planes in the hopes of creating a kind of "super pilot", essentially reincarnating ZOE as NEMO (the name NEMO itself is "no one" in Latin. Incidentally, I don't remember anyone in AC:3 actually call the player anything other than "you"). Like ZOE, NEMO is practically uncontrollable, only this time, the person developing it doesn't really care, so long as it carries out his own grudge.

5. Scarface's plane and the Delphinus are both in the far end of the Aircraft Tree in Ace Combat: Infinity, and the Delphinus was (apparently) developed from...this, which looks rather similar to a cross between the FALKEN and the XFA-27:

Delphinus (only NEUCOM plane)

Scarface XFA-27


Oddly enough, Nemo doesn't appear, although all the other UPO fighers do...