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Who is the best Ace Combat protagonist? This poll is closed. |
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| Cipher |
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79 | 32.24% |
| Phoenix |
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9 | 3.67% |
| Mobius 1 |
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84 | 34.29% |
| William Bishop--lol get out |
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24 | 9.80% |
| SHOOT VISARI |
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49 | 20.00% |
| Total: | 245 votes | ||
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  Now that we’ve got the obligation piece out of the way, it’s time to move on to the game that everyone actually wanted to see: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. This is the third entry in our larger look at the Ace Combat series’ Strangereal-based games. Much like the previous LPs I helped create with my partner in LP Crime Blind Sally, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, and Killzone/Killzone: Liberation/Killzone 2/Killzone 3, this LP will also be an in-depth look at the fictional history, politics, setting, and characters of Ace Combat’s Strangereal shared universe as told over the course of multiple games and done in in-universe chronological order. Before we get going, I feel the need to acknowledge my predecessors in this endeavor, in a sense. Both ninjahedgehog and Terashell attempted to LP Shattered Skies in 2012 and 2008, respectively. So this LP is dedicated to them, and god willing I actually see this one through for them. Games covered thus far:
  Released in 2001, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (also known as Ace Combat: Distant Thunder in Europe) was the first of the series' three entries on the PlayStation 2—a set of games that has come to be known by fans as the “Golden Trilogy”. We’ve already seen the last game in the trilogy, Ace Combat Zero, at the start of this project, and we will be seeing the middle game, Ace Combat 5, once we get done with 04. Set in the year 2004/2005, Ace Combat 04 has one of those dreaded pun/number titles, as it’s the fourth game in the franchise, and is called 04 because it’s set partly in ’04. Set six years after the events of Ace Combat 2, ten years after Zero, and four years after the impact of the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid, Shattered Skies brings us back to Usea in the middle of a massive continent-spanning invasion by the nation of Erusea. The protagonist force of the game, the Independent States Allied Forces (ISAF), have been pushed back to the edge of the continent thanks to the Erusians’ superweapon, the Stonehenge railgun network, and the game begins as ISAF begins its uphill climb to liberate Usea from the Erusians. Sounds pretty familiar to what we’ve been through twice before, doesn’t it? Much like Ace Combat Zero, Shattered Skies is also told through two competing narratives: the in-game narrative focused on the player character, Mobius 1, and a frame narrative between missions told by a narrator character who is looking back on the events of the game from many years later and recounting his personal experience of the war and his relationship with the Erusian pilot Yellow 13. As the game goes on, these two disparate narratives will slowly draw closer and closer together.   Project Aces' Ace Combat franchise is a sprawling mass of games spread out over many different consoles and handheld platforms with several wholly unrelated continuities depending on which sub-set of games you want to look at. The games most people are familiar with and have played, however, are the ones we will be covering over the course of this Mega LP: the ones set in Strangereal. These of course are That said, I will not be covering the following games: 
  Now, the uninitiated among you might be asking yourself “What the gently caress is a The majority of the Ace Combat games are set in a shared universe setting that has been dubbed by fans as the “Strangereal” world. The name originated from a trailer for Ace Combat 04 which contained the phrase “A strange, real world.” Fans compacted the phrase into the portmanteau of “Strangereal” to describe the setting of the game. As you can see by the two world maps (the left one is “canon”, the right one is fan-interpolated conjecture), the world of the Ace Combat series shares a number of similarities to our own while also being radically different. Namco itself would come to adopt the term Strangereal to describe the setting in more recent Ace Combat games such as Ace Combat: Infinity. It has also been implied that the Ridge Racer series also takes place in Strangereal, as background worldbuilding elements and settings from the Ace Combat games appear various Ridge Racer games, particularly the character of Reiko Nagase, who is implied to be a relative of several other Nagases who appear throughout the Ace Combat franchise. Project Aces also previewed a trio of concept games at the dawn of the PlayStation3-era that used the Strangereal setting as well. They were, in no particular order, Brave Arms, a Metal Gear Solid 4/Bionic Commando third-person action/espionage game set in the Kingdom of Sapin; Second Season 01, a first-person cop drama game which appeared to be set in Oured, Osea; and Chain Lim!t, an Alpha Protocol-style action spy game with multiple user-determined solutions to action problems. All three games were either cancelled shortly after their announcement or were just internal proof-of-concepts that somehow were teased to the public as actual games before being pulled. Either way, they remain just another aspect of the enduring enigma that is Strangereal. The Strangereal world is a massive, intriguing, and reactive place that gets developed a little more with each Ace Combat game set in it and elements of this setting speak to each other across multiple games. We’re going to be looking at this setting from a near-pedantically scholarly viewpoint, so I hope you all have your over-analysis caps on like I do! Because this is a thinking man’s LP, not one of those “Shoot Visari in the face—RICO NO!!!” LPs. (Actually it is one of those LPs, don’t tell anyone though!) For the purpose of this LP series, we will be following the games in (mostly) in-universe chronological order from 1995 to 2020. The order we will be going in will be Zero > 2 > 04 > 5 > 6 > X > 7. X ultimately comes after 7 in the timeline, but 7 makes for a better finale, but if you’re that desperate for rigid continuity, then just read/watch it after 7, if you’re so inclined. For more information about the Ace Combat franchise, please consult Acepedia, the Ace Combat Wiki. (Note: there’s a lot of bullshit conjecture stuff on the AC Wiki, so read at your own risk. Also, lots of unmarked spoilers for the whole franchise.)  I’d prefer you didn’t post spoilers, if you are one of those people who do know what happens in this and subsequent games. So try to avoid letting huge things that could ruin the game for people who are experiencing it fresh slip out like how Mobius 1 [INSERT DUMBFUCK DASH RENDAR MEME HERE], or Yellow 13’s real name is Dave… maybe(?). Because that poo poo just sucks. 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 7, 2022 |
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 Presenting the “Great Up-Till-Now Ace Combat In-Universe Timeline”. As we go through the games and possibly threads, this timeline will fill in with bullet points on events in the Strangereal world as new updates are posted. 1900s - 1910s
1940s
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1970s
1986
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1991
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2030 - 2040 nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 00:16 on May 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2016 19:33
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  By frozentreasure! The electrosphere definitely exists, and it’s…well…it definitely exists.   Shocking as it might be to believe after watching this masterpiece of transhumanist dystopian future science fiction, Ace Combat 3 did not light the Japanese world on fire when it was initially released. People actually seemed to dislike it! Enough so that Namco had a strong change of heart about, say, spending a lot of money on localising the entire project for the international market. Voice actors ain’t cheap, Mister Namco runs a business, after all. Enter the export version of Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere, or “Ace Combat 2++” as I often refer to it in OPs for Let’s Plays of Ace Combat games and never again. Taken in a vacuum, it took all the best parts about Ace Combat 2 people liked (the level design I guess I dunno that game sucked pretty hard) and made them nice and shiny and 3D and put physics on them, and left all the worst parts about Ace Combat 2 people didn’t like (bad sprite graphics, mission briefing voice actor) in the dust. 36 top-quality levels blowing stuff up in the air and on the ground in planes and a killer soundtrack. Yes, the removal of voice acting also resulted in all characters and thought-out story being ripped from AC3’s belly like a CG Norman Reedus, the game progression is completely linear, and the leftover bits about the warring factions come across as even less sensical than they were in the first place. Yes, it’s an objectively worse game than the Japanese original, and it doesn’t have BULLS EYE. But I still maintain that it’s a perfectly fine videogame and a fine Ace Combat. The gameplay is just that good, and when I was like 10 or 11 playing this in the early 2000s, what little story it came up with, combined with the gameplay, got me hooked on the series far more than I think any other Ace Combat would have. Despite all the anime drama and ridiculous superweapons of the later games, it’s my favourite Ace Combat, and I think it’s worth seeing how it stands up on its own.  The game is super self-explanatory. There is exactly one real cutscene in the entire game and no voice acting even in that, so I and my co-commentators are going to speak over basically everything. The game is baby-mode-easy on anything less than hard difficulty, so we’ll be playing on hard and getting the best rank we can, which was still A back then. If you notice the UI, especially in the menus, looking kind of utterly terrible and unreadable, that’s an unfortunate side-effect of the PAL version. I’ll mention this in one of the videos, but I had the choice between recording at standard PAL resolution and getting the blurriness that was standard at the time for PAL games, or I could record at NTSC resolution and have as crisp visuals as possible. I chose the latter (except for one video where the Elgato just ignored the checkbox), recorded the entire game, and after recording everything, found out that the conversion got rid of a few lines that made the text actually legible. Bit of bad luck, there. Hopefully I won’t make too many references to the Japanese version of the game, and it won’t seem like required viewing. Still, if you haven’t seen the Japanese version, I do recommend watching Lunethex’s LP of it (link at the top of the post) at some point for comparison. On that note…  Turns out this game and this LP lend themselves well to a drinking game. Just my suggestions so far, you can come up with your own if you want. Take a drink when: - I say “unlike the Japanese version” - I mispronounce the name of a place or vehicle - The mission debriefing says that something is “under investigation” Really, on that last one: the funniest part of the “story” in this game is how many times a corporation does something that we have to put a stop to and the NUN puts the corporation or their actions under investigation. 
Namco's Forgotten Masterpiece: Let's Play Ace Combat Advance   By Blastinus! Or: An object lesson in why you never agree to LP a game sight-unseen. Ace Combat Advance was released, as the name might suggest, on the Gameboy Advance in February of 2005. It was developed by a company called HumanSoft, best known for What's it like? Imagine a top-down shooter with the blandest music, grainy graphics, unsatisfying explosions, and no production values. It has some moments and definitely starts to pick up in the second half of the game, but is otherwise a definite bargain basement product that is likely to kill, at most, an hour or two of your time before slithering right out the other ear the instant you put it down. Let's enjoy it together! This game would need a plot to have spoilers, so go ahead, I guess. The game is divided up into 12 missions with only the flimsiest of ties connecting them together. Feel free to correct me on any errors relating to the story, as I haven't bothered with reading the manual. Crow has made some hints to the effect that it's related tangentially to the main plot of the series, but that's the extent of my knowledge. Mission 1: Checkpoints Missions 2/3: Containers/Defend the Island Missions 4/5: Oil Rigs/Patrol Missions 6/7: Bridge Convoy/Airport Attack Missions 8/9: The Bombers/Yamato Missions 10/11: Spy Game/The Oil Refinery Mission 12: Finale nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Apr 22, 2023 |
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Sitting Duck Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies Attract Movie Mission 1: Operation Umbrella – September 19th, 2004 Ace Combat 04 begins just over five years after the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid fell to Earth. Though cataclysmic damage had been averted thanks to the various spaceguard installations of the world, such as the Stonehenge Turret Network, it still left an unimaginable trail of destruction across the planet from Usea to Anea and all points in between along the Northern Hemisphere. Among those nations hardest hit by the asteroid fragments was the western Usean nation of Erusea. The scars of Ulysses and a refugee crisis years earlier spurred the already militaristic Erusean government to sever all diplomatic ties with the rest of Usea and begin a massive military buildup. And in mid-2004, the fragile peace bought by Phoenix and Scarface Squadron at the end of the Continental War of 1998 was shattered when the Erusean military stormed out of its borders and with lightning speed occupied the nation Delarus, seizing control of the Stonehenge Turret Network from the Federation of Central Usea, and turning it against the FCU and its Independent States Allied Forces, or ISAF, as a weapon of mass destruction. With Stonehenge under their command, the Eruseans were able to dominate the continent, pouring into San Salvacion in the north, Ugellas in the south, and all the way across the FCU states to Expo City and Saint Ark. Unable to defend against Stonehenge’s onslaught, ISAF was forced to retreat farther and farther east, until at last they were pushed off the mainland entirely, falling back to North Point across the Gulf of Saint Ark. Meanwhile, in San Salvacion, a young boy’s world is shattered forever as the Eruseans press into his home town in force. His family is killed when an ISAF fighter falls from the sky and crashes into his home, shot down by an Erusean plane bearing a yellow number 13 on its nose. It is here, on opposite ends of Usea, that our two stories begin. Overview: ISAF’s provisional general headquarters in North Point City is under threat by a flight of approaching Erusean bombers. If the Eruseans make it to North Point, ISAF is finished. A flight of ISAF Navy F-4E Phantom IIs takes off from the carrier Fort Grays to intercept the bombers above Newfield Island, south of North Point. Among their numbers is a rookie pilot known by the TAC name Mobius 1.   MOBIUS SQUADRON Independent States Allied Forces Naval Air Force, 118th Tactical Air Wing, 1st Tactical Fighter Squadron Members:
Squadron Composition: Player Determined One of only a limited number of ISAF fighter squadrons remaining following the Erusean blitz that forced them off the mainland of Usea over the summer of 2004. Mobius is quite literally a squadron of one, most likely due to combat losses suffered during the opening days of the Second Continental War and the Eursian assault and ISAF retreat. ISAF’s emergency force restructuring saw the young rookie of the squadron, the lone survivor to make it North Point, thrust into the number 1 position by default, with the promise of additional pilots to fill out his roster eventually a hollow gesture at best. Regardless, ISAF made the bold decision to sortie “Mobius Squadron” as is, most likely due to crippling manpower issues and desperation in the face of annihilation. No one knows it quite yet, but Mobius 1 is about to become the tip of the spear for ISAF’s counterattack efforts against the Eruseans.    MOBIUS 1 Real Name: Unknown Callsign(s): Mobius 1, Ribbon, Grim Reaper Age: Early 20’s Sex: Male Nationality: FCU (unverified) Signature Plane: Player choice (F/A-22 Raptor in all promotional material) Voice Actor: None As we’ve already glimpsed in the Gauntlet mission of Ace Combat Zero, Mobius 1’s reputation precedes him across the Ace Combat franchise. This is the story of how and why he becomes such a legendarily terrifying figure to anyone who flies against him in combat. As our third new protagonist character (both in release order and chronological order), Mobius 1 is actually something or a rarity in the franchise, in that he is implied to actually be a navy pilot, rather than an air force one. He begins the game very pointedly taking off from an aircraft carrier, many of the planes on Shattered Skies’s roster are navy planes, and several, like the F/A-18 Super Hornet, sport ISAF Navy iconography on them. It’s never officially confirmed, but it’s just one of the many pieces of conjecture that fans have run wild with because people (like me) have had a field day just making poo poo up in order to fill in all the various blanks to connect Shattered Skies to the larger Strangereal canon, which only became a thing in Ace Combat 5. Mobius 1 is also unique, up till this point, anyway, in that he is the first actual military pilot we get to play as in the series. Cipher and Phoenix were mercenaries, and Nemo was an AI, but from Mobius 1 onward, every Ace Combat protagonist will have an actual military and homeland that they serve as a soldier for. He is also, along with Ace Combat X’s Gryphus 1, one of the few Ace Combat protagonists not to have an actual TAC name. He’s given several nicknames by enemy forces over the course of the game, such as Ribbon, after his Mobius strip emblem, but everyone on the ISAF side simply refers to him as Mobius 1. He has also, in effect, become the series’ mascot as much as his signature plane, the F/A-22 Raptor has as well. Every post-04 Ace Combat game features and appearance by if not Mobius 1 himself, then his plane colors as an alternate skin for the Raptor. We’ve already caught a glimpse of this in the bonus video for Zero, and I will be sure to show off all the other times the Mobius 1 Raptor appears across the series from here on out as well, including the paid DLC for Ace Combat 6. Beyond that, there is little else to say about him at the outset of Ace Combat 04, as he is just as much of a cipher as… well, Cipher (and Pheonix and Nemo).  SKYEYE Real Name: Unknown Callsign(s): SkyEye Age: Mid 40s Sex: Male Nationality: FCU Signature Plane: E-767 Voice Actor: Neil Howard Our AWACS operator for Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, and—as a nice piece of direct continuity—for the Operation Katina arcade mode included in Ace Combat 5, which we will be looking at near the end of the LP as a bonus update for 04. While Assault Horizon Legacy followed the later-series trend of personalizing your AWACS with a face and name, SkyEye in Shattered Skies, like Eagle Eye before him in Zero, is a nameless, faceless voice on the radio again. The only definitive characterizing thing we learn about him over the course of 04 is that his birthday is September 19th, the day the game starts.  INTEL Real Name: Unknown Callsign(s): None Age: Mid 40s Sex: Male Nationality: North Point Signature Plane: None Voice Actor: Uncredited While Keynote pulled double duty in Assault Horizon Legacy as our briefing officer and AWACS operator, Shattered Skies once again splits these roles back in to two characters. While SkyEye will be relaying mission critical updates and information to us while out on sortie, Intel is in charge of laying out the situation before we disembark. And, as per usual with these mid-era Ace Combats, there is next to nothing really worth saying about Intel other than the fact that he’s there.  THE NARRATOR Real Name: Unknown Callsign(s): None Age: 12 (Early 30’s to Mid 40s, frame narrative) Sex: Male Nationality: San Salvacion Signature Plane: None Voice Actor: Jeff Gedert A man looking back on the formative days of his youth during the Second Usean Continental War. Like Brett Thompson in The Belkan War and Albert Genette in The Unsung War and Skies of Deception, a whole cast of losers in Fire of Liberation, and Avril Meade in Skies Unknown, the unnamed narrator of Shattered Skies (also referred to as the Storyteller Boy by fans) relays the frame narrative to us. Shattered Skies has sort of a Heart of Darkness “narrative within narrative” going on at times, as there’s three narrative layers playing out simultaneously. There’s the Narrator’s real-time narrative, which is taking place probably in the 2010s or 2020s (between Ace Combats 5, 6 & 7), his story about Yellow 13, which is taking place concurrent with the game itself, and then the gameplay story about Mobius 1, which is the action we’re seeing in-game. In there “here and now” that Shattered Skies concerns itself with (the late summer of 2004), the Narrator is a young boy living with his family on the outskirts of San Salvacion City. As the Second Continental War erupts in the summer of 2004 and the Eruseans sweep across Usea after seizing Stonehenge, the boy’s life is upended as San Salvacion comes under Erusean occupation. After his family is killed in the crossfire of a dogfight between an ill-fated ISAF pilot and the Erusean Ace henceforth known as Yellow 13, the boy becomes obsessed with finding 13, for what purpose, not even he’s sure of, in his grief. Much of his story is about the ways he and the people around him find ways to survive over the course of the war and the occupation, while giving the player a window into the world of the enemy they will be fighting over the course of Shattered Skies and their views on things and why they are fighting this war too, and, eventually, our window into the world of Yellow 13. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll find out much more about the Narrator as the game progresses. And for the record, yes, that that is the voice actor for the delightfully batshit evil Vice President Richard Hawk from Metal Wolf Chaos (which ArclightBorealis just wrapped up an LP of) playing the game’s sorrowful, subdued narrator—a piece of casting minutia that I am still to this day utterly stupefied by. Mainly because Gedert’s performance as RICHAAAAAAAAAARD!!! Hawk is one of the many things that elevate MWC from goofball cheese to something truly magical in its self-contained insanity.  THE BARKEEPER’S DAUGHTER Real Name: Unknown Callsign(s): None Age: 14 Sex: Female Nationality: San Salvacion (Belkan ex-pat…?) Signature Plane: None Voice Actor: None The daughter of the owner and barkeep of the Sky Kid bar and restaurant in the San Salvacion Old Towne district. She catches the eye of the Storyteller Boy when he begins playing music at the bar to earn money to support his uncle, a former taxi driver whom the Eruseans have put out of work thanks to their gasoline rationing. She is described as being “a little older” than he is, but we never learn by how much, though it’s implied to be about only a year or two. Her and her father are looked down upon by the other residents of San Salvacion, given how freely they commiserate with the occupying Erusean soldiers, giving them all the food and alcohol they can consume in a warm and welcoming environment. Again, as with the case of the Narrator and our still mysterious Yellow 13, we will be learning a lot more about the Barkeep’s Daughter the further we go into the game. Beyond that, there’s only one other thing to note about her and that’s her possibly—but unlikely—connection back to Ace Combat Zero. You may remember that one of the Belkan Aces from Zero’s Assault Records, #041 Robert “Spieler” Gloden, was noted to have emigrated to San Salvacion after retiring from the Belkan Air Force at the end of the Belkan War, where he went on to set up and run a hotel. This could just be Project Aces loving with longtime fans of the series by sprinkling loosely connected breadcrumbs around, but the Sky Kid bar is implied to be in the lobby of a hotel. While it’s somewhat unlikely that the Barkeep mentioned in Shattered Skies is Gloden, and that this girl is his daughter, it’s never stated that she isn’t either. Because it’s only been nine years since Belka ratfucked itself into oblivion in the Belkan War, so the Barkeep’s daughter (and the Storyteller Boy, for that matter) were toddlers when the Seven Pillars attack occurred, so if Gloden really is the Sky Kid Barkeep, then he moved from Belka to San Salvacion with his infant daughter (and possibly his wife, though she’s never mentioned anywhere in-game) after things went to pot in Belka. Just something to think about. Though it does definitely cast certain events coming up in the game in a new light if the barkeep is in fact Gloden, and the girl is indeed an ex-military brat.   ISAF ISAF is our protagonist faction for Ace Combat 04, and is a rarity in the series as instead of being the military of a single nation, it is instead an intergovernmental military alliance akin to NATO representing Usea as a whole. Formally the Independent States Allied Forces. ISAF (pronounced “Eye-Saph”) is the joint continental military alliance created in the wake of the first Continental War after tensions between the Federation of Central Usean states and the independent Usean nations cooled. ISAF was founded to be a multinational military organization sworn to fight on behalf of and defend all the nations of Usea and would not be beholden to any national politics or ideologies, which proved to be the undoing of the original Usean Allied Forces during the first Continental War. The core tenant of the ISAF alliance was that an attack on one member state was an attack on all its member states. Comprised of personnel hailing from every Usean nation, ISAF is—or rather was, prior to the Erusean invasion—a truly unified fighting force that was the envy of the world, thought to be rivaled only by the Osean and Yuktobanian militaries in terms of manpower, discipline, and technological capabilities. The lone Usean nation not to be a signatory of the ISAF treaty was the Federal Republic of Erusea. The Continental War of 1998 had exacerbated Erusea’s already tense relationship with the eastern nations of Usea, and following both Ulysses Day and the Erusean Refugee Crisis, Erusea ultimately suspended all diplomatic relations with both the FCU and ISAF. ISAF even employs a volunteer foreign legion for mercenary forces or extra-national co-operation forces. For example, at the time of the outbreak of the war, a contingent from the Nordennavic Royal Air Force, the Grendel Covert Operations Squadron, was assisting with ISAF operations and found itself caught up in the general evacuation of Usea at the start of the war. In a strange bit of “life imitates art” trivia, there was at one point an actual military alliance known by the acronym ISAF here in the real world too. The Afghanistan-based and NATO-overseen International Security Assistance Force was established in December 2001 (three months after Ace Combat 04’s initial release) to assist in training the new Afghan National Security Forces, help rebuilding the civil and governmental infrastructure of Afghanistan, and aid in suppressing the Taliban following the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. ISAF was disbanded in 2014 as US-led Coalition troops began to pull out of Afghanistan.  ULYSSES 1994XF04 To the relief of the entire world, the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid came and went, and while it might have smacked Earth across the face something fierce, it was not the planet-killer many once feared it to be. As predicted by astronomers years earlier, the asteroid crossed Earth Roche Limit on July 3rd, 1999—henceforth known as Ulysses Day—shattering into millions of pieces under the pull of Earth’s gravity. The vast majority of the fragments either burnt up upon entry into the planet’s atmosphere, or settled into a Trojan orbit with Earth. Many of the larger fragments went on to rain down upon the Earth across the northern hemisphere. Many fragments were destroyed prior to impact by the Usean spaceguard installations of the Stonehenge Turret Network, and the Megalith ballistic missile launch platform, but they ultimately weren’t enough to completely prevent surface damage from the asteroid fragments. While the majority of impacts occurred in unpopulated areas, several Usean cities suffered direct hits from Ulysses fragments, including Farbanti, Saint Ark, and Newfield Island. Hardest hit by the asteroid fragments, however, was the Anean nation of Estovakia, which suffered catastrophic damage across its territory after its own spaceguard installation, the largely incomplete Chandelier railgun platform, failed during its startup procedures on Ulysses Day. Both the Osean Federation and the Union of Yuktobanian Republics were largely spared from damaged by the Ulysses planetfall.  STONEHENGE While we’re a ways off yet from an actual Superweapons entry for Stonehenge, I feel the need to address it right off the bat seeing as how it’s going to be the proverbial Sword of Damocles dangling over at least the front half of the game. The basic non-spoiler facts about Stonehenge are as follows: the installation is a network of eight independently targeting rapid-reaction gunpowder/magnetic hybrid railguns designed to shoot down fragments falling to earth from the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid. Capable of accelerating 120cm ferrous slugs to a speed of 6 km/sec (21,600 km/h—just under Mach 25 and skirting the boundaries of re-entry speed, FYI) and with an operational rage of 1,200 km (spanning nearly the entire width of Usea from the Farbanti coast to Faith Park), the Stonehenge Turret Network is in fact the ultimate land-based non-nuclear weapon of mass destruction—something its designers never even considered in light of its rushed construction to protect against Ulysses' extinction event-level threat. Following Ulysses Day, the Stonehenge facility was decommissioned and shuttered by the FCU government and ISAF to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. It was guarded by several squadrons of ISAF defense fighters led by Capt. John Harvard—the former Scarface Two, and now head of the Stonehenge Defense Squadron. With Stonehenge under their control, the Eruseans managed to push ISAF clean off of Usea using just the cannons themselves long before their military forces even pushed into FCU territory. After an initial airstrike on the facility at the outbreak of the war failed, ISAF abandoned any further planned direct actions against Stonehenge itself indefinitely. It was judged that in direct combat, the combination of the facility’s cannons, and its post-facto fortifications by the Erusean military—including installed anti-air defenses, a radar jamming facility, and the dreaded Yellow Squadron stationed within intercept range of the facility for rapid top cover defense—any further airstrikes on Stonehenge would be doomed to failure. As of the commencement of Operation Umbrella, ISAF is working on a strategy to counteract Stonehenge and defend against its attacks. Given its massive operational range and incredible firing speed, the majority of combat action by ISAF from this point forward as it works to retake the mainland will unfortunately fall within Stonehenge’s operational radius, giving ISAF forces a window of only 1 minute and 48 seconds for evasive action before shells fired from Stonehenge reach the combat zone. This window will diminish the further into occupied territory ISAF presses and the closer it comes to Stonehenge itself.  NEWFIELD ISLAND Featured in the attract video and the first mission, Newfield Island is our wakeup call for post-Ulysses Strangereal. The city of Newfield Island was one of the largest off-island cities in North Point situated just off the North Point coast in the Gulf of Saint Ark. The island is largely abandoned now, as it suffered a direct hit from one of the larger fragments of Ulysses 1994XF04, which destroyed over half the city, killing an uncountable number of people and leaving behind the formation that would later be named Anderson Crater. While Newfield’s location outside of Stonehenge’s operational radius left it vulnerable to Ulysses, it now makes it a perfect staging area for ISAF now that Erusea has turned the cannon facility against the rest of Usea. At present, Newfield Island is only sparsely populated, with the majority of the survivors of the asteroid impact moving elsewhere on Usea or around the world rather than stay and try to rebuild. The island is now inhabited mainly by ISAF military personnel serving at Allenfort Air Force Base on the northern tip of the island and their families. A motion to begin rebuilding the island’s city center around the rim of Anderson Crater has been vehemently opposed and boycotted by the Usean Geological Survey Society.  FORT GRACE The CV-04 Fort Grays serves as our temporary home for the start of Ace Combat 04. The Kitty Hawk-class Fort Grays is the flagship of the FCU Allied Navy’s 6th fleet, and was later relinquished to the ISAF Navy following the signing of the ISAF Treaty following the end of the Continental War. The Fort Grace miraculously missed the majority of the Continental War, as the 6th fleet was deployed on assignment in the south Pacific at the time of the war’s outbreak. Following the end of the Continental War, it and all other FCU naval ships currently overseas were recalled to Usea by FCU President Robert Sinclair to aid in preparation for the Ulysses 1994XF04 planetfall. As of the outbreak of the Second Continental War, the Fort Grays stands as one of ISAF’s few remaining operational aircraft carriers and is the base of operations for the last remnant of Mobius Squadron, comprised solely of Mobius 1 at present. It will also serve as our seaborne resupply base in lieu of an airbase for certain missions across the span of the game (prodivded you're flying a plane capable of preforming a carrier landing such as the F-4E or the F/A-18, otherwise you'll default back to the airbase). The Fort Grays's fleet number, 04, is of course one giant reference to Ace Combat 04's title number. It also serves as one a scattered few callbacks to Electrosphere, which featured the General Resource Ltd.-controlled Fort Grays Airport in several missions. Just don’t get too used to this whole “Electrosphere actually being a thing that we acknowledge” thing, however. Any further references to Ace Combat 3 are going to be few and far between from here on out.  Aircraft featured in Mission 1: Operation Umbrella  Tu-95 Bear Manufacturer: Tupolev Role: Strategic bomber, missile carrier, surveillance Manufactured: 1952–1994 Status: In service Primary Operators: Russia Quick Facts:
REPEAT OFFENDERS
  Thanks to doing Ace Combat 2 first, I don’t have to set up Usea as a Place for Shattered Skies, yet there’s a lot of catching up we need to do as we’ve skipped like 5 years’ worth of history and a near-apocalypse, which kind of shuffled the board around quite a bit. You should be passingly familiar with it by now after drat near 30 missions-worth of lore from the last game, and from Electrosphere to boot. The big thing to note in the updated map seen above is that big giant circle that blankets nearly the entire continent. That’s Stonehenge’s operational radius. The Eruseans are capable striking targets anywhere within that radius with devastating firepower. Stonehenge is the looming threat over the game, and any missions that we’re gonna be going on that happen to take place within that circle run the risk of an unwelcome interruption from the Erusean weapon of mass destruction.   FCU Full Name: The Federation of Central Usea Capital: Expo City Continent: Usea Head of State: President Robert Sinclair Government: Multinational Democratic Federation Real World Analog: Japan, South Korea, European Union Since the end of the Continental War in late 1998 and the impact of the Ulysses 1994XF04 fragments in mid-1999, the Federation of Central Usea has been in the process of steadily rebuilding and returning to normalcy for the last five years. Thanks to their preparation, however, Usea escaped the wrath of Ulysses more or less intact, and was slowly climbing its way back up to being the world leader it was in the realms of science, technology, medicine, and culture it was before it’s lost half-decade. While the FCU was able to rebuild its diplomatic relationship with the Osean Federation after the Continental War, both nations have since “mutually agreed” to no longer interfere in each other’s national affairs. Unfortunately, this also meant that when the Eruseans seized Stonehenge, neither the FCU asked for international aid from Osea, nor did Osea offer, despite the very public misgivings by the newly elected Osean President, Vincent Harling, over leaving Usea at the mercy of the Eruseans. With the majority of FCU territory being considered a contested warzone (AGAIN!), our only “direct” interaction with the Usean government will be through our ISAF briefing guy. While the FCU makes up the majority of forces of the Independent States Allied Forces and a controlling interest in ISAF, one shouldn’t make the mistaken assumption that ISAF=FCU. Much like in Ace Combat 2/Assault Horizon Legacy, the FCU as a governmental entity is just going to be in the background for the most part in-game itself.   ERUSEA Full Name: The Federal Republic of Erusea Capital: Farbanti Continent: Usea Head of State: Supreme Commander Government: Military Dictatorship Real World Analog: China, Russia, North Korea, Fascist Italy, Nationalist Spain Already a military dictatorship before the Ulysses Crisis, the aftermath of the July 3rd, 1999 asteroid impact on the planet radically altered the Federal Republic of Erusea, and by extension the fate of the Usean Continent. Erusea was perhaps the hardest hit of all the nations on Earth by Ulysses 1994XF04, second only to the Anean Republic of Estovakia, which took multiple direct hits from the larger asteroid fragments, devastating its farmlands, industrial sectors, and even its capital of Pythiopolis. The Erusean capital city of Farbanti also suffered a glancing blow from an asteroid fragment impacting just off the coast of its downtown core, the Municipal District. Tens of thousands of people were displaced as the impact left a quarter of the city permanently flooded and damaged beyond any hope of recovery, including the capital’s major financial centers. The image on the cover of the Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies Original Soundtrack, as seen below, actually depicts the flooded quarter of Farbanti from the air and Larker Crater, left behind by the asteroid impact. Erusea ultimately set the Usean continent back on the road to war with his mishandling of what became known as the Erusean Refugee Crisis. The damage Ulysses had inflicted across Usea was extensive, ultimately displacing millions of civilians from nations all across the continent as cities, towns, and other vital infrastructure installations were damaged or destroyed by the asteroid impacts. While all the nations of Usea initially agreed to take in refugees from affected areas and work together to rebuild after the crisis had subsided, in early April of 2000, just under a year after the impact of Ulysses, the Federal Republic of Erusea, citing economic strife and a heavy nationalist uprising within its borders, unilaterally declared it would not be accepting any more refugees, and sealed its borders to all transit. Given Erusea’s available resources, it was expected to have the capacity to take in 900,000 refugees, yet halted its immigration and aid efforts at just over 200,000. The Erusean government announced it would be impossible for them to handle the intake of any more refugees while also devoting its resources to rebuilding its infrastructure and economy. Nearly 600,000 people were left stranded on the Erusea-Delarus boarder. Many were forcibly placed into refugee camps by the Erusean Army, while others still were forcibly deported and flown back to FCU member states on Erusean Air Force transports. Tensions continued to rise between Erusea and the FCU as Assembly of Nations human rights inspectors in conjunction with the Federation of Central Usea began investigating these refugee camps, uncovering horrid conditions, including inadequate supplies for basic survival needs, deplorable living conditions, and found many of the refugees clustered in these camp to be sick or malnourished. The outrage from the international community lead to a further increase in sanctions on the Erusean government and global condemnation for its human rights abuses. The AN and FCU sanctions crippled the already struggling Erusean economy, and its already strained relationship with the rest of Usea following the chaos of the Continental War effectively ended any and all diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. To compensate for these loses, the Eruseans began a steep military buildup in an effort to jumpstart their economy, and to defend against what their leaders railed against as “Usean and Osean aggression” at home. The rising climate of nationalism boiled over into full blown fascism as the military leadership seized control over the remaining sectors of the government and private sector it had yet to claim hold of. While the FCU was troubled by Erusea’s diplomatic silence and obvious military buildup, seeing the same ominous signs of war witnessed in Belka nearly a decade earlier, the rebuilding efforts across the continent left them unable to properly respond to the growing threat, consigning responsibility to keeping Erusea in check to the still woefully underfunded and suppled ISAF. It was a perfect storm for yet another continent spanning war, and in August of 2003, Erusea launched a surprise attack on their neighboring nation of Delarus with a single objective in mind: gain control over the Stonehenge Turret Network in preparation for a full-scale assault on the Federation of Central Usea. After a year of strife, the Eruseans now stand poised to claim complete victory over ISAF and the FCU, brining all of Usea under Erusean military rule.   NORTH POINT Full Name: The Republic of North Point Capital: North Point City Continent: Usea Head of State: Prime Minister (conjecture) Government: Democratic Republic Real World Analog: Switzerland, Belgium While briefly glimpsed at the end of Ace Combat 2/Assault Horizon Legacy, the opening missions of Ace Combat 04 catapult North Point into the spotlight in a very dramatic way. With ISAF being driven off the mainland by the onslaught of the Erusean military and the Stonehenge Turret Network, the military alliance’s command structure has fallen back to North Point to establish a provisional General Headquarters in North Point City, well outside of Stonehenge’s operational radius, and has been in constant contact with the scattered forces holding out on the mainland in Saint Ark and Expo City. North Point is ISAF’s last refuge on Usea, though with the island nation’s lack of operational military bases after its post-Cold War disarmament, and the loss of Fortress Intolerance at the end of the Continental War, the country is practically a sitting duck before the Eruseans.   SAN SALVACION Full Name: The Republic of San Salvacion Capital: San Salvacion City Continent: Usea Head of State: President Government: Democratic Republic Real World Analog: Switzerland, France, Spain San Salvacion takes center stage in the frame narrative of Ace Combat 04. The narrator character is a San Salvacion native, living in the capital city’s suburbs initially, later moving to the Old Towne district of San Salvacion City after he’s taken in by his uncle following the death of his family. San Salvacion was the second nation invaded by Erusea after they had secured Stonehenge in Delarus. San Salvacion become a militarized bulwark between the contested FCU territory to the east and the Erusean homeland to the west and an important travel checkpoint for its military forces moving between Erusea and the rest of the continent. San Salvacion City itself was converted into a giant ad hoc military base for the Erusean forces, and eventually the home base for its legendary Aquila Squadron, also known as Yellow Squadron, which turned a series of highway tunnels that were under construction on the outskirts of the city at the time of the invasion into their makeshift hangars. Retaking San Salvacion is ISAF’s secondary goal after destroying Stonehenge, as the collapse of their forces in the north will open a vital path into Erusea itself through the Amber Mountains’ Whiskey Corridor. There is a sizable resistance movement currently in operation inside San Salvacion attempting to lay the groundwork for a coordinated counterstrike once ISAF returns to the mainland. In the meantime, they are working to disrupt the Eruseans on a local level, focusing the bulk of their efforts on trying to sabotage Yellow Squadron.   DELARUS Full Name: The Republic of Delarus Capital: Unknown Continent: Usea Head of State: Prime Minister (conjecture) Government: Democratic Republic Real World Analog: Sitting right on the Erusean boarder, Delarus was the first country to fall under Erusean control when their invasion of Usea commenced. Though Delarus was politically and militarily unimportant compared to the larger target of the FCU to the east, it possessed the key to Erusea’s victory over the rest of Usea: Stonehenge. The combined blows of the Continental War, the Allied Forces restructuring into ISAF, and the chaos left in the wake of Ulysses Day placed Delarus in unwitting danger thanks to its possession of Stonehenge. Having only a token military force of its own made the country almost entirely dependent on ISAF for its self-defense. And what once seemed to a politically prudent measure, constructing the Stonehenge Turret Network in the uninhabited desert of largely apolitical Delarus, ultimately proved a fatal error following the Erusean government’s extreme rightward turn into fascism following the asteroid strike on Farbanti and the Erusean Refugee Crisis of 2000. While the Stonehenge Turret Network had been shuttered following its mostly successful use in defending Usea and the rest of the planet from the larger fragments of Ulysses 1994XF04, the Eruseans quickly saw its potential as a weapon to be used against terrestrial targets, and seized the facility with lightning speed. From there, they were able to use it to rain destruction down upon the rest of Usea, and force the military alliance tasked with defending the continent, the Independent States Allied Forces, or ISAF, to retreat outside of its operational range. With Delarus and Stonehenge under their control, the Eruseans made short work of bringing the rest of Usea under their control, pressing in San Salvacion, then Ugellas, then finally into the FCU itself. The principle goal of ISAF’s pending counterstrike operation against Erusea is ultimately to press into Delarus and destroy Stonehenge.   UGELLAS Full Name: The Independent State of Ugellas Capital: Unknown Continent: Usea Head of State: Prime Minister (conjecture) Government: Democratic Republic Real World Analog: Yep. It’s still there.   AMBER Full Name: The Republic of Amber Capital: Unknown Continent: Usea Head of State: Prime Minister (conjecture) Government: Democratic Republic, government contested (conjecture) Real World Analog: The Republic of Amber is still just kind of there—somewhere—on Usea. God help me if I’ve figured out where yet. I don’t think anyone really gives a poo poo anyway.   OSEA Full Name: The Osean Federation Capital: Oured Continent: North Osea Head of State: President Vincent Harling Government: Federal presidential constitutional republic Real World Analog: United States of America Osea plays no role in the events of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (because it wasn’t invented yet when 04 was made), but I’m keeping this entry here just to make sure nobody forgets about Strangereal’s reigning superpower, now that we’re one game away from Osea taking center stage again in Ace Combat 5. Following the international embarrassment Osea suffered by helping to spark the Usean Continental War with its botched effort to assimilate the southern FCU states into its territory via a peace treaty, the Osean Federation has become quite rightfully gunshy about playing the roughriding cowboy around the international community. The calls for a smarter, less cavalier foreign policy ultimately propelled the newly elected Osean President Vincent Harling to victory in the November 2004 Osean Presidential Election. Though Harling took office right in the midst of the so-called “Shattered Skies Crisis” on Usea, he made the hard choice to honor his campaign pledge of non-interference in the domestic affairs of foreign powers, and declined to mobilize the Osean military to aid the FCU against Erusea. That said, as the war on Usea rages, the Osean military is currently at DEFCON 3 in preparation for a potential (yet still unlikely) strike on Osean territory by the Eruseans.  Since we’re still in the realm of Named Aces, the “Assault Records” heading remains an artifact title. The Named Aces in Ace Combat 04 follow the Assault Horizon Legacy pattern of only appearing in New Game+ (aka New SP Game) runs through the game. There are a total of 20 Named Aces that appear in-game, and shooting them down will unlock their paint schemes for you to use in-game, though the very first and very last have special extra-game circumstances required to unlock them. Also of note, all the Aces in Shattered Skies, barring the final one, are named after astronomers. Furthermore, starting from this point forward, in lieu of in universe write ups, Kadorhal will be providing historical background blurbs for each astronomer that the various Aces in the game are named for. 
Kadorhal posted:Ace Number Zero is Biela. Named for Baron Wilhelm von Biela, born March 19th, 1782. German-Austrian military officer, a grenadier Captain who also dabbled in astronomy. In that field, his specialization was observing and calculating the orbits of comets. He published articles, primarily in the Astronomische Nachrichten, discussing comets, theoretical considerations of comets hitting the sun, and occultations of stars by the moon. He was the first to identify a Jupiter-family comet, later named Biela's Comet, as periodic; the comet later split in two around 1852. Died February 18, 1856, at 73 years old.   Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies Original Soundtrack Composers: Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Keiki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Okubo, Katsuro Tajima, Agustin Barrios Mangore, Stephanie Cooke Release: 2001 Discs: 2 Tracks: 24, 24 Tracks featured in Mission 1 & Intro: DISC 1
DISC 2  Couple of little odds and sods before we wrap up this first post:      First up, a gallery of background flags, for lack of a better term. These mysterious unattributed flags, mostly variants on the San Salvacion flag, appear in the ACES AT WAR: A History artbook published by Project Aces in commemoration of the end of the “Golden Trilogy” with Ace Combat Zero. A couple of these flags appear very briefly in the flagpole shot showing off the ISAF flag flying over North Point. The weird doubled-over San Salvacion flag also appears prominently in a brief frame story shot in-game. It is largely assumed that these flags belong to several of the individual states that comprise the FCU, but that’s probably putting too much thought into it already. Also, here are some concept art pieces and beauty shots of Newfield Island and Anderson Crater:      And some artwork of the two sidestory characters we’ve met so far, the Storyteller Boy and the Barkeep’s Daughter:   Storyboard sketches for the opening cutscenes:  The ISAF logo and various livery:     The Erusean military insignia:  “The Shot,” concept artwork related to the various impact craters left by Ulysses 1994XF04:     And lastly, here’s something very interesting from a lore standpoint:  Now that looks awfully familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, this is the first unofficial appearance of the Strangereal world map. You can pick out Osea, Verusa, and Anea all more or less close to their finalized forms which would be revealed in Ace Combat 5. This prototype Strangereal appeared on the cover of the Ace Combat 04 Guidebook published in Japan. The map was heavily reworked from this initial design, but this is more or less it. We are officially in Strangereal now. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Nov 29, 2022 |
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Aug 20, 2016 19:33
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH! 2nd favorite game on the series, losing only to 5. And, on that subject, how come you don't have 5's protag on that poll, huh? 
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Aug 20, 2016 19:46
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Brunom1 posted:YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Because we're not there yet  You could say that, we have so far to 
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Aug 20, 2016 19:48
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Yeah, out of the ones I've played so far I think I'd vote for X's protagonist. So, I got Ace Combat 4 shortly before the LP started, and decided to write down my first impressions in case anyone would be interested. I started Ace Combat with Legacy on the 3DS, then moved on to play all the way through X and picked up Infinity around the same time. Then I grabbed Assault Horizon (jeez, that was a mistake, but it was only $2.50, and at least it contributed some truly rockin' music to Infinity) and now 04. So far, it feels a lot like X does-- similar missile lock-on ranges and so forth, but of course it plays a bit better with more controls and such. I like the idea of being able to go back and land at an airbase or carrier and actually resupply mid-mission, which isn't something I've seen in any other Ace Combat game so far (disclaimer: I didn't watch the LP for Zero, since I wanted to play it myself first, but it and 5 are on the way, and I haven't made it to the end of the 3 LP yet but while it did have refueling it didn't have mid-mission refuelling that I saw). Aside from a few questionable UI designs (like the hangar where you choose your planes being so bright it blocks out the menu), this game is a good contender for the best Ace Combat game I've played so far. (Since writing this, I've beaten the game and gotten halfway into 5, but I'll post what I wrote about the ending when that comes.)
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Aug 20, 2016 19:56
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Look at all these people voting for pilots without a cool red phoenix emblem, shame.
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Aug 20, 2016 20:07
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ACES CURE PLANES posted:Look at all these people voting for pilots without a cool red phoenix emblem, shame. What can I say? People just love to shoot Visari.
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Aug 20, 2016 20:10
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I've got another thing to go along with the Aces of this game. No, it's not another bullshit made-up Assault Record. This time it's more trivia! I've been kind of running out of plane stuff to talk about (I have my doubts I'll even have anything new to talk about after we get past 5, I think only Infinity has more planes than it and that's only because they've added more post-release). Fortunately, this game has really opened up the trivia bit because they, as mentioned, chose to name their Aces after astronomers. It's something entirely new that I didn't know much about before I looked them up for the sake of putting this together, but hey, writing Databases™ is basically my second-favorite part of making or even considering LPs. Ace Number Zero is Biela. Named for Baron Wilhelm von Biela, born March 19th, 1782. German-Austrian military officer, a grenadier Captain who also dabbled in astronomy. In that field, his specialization was observing and calculating the orbits of comets. He published articles, primarily in the Astronomische Nachrichten, discussing comets, theoretical considerations of comets hitting the sun, and occultations of stars by the moon. He was the first to identify a Jupiter-family comet, later named Biela's Comet, as periodic; the comet later split in two around 1852. Died February 18, 1856, at 73 years old. As Crow mentioned, Biela is not actually present in the game; the name is simply printed on the tail of the Ace paint scheme for the F-4E Phantom II, which is unlocked for purchase at just shy of a hundred grand after completing the game once. Ace Number One is Wang. Named for Wang Qi, Chinese astronomer. Little information is available about him, other than that he co-discovered a periodic comet named 142P/Ge-Wang. Presumably he's still alive, as the website for Michigan State University's Department of Physics and Astronomy lists him as a graduate student and even gives his email address (might be cool to try and get an interview, assuming it's the same person, otherwise please don't send him things that will make me regret posting this), and a double-check for info on the comet reveals it was discovered in 1988 (one source stating it was in May, the Polish version of Wikipedia claiming November instead). EDIT: On the subject of voting for best protagonist, Cipher is a more than acceptable substitute for Phoenix, so I can be more forgiving than ACES. add my loving phoenix emblem to the medal exchange already, infinity! Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 20:12
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Was  ing for this to come up.The first time I saw this game was on a demo disc that came with a magazine on my friend's PS2 back in the day. That briefing music has stuck with me ever since as one of my favourite tracks in the series. Maybe not the best AC game in gameplay, but it's my favourite of the bunch.
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Aug 20, 2016 20:18
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Should be worth pointing out that the Tu-95 is not just a propeller aircraft but a Turboprop aircraft.  Otherwise, aw yis. It's time. 
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Aug 20, 2016 20:55
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Where's the "Update PoP 2008, Crow" option? This election is rigged
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Aug 20, 2016 21:53
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I mostly lurked during your Zero and 2/AHL LPs, but they were great and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of this series.Shei-kun posted:Where's the "Update PoP 2008, Crow" option?
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Aug 20, 2016 22:00
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This was one of the first games I picked up when I first got a PS2 a couple of years ago. This game alone made getting a PS2 worth it.
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Aug 20, 2016 22:03
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This game has some of the worst missions in the entire series, but it definitely has its high points. I'm glad Infinity remixed every fight in the PS2 trio of games so they were much more interesting, especially Stonehenge and Excalibur.
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Aug 20, 2016 22:13
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Buckling in for one HELL of a nostalgia ride. I think the only game I played more than Ace Combat 04 at the time was MGS2, so seeing it again will be a joy.
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Aug 20, 2016 22:57
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Nemo isn't on that poll, I'm reporting you.
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Aug 20, 2016 23:01
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When I was gifted a PS2 for my birthday (forget which year, but it can't have been earlier than 2003) AC04 was one of two games that my parents got to go with it. The other game I got was completely forgettable. Looking forward to this! EDIT: Also, good god, the AI is just as bad as I remember! Friendly forces will score a few kills here or there, but Mobius 1 is the ONLY COMPETENT ISAF pilot. Inglonias fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 23:20
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I always loved the color scheme for the Phantom in this game. It looks so stylish in that light blue/white color scheme. Also so glad we made it here, this is going to be a fun ride. Edit: I'll never understand why they got rid of the rank display for the score. That was so convenient, I don't know why they got rid of that. Dr. Snark fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 23:26
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Only one person in the poll has a QTE to fist pump, so the choice is obvious. (Nah, I voted for the Demon Lord) I've been looking forward to this LP!
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Aug 20, 2016 23:30
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WHO ACTUALLY VOTED FOR BISHOP?!!
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Aug 21, 2016 00:46
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In a curious echo to what happened in the last thread, the "I won't cover this game" image includes Assault Horizon Legacy, which got covered in last thread. Last time it was the same thing, but with Electrosphere. This LP series is like poetry. It rhymes.
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Aug 21, 2016 02:30
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I couldn't follow the war or storyline of AC2 at all, so here's hoping this one's better. Wonder when the series is going to finally have a female protagonist.
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Aug 21, 2016 02:34
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Well Assault Horizon kind of does, if we're strictly speaking from a player controlled character who pilots a plane in a game about flying planes. And if we are, I made her look drat good with that amazing flying I did in that Nap of the Earth canyon run with that big rear end gunship 
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Aug 21, 2016 02:39
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Lunethex posted:Well Assault Horizon kind of does, if we're strictly speaking from a player controlled character who pilots a plane in a game about flying planes. Say what you will about Assault Horizon (cliched under-baked plot, barely developed characters and protagonist - which is saying something in an Ace Combat game, way too long and mechanically barren helicopter missions, dogfight mode being WAY over emphasized), some of it can look really good when its given time to just fly. So do we start the blood feud about whether AC4 or AC5 is better now or later?
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Aug 21, 2016 03:15
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Cythereal posted:Wonder when the series is going to finally have a female protagonist. I'd argue that the callsigns are neutral enough to just say that Mobius One/Blaze/Cipher/Phoenix is a female pilot if you so like. Sure, it'd be cool if it happened but the game is vague enough about the main characters identify that you can just make up your own. Lunethex posted:And if we are, I made her look drat good with that amazing flying I did in that Nap of the Earth canyon run with that big rear end gunship She's also in command of the bomber mission as well if I recall right.
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Aug 21, 2016 03:22
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Cooked Auto posted:I'd argue that the callsigns are neutral enough to just say that Mobius One/Blaze/Cipher/Phoenix is a female pilot if you so like. Just spitballing here, but one thought I've had watching this LP series is that a potentially interesting way to tell an Ace Combat story would be to feature a protagonist squadron, with the actual PC faceless but each mission's briefing/inter-mission story bit narrated by one of your squadron mates, perhaps as flashbacks or perhaps as journal entries written during the conflict.
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Aug 21, 2016 03:27
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Cythereal posted:Just spitballing here, but one thought I've had watching this LP series is that a potentially interesting way to tell an Ace Combat story would be to feature a protagonist squadron, with the actual PC faceless but each mission's briefing/inter-mission story bit narrated by one of your squadron mates, perhaps as flashbacks or perhaps as journal entries written during the conflict. Pretty sure a similar concept brought up at least once or twice in the AC2 or AC0 thread by either you or someone else so the idea is out there so to speak. However I want to counter with something else. An Ace Combat board game, using the X-Wing rules.
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Aug 21, 2016 03:37
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Yellow Thirteen is a punk bitch and I would fist fight him IRL
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Aug 21, 2016 03:43
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Cythereal posted:I couldn't follow the war or storyline of AC2 at all, so here's hoping this one's better. I would ultimately argue that that's Ace Combat 5, interestingly enough. Blaze may be the player character of the game, but when it comes to the plot and action, Kei Nagase is the protagonist of Ace Combat 5 in everything but name. The game doesn't beat you over the head with it though and kind of uses Blaze as a shield to keep you from realizing it, kind of like how Final Fantasy X has Tidus putting on his big dumb song and dance for most of the game to distract you from how Yuna is actually the game's protagonist. Shinjobi posted:Yellow Thirteen is a punk bitch and I would fist fight him IRL Hot takes over here. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 03:43
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Kibayasu posted:So do we start the blood feud about whether AC4 or AC5 is better now or later? I'd give that fight to AC4, easily. I'm about halfway through AC5's Campaign Mode and not having a good time at all; without mentioning too many specifics, I loved the sense of freedom that AC4 gave you and AC5 seems built from the ground up to be much more restrictive. My #1 cause of death in the game so far is ramming into the ground/a building/an enemy plane because I'm trying to kill stuff with my guns to save on missiles.
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Aug 21, 2016 06:01
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If you're playing at hard or below you don't need to worry about missiles though.
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Aug 21, 2016 06:07
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If you're running out of missiles in an Ace Combat game you're probably spamming them at planes you're never going to hit. All enemies have fairly obvious "shoot me now!" tells.
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Aug 21, 2016 07:03
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i never played the ace combat games but i have all the soundtracks because they own.
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Aug 21, 2016 07:33
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nine-gear crow posted:kind of like how Final Fantasy X has Tidus putting on his big dumb song and dance for most of the game to distract you from how Yuna is actually the game's protagonist. Or FF11 for that part. Kibayasu posted:If you're running out of missiles in an Ace Combat game you're probably spamming them at planes you're never going to hit. All enemies have fairly obvious "shoot me now!" tells. Probably not as obvious as the one in HAWX 2 though. Suspicious Dish posted:i never played the ace combat games but i have all the soundtracks because they own. True that, my main exposure to AC comes from the soundtracks. Starting with the one from 4 even.
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Aug 21, 2016 10:46
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Kibayasu posted:So do we start the blood feud about whether AC4 or AC5 is better now or later? Nah, no need for that I think. AC5 is probably better, all things considered, but I like AC4 better overall, by a little. They're both pretty great games.
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Aug 21, 2016 11:48
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I was peeking around a tiny bit on the Wiki, to look at a thing about Narrator Boy and Ace Combat 2, and it led me to realize that there is one game that I actually own, and is set in Strangereal, with a protagonist we've already seen, even. Not sure if you want to click the picture, but, well, Phoenix will be there if and when you do decide. 
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Aug 21, 2016 11:51
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So, I may not have written much in either previous thread, but I am still impressed as ever with your dedication to providing background details and insights (conjecture or otherwise) into the series as a whole. I look forward to reading more! Also, good get on the voice actor for our narrator.
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Aug 21, 2016 16:28
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:34 |
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I already told him this privately, but I just want to publicly thank Fedule for the thread tag change. Apparently it was something of an insane process thanks to "lol radium" including briefly stranding the thread in GBS, so if we have any refugees with us from GBS now, hello and welcome, please enjoy the insanity of Ace Combat with us. But now, apparently, if Fedule is correct, this thread is the only active one anywhere on the forums that currently has the  thread tag.
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Aug 21, 2016 20:16
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