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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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Regarding what Crow and frozentreasure said about any nods that ACX has to Electrosphere (spoilered just in case): In ACX, there are a number of prototype planes you can unlock. The first such plane or two have the designation prefix XF-, but everything else is XR- or YR-, and most of the XR/YR ones have a FALKEN-like COFFIN cockpit and a very Delphinus/Asterozoaesque front end, so I'd consider that a significant nod indeed. I've nearly completed my first playthrough and have yet to actually hear the words "UPEO", "General Resource", or "Neucom" despite the fact that those are clearly prototype Neucom planes. And yes, there are some ludicrously SF superweapons, like a city defended by a ring of what are essentially turbolasers as Crow mentioned. Also, to address what Crow said near the end of the video about sometimes being able to clip through other planes and sometimes not: I've determined that it seems to be based almost entirely on whether the other plane is flying a scripted path or not (the lone exception seems to be the AWACSes and KC-10 that show up after the Mission Update in AC5's Desert Thunder, which don't seem to be scripted but you can definitely crash into). NobleSixFour fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 16:12
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 09:39 |
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I can guarantee you if a plane is crash-intoable, I've probably crashed into it more than once, since I'm completely garbage at controlling my speed... generally, jammer/AWACS planes, some of the larger attackers, and bombers will all be solid, even after you shoot them down (in fact, one time I even shot down a bomber and had the 'Mission Successful' pop up but then slammed into the wreckage and died), but fighters don't usually have collision.
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Aug 29, 2016 19:19
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I think this is the worst out of AC4/5/0/6, but it has maybe the best story out of all of them. I love the story of the kid and the Yellow squadron, and a lot of the soundtrack is some of the best in the series. There are too many missions that I didn't like, and the story and the missions were too far removed from one another. They're all fairly similar in quality though, so picking a favourite in the series is just picking a slight difference in style.
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Aug 29, 2016 19:48
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I think this is the worst out of AC4/5/0/6, but it has maybe the best story out of all of them. I love the story of the kid and the Yellow squadron, and a lot of the soundtrack is some of the best in the series. There are too many missions that I didn't like, and the story and the missions were too far removed from one another. They're all fairly similar in quality though, so picking a favourite in the series is just picking a slight difference in style. Mine is either 5 or Zero,myself. But 4 holds a special place in my heart.
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Aug 29, 2016 21:16
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Gotta go zero, 4, then 5 for me. I'll talk more about it when we get to 5, or crow will, but there are some gameplay choices that make replaying it kind of annoying.
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Aug 29, 2016 21:22
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A combination of unexpectedly much higher difficulty, a very weak story, and having heard a lot of the music and more importantly played a number of the missions in Infinity first made Zero very unenjoyable for me-- having finished 6, I'd rate the games 4 > 6 > 5 > 0. But that's pending a replay of 5 and 0 now that I know what I'm doing and more importantly know what to expect, which might change my opinion.
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Aug 29, 2016 21:45
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4 is definitely my sentimental favourite even if I can acknowledge all the gameplay improvements the later games made. I feel 4's story also fits best within the series writing style. I found it rather effective here, but 5 and zero made little impression on me, and 6's story was actually kinda irritating to the point I never finished the game.
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Aug 29, 2016 23:20
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I think Zero's was the second best, because we got to see the way Cipher's actions impacted other people and the world around him. The whole "interviewing people and following a trail of breadcrumbs to find the legendary fighter pilot" was a great way to build up a character, even more so since it's your own character. I never really got the love for Mobius 1, but Sky Eye is probably my favourite AWACS.
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Aug 29, 2016 23:50
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I love what Mobius 1 has become in other games, but when I say I love the story of 04 I mean I love the Storyteller Kid and Yellow 13's tale, while you get to see firsthand how the war is turned around.
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Aug 29, 2016 23:52
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I actually kind of like that Mobius 1 is a cipher (at least in this game, I don't know what they do with him later); you can project whatever personality on him you care to, because the important thing about Mobius 1 is what he represents to others. Maybe he's a bloodthirsty maniac; maybe he's a quiet, honorable warrior; maybe he's a guy just doing a job for a paycheck - but no matter what he is, to the ISAF he becomes more important than any of that. Hell, you never hear the guy speak; for all we know it could be a succession of pilots. He could be Zorro.
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Aug 30, 2016 00:23
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I actually kind of like that Mobius 1 is a cipher (at least in this game, I don't know what they do with him later); you can project whatever personality on him you care to, because the important thing about Mobius 1 is what he represents to others. Maybe he's a bloodthirsty maniac; maybe he's a quiet, honorable warrior; maybe he's a guy just doing a job for a paycheck - but no matter what he is, to the ISAF he becomes more important than any of that. Cipher in Zero I feel does this better, mostly because you can play him as a bloodthirsty maniac, an honorable warrior or just doing a job for a paycheck, and you have characters to whom he is more important than that. You directly see how he affects their lives and how they interpret him, whereas Mobius 1's "character" is just "Good at planes". The one thing that I'll say that Assault Horizon did well was make the main character a character. It irks me to no end that none of the Ace Combat characters interact with the player character outside of a plane other than Bishop, or that that's even implied. Genuinely could just be an AI in a plane in every game and not a real person. Hopefully AC7 will have an actual person as the main character.
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Aug 30, 2016 00:40
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Cipher in Zero I feel does this better, mostly because you can play him as a bloodthirsty maniac, an honorable warrior or just doing a job for a paycheck, and you have characters to whom he is more important than that. You directly see how he affects their lives and how they interpret him, whereas Mobius 1's "character" is just "Good at planes". See, that's actually sort of my point, though - and I suspect this is one of those things where we just like different things, not that one of us is wrong or anything - that Cipher in Zero can be played as different types of person and that adjusts the game around him, whereas Mobius 1's storyline is the same no matter what type of person you think he is. By removing that emphasis on "who the pilot is" it necessarily increases the emphasis on "what the pilot means to the people around him." There's a later mission where one of the ground forces is heard saying "Mobius One is here! We'll win!" and that, to me, has always been the aspect of the game I really dig, that Mobius 1 is more than a pilot when everything is said and done, more than a man, he's a symbol. I think it's easy to lose that sense of symbolic importance when you're surrounding it with recollections of how that person you're supposed to be seeing as a legend was actually just a man.
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Aug 30, 2016 00:49
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ModeWondershot's Late-series Ace Combat Rankings: Zero is at the top for having decent plane variety, the Ace Style system is cool, the FMV cutscenes are great, and possibly the greatest PS2-era soundtrack. 04 is second for the story and the way it is told, the mission variety, another really good OST, and being a remarkably solid game considering how early it is. 6 comes in third because the story may not be great, but some of the characters are very enjoyable and the conflict has weight, and the combat systems in general are decent. 5 is in fourth, but only barely so, because while the story is somewhat better than 6 some of the missions are absolutely terrible and the plane selection is a bit out of whack. Not to disparage any one game in particular, though, as they are all lovely and I would absolutely recommend any of them. DivineCoffeeBinge posted:See, that's actually sort of my point, though - and I suspect this is one of those things where we just like different things, not that one of us is wrong or anything - that Cipher in Zero can be played as different types of person and that adjusts the game around him, whereas Mobius 1's storyline is the same no matter what type of person you think he is. By removing that emphasis on "who the pilot is" it necessarily increases the emphasis on "what the pilot means to the people around him." There's a later mission where one of the ground forces is heard saying "Mobius One is here! We'll win!" and that, to me, has always been the aspect of the game I really dig, that Mobius 1 is more than a pilot when everything is said and done, more than a man, he's a symbol. I think it's easy to lose that sense of symbolic importance when you're surrounding it with recollections of how that person you're supposed to be seeing as a legend was actually just a man. I see what you are getting at, though I guess the desire to feel a bit more as though your contribution makes you stand out is part of what gave rise to the Ace Style system. At the same time, that sense of character definition would remove a bit of that mythic status ascribed to Ace Combat protagonists, hence at least a small part of the backlash against Bishop. HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The one thing that I'll say that Assault Horizon did well was make the main character a character. It irks me to no end that none of the Ace Combat characters interact with the player character outside of a plane other than Bishop, or that that's even implied. Genuinely could just be an AI in a plane in every game and not a real person. Hopefully AC7 will have an actual person as the main character. I actually agree with this, and think that while Bishop wasn't a great character for breaking out of the Ace Combat standard, he at least had a level of professionalism that I think suits the character many of us imagine as an "Ace."
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Aug 30, 2016 01:50
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:See, that's actually sort of my point, though - and I suspect this is one of those things where we just like different things, not that one of us is wrong or anything - that Cipher in Zero can be played as different types of person and that adjusts the game around him, whereas Mobius 1's storyline is the same no matter what type of person you think he is. By removing that emphasis on "who the pilot is" it necessarily increases the emphasis on "what the pilot means to the people around him." There's a later mission where one of the ground forces is heard saying "Mobius One is here! We'll win!" and that, to me, has always been the aspect of the game I really dig, that Mobius 1 is more than a pilot when everything is said and done, more than a man, he's a symbol. I think it's easy to lose that sense of symbolic importance when you're surrounding it with recollections of how that person you're supposed to be seeing as a legend was actually just a man. Yeah, I guess we do like different things, though I'll be sure to keep your interpretation in mind. I saw each interview in Zero as different lenses to see Cipher through, different interpretations from different people rather than a strict adjustment from the game but rather an adjustment in Thompson's interpretation up to this point.
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Aug 30, 2016 02:51
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All I can think of when listening to the story and in-game chatter in these games is, I think they'd be a lot more fun if all the dialogue was replaced with a voice pack like Lunethex uses over in the Battlezone LP. Does anyone take these games' stories and characters seriously?
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Aug 30, 2016 03:32
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Cythereal posted:All I can think of when listening to the story and in-game chatter in these games is, I think they'd be a lot more fun if all the dialogue was replaced with a voice pack like Lunethex uses over in the Battlezone LP. Does anyone take these games' stories and characters seriously? Its one of the more enjoyed parts of the series, especially the in game chatter. It is extremely fun when by the midgame the enemy collectively flips their poo poo at the very sight of your emblem.
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Aug 30, 2016 04:36
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Ashsaber posted:Its one of the more enjoyed parts of the series, especially the in game chatter. It is extremely fun when by the midgame the enemy collectively flips their poo poo at the very sight of your emblem. I do enjoy that, I just think these games are so silly I think it's something of a waste that they by and large take themselves so seriously. Which admittedly is itself part of why they're so absurd to me.
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Aug 30, 2016 04:38
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Covering up the melodramatic anime stories of Ace Combat would defeat the purpose of playing Ace Combat.
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Aug 30, 2016 07:39
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Who wants to play an Ace Combat without anime stories or characters? Cool people.
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Aug 30, 2016 08:05
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To be fair I take Ace Combat seriously. But when it's so obviously hammy (I mean half or more of the characters in Battlezone are named directly after developers) I will definitely poke fun at it. It doesn't mean I'm not highlighting the important bits of its story, just talking over the redundant information.
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Aug 30, 2016 09:27
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Ace Combat is the Dynasty Warriors of the flight sim genre. And it's perfect.
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Aug 30, 2016 14:28
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Lunethex posted:To be fair I take Ace Combat seriously. I'm just saying, I think this game could only be improved by enemy pilots screaming "OH GOD HITLER WHY?!" when you shoot them down. 
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Aug 30, 2016 14:46
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frozentreasure posted:Who wants to play an Ace Combat without anime stories or characters? On this note, what do people think about Assault Horizon's story? Its gameplay was terrible of course, but I think it's about as close as we'll get to an Ace Combat 'without anime stories or characters' and I just thought it was incredibly bland and I didn't find myself getting invested in the story at all.
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Aug 30, 2016 15:59
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Son Ryo posted:On this note, what do people think about Assault Horizon's story? Its gameplay was terrible of course, but I think it's about as close as we'll get to an Ace Combat 'without anime stories or characters' and I just thought it was incredibly bland and I didn't find myself getting invested in the story at all. Yep. Me too. It doesn't help that what little plot it *does* have is almost exactly the same as HAWX2. (Also, as a connoisseur of airport DadReading--Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, et cetera--the fact that the story was by Jim DeFelice makes things that much funnier, because he is third-rate even among that crowd.)
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Aug 30, 2016 16:36
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NobleSixFour posted:Yep. Me too. It doesn't help that what little plot it *does* have is almost exactly the same as HAWX2. Then you can add the fact it's also pretty much ripped its plot from Modern Warfare 2 doesn't help either for that part. They were both made in that post-MW2 period where a lot of games featured Russian civil wars. Even the Ghost Recon game that came out around that same period of time featured the same theme. But then HAWX 1 and to some effect GRAW2 came out around the time PMC's were the big bads in video games.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:41
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Hey, good news! We have a TGS lineup for Bamco! Hey, bad news! Ace Combat 7 isn't on it!
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Aug 30, 2016 16:45
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NobleSixFour posted:(Also, as a connoisseur of airport DadReading--Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, et cetera--the fact that the story was by Jim DeFelice makes things that much funnier, because he is third-rate even among that crowd.) To his credit, apparently he did his research and actually started writing a Strangereal-set story before Project Aces told him that they wanted Generic Military Story and that's what they hired him for. It is funny to me how after all that, the finished plotline still has some weird Japanese lost-in-translation quirks to it. At one point a character tells another "go make NATO proud!" Like, NATO's a military alliance, it doesn't really have an identity like that. It's not something anyone feels patriotic for....
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Aug 30, 2016 16:57
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ninjahedgehog posted:To his credit, apparently he did his research and actually started writing a Strangereal-set story before Project Aces told him that they wanted Generic Military Story and that's what they hired him for. Still, I will say that it could've been a lot worse: I actually like Bishop as a character and what they do with his nightmare/tutorial level, while it does have the overused ultranationalists take over Russia they don't do this easily and you get a fair few missions alongside the loyalists, the soundtrack is great and the gameplay had the potential of being different but good. Also it's the only Ace Combat to have been released on PC and I genuinely like the Moscow helo level.
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Aug 30, 2016 17:05
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Yeah, as usual Kobayashi knocked it out of the park with the soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUUchxqHIpM EDIT: And even though I think 6 is overall prettier, AH has some of the best-looking explosions I've seen in gaming, up there with the original Mercenaries and Just Cause 3. Airplanes loving tear themselves apart in huge, greasy clouds of smoke and fire with shrapnel flying everywhere, and if you're flying too close behind them you get jet fuel splattered all over your canopy. It's great. ninjahedgehog fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 17:41
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Ace Combat Zero is my favorite overall, followed by 4. Totally didn't realize solo wing pixie was fighting the war in ac4 during the documentary. Nice touch. I also think Zero has the best soundtrack.
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Aug 30, 2016 17:57
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radintorov posted:I genuinely like the Moscow helo level. Yeah, I don't really have strong opinions one way or the other about AH aside from it having the best QTE of all time and that particular level being really loving fun.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:22
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Pretty sure a couple of ACAH's levels would've been great if they had removed the TGT invulnerability. I know I would've enjoyed White Devil a lot more if it wasn't for the fact the attack planes all needed to be taken out in dogfighting mode or else they'd be near impossible to kill.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:28
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ninjahedgehog posted:Yeah, as usual Kobayashi knocked it out of the park with the soundtrack. Dogfight mode, whilst lovely and easy in singleplayer, was a blast in multiplayer. It felt better as a game of cat and mouse than AC6's did to me since it was more easily understood which planes were better at what, and that killing someone with it looked absolutely gorgeous all while you listen to the song you just linked. Are the AC6 servers still up? Might give that a go on the ol' Xbox.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:34
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Are the AC6 servers still up? Might give that a go on the ol' Xbox. I think so. And why not play it on Steam? Ace Combat with a joystick is crazy fun! EDIT: Oh wait you said AC6 not AH
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Aug 31, 2016 01:50
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frozentreasure posted:Who wants to play an Ace Combat without anime stories or characters? I never played an Ace Combat with anime stories or characters so I don't even know what I'm missing Son Ryo posted:On this note, what do people think about Assault Horizon's story? It sure was a story Son Ryo posted:Its gameplay was terrible of course Nah it's fun, I just wish there was more variety in missions. The two helicopter missions are indistinguishable, and I'm sad bomber/gunship/attack plane only got one mission each (BTW, Su-25's awesome unguided bombs are nearly useless because you can fly it in a grand total of one mission, and it's an attack on shipping and half the time the bombs drop harmlessly in water. It's also a travesty that you can't dogfight in a Su-34 because the airframe is clearly capable of it), especially when most fighter missions are "shoot down these planes, then these other planes, then some more planes, then maybe some missiles or bombers, mission update there's some more planes to shoot down". And only two multirole missions mean very little chance to fly a PAK-FA, sit back and drop a Trinity cruise missile or two. I really dug the interactive opening credits with the door gunner mini-mission, though Son Ryo posted:but I think it's about as close as we'll get to an Ace Combat 'without anime stories or characters' and I just thought it was incredibly bland and I didn't find myself getting invested in the story at all. For being dad/airport fiction it could have used some more absurdity. I mean you don't get into space once (not that it would be the same thing, what with the Space Shuttle canceled, the dadliest spacecraft). Slamming nose first into Miami stadium's scoreboard barely got me hard e: and I never played MW2 because why the gently caress would I do that hackbunny fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 13:27
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radintorov posted:I remember reading that. I seem to recall he was already a bit of an Ace Combat fan and so he wasn't happy when they told him what plot he was supposed to write for the game. Do you happen to have a source? I believe you, I just can't find it and I'm curious.
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Aug 31, 2016 14:02
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Based on what I've read from DeFelice and knowing Namco's history, I think he was given the unenviable task of being told to make an Ace Combat game that also had to be Modern Warfare, and that while everyone tried hard, well  Here are some archived versions of what he wrote about it at the time: http://web.archive.org/web/20111031112942/http://www.jimdefelice.com/Assault_Horizon_16FE.html http://web.archive.org/web/20111031113053/http://www.jimdefelice.com/Assault_Horizon_Peo_LTKZ.html spoilers, I guess, considering. The first one speaks directly to rad's post.
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Aug 31, 2016 18:51
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Your link to the Ace Combat 2 LP doesn't work (or the LP didn't go up)
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Aug 31, 2016 19:36
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Psion posted:http://web.archive.org/web/20111031112942/http://www.jimdefelice.com/Assault_Horizon_16FE.html quote:There are always limitations on what you can do. For example, early on we wanted to have a V/STOL version of the F-35 - the F-35C – involved in the game. I wrote a really cool mission for it, which would have shown off all of the real airframe’s capabilities. We can suspend disbelief for a fighter jet carrying hundreds of missiles, but I don't know if we are ready for an F-35C that actually works hackbunny fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 19:55
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He's got it a little mixed up there - the F-35B is the V/STOL version, the F-35C is the naval carrier-capable version. But, yes, I would have loved to have seen how they managed to make the F-35B doing hover tricks and poo poo into an Ace Combat mission.
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Aug 31, 2016 20:21
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