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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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Namco's Forgotten Masterpiece: Let's Play Ace Combat Advance  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 (It's down there, genius) 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 Somebody fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Nov 21, 2017 |
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Sep 16, 2016 04:04
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Mission 1: Checkpoints From a company too obscure for a Wikipedia article...  Comes a game so lazily made...  It doesn't even have an intro sequence.  Just straight into the main menu, and right into a new game.  As far as I can tell, the only noticeable difference between the two difficulties presented is that Ace cuts your ammo in half and adds a lot more enemies, so in the interests of sanity, I'll be playing on Novice.  Once again, no intro text. As I mentioned in the OP, I haven't played any other Ace Combat games or read up on the series, so I'm going to assume that we're in some bizarre offshoot of reality where corporations have their own military force that mostly consists of airplanes. Judging by the logo, we're part of some organization called the UAD, which I'm assuming means United Aerospace...something. Probably Division. Why we've gone to war against this airplane-favoring conglomerate is as of yet unknown, but I'm assuming it's because they're evil. Or maybe we are.  Every mission gives you an optional task to perform in addition to your primary objective. It's in our best interest to do so, for reasons which will become abundantly clear when we tackle Mission 2.  As we progress the game, more airplanes will be available for our use. Right now though, we've got to deal with this piece of junk. Here's a quick rundown of the stats: Speed: Determines how fast you go. Self-explanatory. Air-to-Air/Ground: Your effectiveness against air/ground targets. Also gives a general hint about what your plane's loadout will be like. Planes that favor Air-to-Ground will also tend to start with more anti-ground armaments, and vice versa. Mobility: Turn speed. Important for dogfighting. Defense: How much damage you take, or don't take, as the case may be. As you can plainly see, our starting plane, the incredibly fictitious F-C Talon, is pretty darn bad at everything except attacking ground targets. That'll be handy for this mission before we discard it for literally anything else.  Once we've locked in our plane of no-choice, there's the question of which sub-weapon to take into the mission. As you can see, our options are fairly limited with this rig, but they'll be enough to get the job done. Our first contestant is essentially a shotgun. Individually weak, the mini-missiles fired by the Cluster Missile can be pretty nasty if they all hit at once. Trouble is, it's Anti-Air only, which means you can't hit ground targets with these, and we'll be focusing primarily on the ground this mission.  While you'd think that these seeking missiles would obviously win the nomination, the big problem with these puppies is that they're fairly weak, requiring two shots to kill your average ground-based target. I think we can do better.  These, for instance, are amazing weapons of destruction. While they are dummy-fire projectiles, they make up for it by being incredibly powerful, able to kill almost any ground-based target in a single shot. We'll be going with the AGMs for this mission, and in fact for most missions where we need to destroy objectives on the ground.  We've got the plane, we've got the missiles...  We have liftoff!  Unlike its more powerful console-based predecessors, Ace Combat Advance is played from a top-down perspective, which provides a fairly narrow field of vision on the ol' 240x160 GBA screen.  Fortunately, a modern aircraft has a variety of instruments to help the everyday pilot having an out-of-body experience. The most important is the radar. This sucker will save your life. Also, take note of that timer in the upper left. You're on the clock all the time in AC Advance so it's vitally important that you finish your tasks quickly, which is what the red/green gauge on the right is for. That's the Boost Meter, and defying all reason, it actually fills red to green as you hold the boost button down. Boosting is absolutely essential in this game, since your standard pace is alarmingly slow, even in the fastest flying machines, so managing your Boost Meter is of vital importance.  You might have noticed the missile counter in the lower left as well. All aircraft have 96 weak-ish homing rockets, and pressing down on the D-pad will switch to whichever armament you chose during the briefing. As you can see, we've only got 20 of the AGMs, so we'd better make every shot count.  Ooh, but first! Aerial combat!  More on that when we don't have a plane that turns like a flatbed truck.  As we get closer to the highlighted dots on the radar, our HUD starts flashing red and an alarm starts blaring. That can only mean...  ...Something we couldn't possibly have seen coming. SAM (Surface-to-Air Missile) sites are going to be the bane of our existence throughout the LP. The missiles come out quickly and more or less the instant that the SAMs appear on screen. And until we get a plane with better defense, those things HURT, taking off 15% on this rig in particular. You might have noticed during that clip that we're lower to the ground than usual. Since we're automatically drifting forward all the time, pressing up on the d-pad makes us dive downwards instead, allowing us to fire our gatling gun and mini missiles at ground targets. The secondary armaments can only fire at air/ground targets, so if we picked an anti-air weapon, that would be our only way to deal with targets on the ground. Plus, if we're being fired at, a quick dive is actually a pretty effective dodging tactic.  I don't think they ever give this guy a name, so I'm just going to call him The Chief. As mentioned in the briefing, our objective is to get to these tower-ish things one by one. We don't actually have to destroy them or the SAM sites to beat the mission, just fly on by, but if we want to get the secondary objective, then all targets highlighted in yellow have to be destroyed.  The game's nice enough to tell us, if we couldn't tell by the radar, that we've taken care of secondary targets in the area. Time to move on.  Really, the radar's your best friend in this game, since you can see targets before they actually come into view, and the dummy fire missiles especially have a surprisingly long range.  If you want to avoid getting shot to pieces, it's best to take advantage of this fact as much as you can.  Trouble is, we're running low on ammo and we're only on Nav Point 2. We could switch to just using our gatling for the rest, but there's a better solution...   : Mother arrives in 8 seconds.You see, Ace isn't riding on this mission on his lonesome.  If you press the Select key, after a short while, a blue waypoint will appear on his map. What's over there, you ask?  Our own personal tanker and a mound of corny dialogue.  : Thanks, gee, I sure am thirsty. : Well, drink up! It's happy hour now. And with that, our health and ammo are topped off. The game lets you call Mother as many times as you need, but the big concern is time, since you often have to fly in the opposite direction of objectives in order to meet her. In addition, you can still be attacked while you're being refueled, so it's only somewhat effective as a panic button.  Uh, hey buddy, you're flying a little close there-  Well, crap. Planes can and will smash into you, and while that'll take out these little grunts, it'll also remove a good chunk of your health. And needless to say, the AI's not very good at avoiding collisions.  Third nav point, and this one's got an additional SAM guarding it. I suppose I should mention that they don't home in on you, just fire straight ahead, so if you take them at even a slight angle, their shots will just fly on by. That's a major argument for using homing missiles instead of the AGMs, but then I'd be chewing through ammo faster.  Rinse and repeat.  Almost there! Last nav point is at home base itself, but we're not done with the ground targets.  : Go on with it, Mother.: Let's do it. You owe me one.: You are full! Go get them! And that's it for the secondary objective! Time to return to base.  You can tell you're getting close when you see the white dots on the map.  And...done!  I hope none of those fireworks hit the planes.  When it comes to rankings, it's all about the secondary objective. If you accomplish what they tell you to, you're guaranteed an S. Getting an S rank is somewhat important, since the next plane we unlock via story progression is a pretty good contender for the title of worst aircraft, for reasons I'll explain in the next mission. Coming Up: We take aim at General Resources' most crucial asset: shipping containers!   F-C Talon Speed: Terrible Air-to-Air: Laughable Air-to-Ground: Decent Mobility: Like a man in a robot costume Defense: Not the worst, surprisingly 20 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 30 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 40 Air-to-Air Cluster Missiles Analysis: This plane's only saving grace is that it's got a fair amount of ammo. Once the missiles run out, it's more-or-less useless.
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Sep 16, 2016 04:05
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I realize this one's been a week in coming, but I assure you I have no reason for that. Mission 2: Containers  Supplies, huh? I wonder if they mean ammunition or food? Either way, this isn't what you would necessarily call heroic.  If you remember, the S-rank requirement for last mission was also destroying all ground targets, but this one's got a bit of a twist to it. More on that shortly.  But first, we've got two new planes to look at. Our first candidate is...  A plane that takes 22% damage from a single missile. But that's not the worst part about the F-G Hawk. That would be its weapon loadout. You can look at the end of this update for the full details, but here's the skinny: for a mission that involves destroying a load of ground-based targets, its only option is ten dummy-fire rockets!! And remember, if you're playing on Ace difficulty, that number gets cut in half.  Therefore, we're going with this one instead. The MIS-30A is the first plane that gets unlocked by ranks on missions, and that's why it has stats that look decidedly not-bad. Bit weak on the anti-ground, but...  I'd say its armaments make up for it. The AAMs are super powerful seeking missiles that unfortunately only target aircraft. They definitely have their uses, but just not in missions like this one.  Instead we're going with these beauties. Napalm Bombs are highly situational but they're a load of fun if you find the right mission for it.  This just so happens to be one of those missions.  As the briefing mentioned, we're in the desert now. To its credit, the game has multiple environments for the various missions you go through. It's not all just the same boring jungle map.  Burning, eh? I think we can accommodate that.  What makes Napalm Bombs different from our other ordnance is that they do damage on a tick by tick basis for as long as the animation is touching the target. What that generally means is that for the best effect, you want to aim it for about the end of its effective range, when the stream of fire slows down and starts trailing off.  You'll pardon me if I just summarize this mission, as it's mostly about flying around and bombing things.  That said, there are some interesting things roaming about besides containers.  Tanks, to be specific. They're super sturdy and have a rapid-fire machine gun that, while individually weak, can eat your health super fast if you're approaching them head-on.  Look at the difference in health. That's from fighting one tank, and there are about three or four driving around on this map. And yes, they count towards that "land target" objective.   Needless to say, I end up needing Mother's help a lot in this map, which is fine, because the MIS-30A is fast enough where the extra side trips don't matter as much.  There are also SAMs on this map, but they're all bunched together for some odd reason.  Not the smartest decision on their part.  Oh hey, look at all those dots. Wonder what that could mean.  Dirty trick, game.  But also easily resolved. In one shot, no less.  By the way, the game's lying when it says that secondary targets are destroyed. If you don't get the tanks, you're heading for an A instead of an S, and that's just unacceptable.  Several bombing runs later...   Now imagine doing that with the two starter planes. I did that. It wasn't fun. You know what though, that didn't take too long at all. Let's do another one! Mission 3: Defend the Island  Just a note for the future: any time a mission briefing involves multiple pictures, I'll be doing it in GIF form.  And now for something completely different.  For this mission, we'll want a ride that can take a bit of punishment and stay in the fray. Cue the FZ-23 Stinger, an aerial tank.  Check out this weapons loadout! It's even got the most powerful missile in the game, generally balanced by a lack of ammunition.  If only the rest of the game had the production values of these stills.  Appropriately enough for a level with a navel assault, we're fighting over a map that's 95% water.  The island facility is the red arrow on the map. We're not flying to that just yet.  Because we're actually concerned about the yellow dots on the map instead.  Wouldn't be a navel assault without botes now, would it? Their method of attack is basically the same as tanks, albeit a bit weaker, and also like tanks, they take a surprising amount of punishment, eating two of our Precision Guided Bombs before going down. Let's talk about our PGBs for a bit. They're homing, obviously, but what's not immediately evident is that they actually do AoE damage. Effects in this game being what they are, it sorta looks like surrounding enemies at the point of impact spontaneously decide to self-destruct. Sure, they could have made the explosion effect slightly bigger so there was less confusion, but you know what, making two different explosions takes a lot of time and effort.  The boats are all on the way to bombard the island, so clearing them out just naturally leads us there.  Not a bad-looking little outpost. I don't know what "prevent too much damage" means, but in my first run, I lost two buildings and still somehow managed an S, so I'm assuming it's fairly generous.  Naturally, waiting for the boats to arrive means that we're going to have to deal with way too many targets at once, so we have to be proactive.  That said, there sure are a lot of boats out here...  And I mean a LOT. This level's fairly frenetic if you want to keep them from firing at all, and I actually enjoy it a lot. The game's pretty mediocre, but there are some shining moments.  Whoa! Settle down, Chief! What he's actually saying is that the Ramasis has showed up, which means it's time for what could perhaps generously be considered a boss fight.  Kind of an unusual configuration of red dots, but it'll make sense when it comes into view.  For you see, the Ramasis is outfitted bow to stern with missile launchers. This seems intimidating at first, until you realize that its crew made the unfortunate decision to bunch them all together. There's that hidden AoE effect coming in handy.  You might think that the ship's length-wise configuration would make Napalm Bombs a good choice as well, but they're actually designed to do less damage in water. Fancy that, eh? By the way, there IS one big downside to the Stinger. I want you to look at the clock and see how much time it takes to get from the final objective back to base, bearing in mind that running out of time fails the mission regardless of what's accomplished or not.  Yup. If you're running low on time, that Speed stat can really be a detriment to your success.  I kinda wonder why he does the pause there. Is he checking to make sure that the plane didn't gain sentience and fly itself back?  Like I said, really enjoy that mission. But it's time to set that aside and ruin our ecosystem. Coming up: We reenact BP eighteen times over. F-G Hawk Speed: Fine. Air-to-Air: Passable. Air-to-Ground: Hah! No. Mobility: Meh. Defense: Like wet tissue paper. 20 Air-to-Air Heat-Seeking Missiles 10 Unguided Anti-Ground Missiles 20 Cluster Missiles Analysis: If you didn't get an S rank in Mission 1, it's either this or the Talon for Mission 2. Have fun! FZ-23 Stinger Speed: Surprisingly not the worst. Air-to-Air: It could work. Maybe. Air-to-Ground: Excellent! Mobility: Gets the job done. Defense: One sturdy vehicle. 20 Air-to-Air Heat-Seeking Missiles 30 Unguided Anti-Ground Missiles 50 Tactical Air-to-Surface Missiles 12 Napalm Bombs 16 Precision Guided Bombs Analysis: Finally a plane that can take a hit! There's a better bomber than the Stinger down the line, but this works for when you get it. MIS-30A Speed: Fantastic! Air-to-Air: Devastating! Air-to-Ground: Uh... Mobility: Precise! Defense: It'll work. 60 Air-to-Air Heat-Seeking Missiles 20 Tactical Air-to-Surface Missiles 30 Cluster Missiles 20 Napalm Bombs Analysis: Our first S-rank dependent plane. While obviously designed for dogfighting, this bird's surprisingly generous amount of napalm makes it an incredibly mobile bomber as well. Suffering through the S-rank requirement on Mission 1 also means avoiding the F-G Hawk, which is a boon in itself.
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Sep 26, 2016 04:19
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Psion posted:The ground-attack mode thing is called ASM, not DFM. you see, the more acronyms, the more realistic it is!! True that. AC Advance is so much about the acronyms that I don't think that they ever actually spell out what UAD stands for. I'm sure it mentions it in the manual, but from just playing the game, for all I know, we could be a rival corporation called Urban Assessment & Development.
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Sep 26, 2016 21:03
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Another week, another couple of missions. Mission 4: Oil Rigs  Who are the ASF? I thought we were fighting General Resources. Maybe they're some sort of subsidiary branch of the company, like Alternative Source of Fuel. Anti-Social Fans? Approaching Six Figures?  Anyway, our goal for this mission is to destroy the Aryan Society of Finland's oil resources, which won't cause any environmental impact in the slightest.  Now, we could take this new puppy for a spin, but I'm thinking we need something a little more ground-focused, so it's back to the Stinger.  And since we've a lot of targets to chew through, we're going to need quantity over quality. The unguided bombs should do us just fine.  Maybe we're just going to be demolishing the structures on top. That should be fine, right?  We've been seeing a lot of the ocean lately, but I promise this will be the last time for a little bit.  Have we considered just capturing them? Or is our military made up of nothing but one pilot and a tanker?  You might recall that our secondary goal was to destroy all land targets, which might lead you to believe from Mission 2 that they're going to force us to destroy all the boats in the level too. Fortunately, that isn't the case. It takes me a while to remember that though.  Quite the facility you've got there, General Resources. Be a shame if someone were to drop a bomb on it.  Oops.  I should mention that it takes two direct hits from these dummy-fire missiles to take out a boat, so unless you're really skilled at dodging, they're gonna chew you up pretty badly.  5/18 Oil Rigs Bombed. This is what I imagine an Ace Combat MMO would look like.  As we come up to the next batch of rigs, we discover the true secondary objective. Surprise, it's SAM sites again.  Also, occasionally a satellite dish. Not sure if that's part of the objectives, but I bomb it anyway. Because it's there.  There are a lot of fighter jets roaming around on this map. If you haven't noticed though, it's pretty easy to ignore enemy planes, because their own gatling gun is as pathetic as our own, and they only occasionally fire missiles.  Really, the bigger problem is that the skies can get pretty crowded, and ramming too many of these guys in close succession can sting a little.  "We could show you this by having the map get progressively darker, but that would require us to apply a filter of some kind."  The game's not lying to you this time. If you destroy all the missile launchers, you're in the clear.  And the rigs follow soon after. Now once again, check out how long it takes this flying tub to get back to base.  I am so looking forward to having a faster plane.   Check out that score, by the way. Killing ground targets can really help you rack up the points. Normally that wouldn't matter, but... Mission 5: Patrol  The game's about to start flipping things on their head.  Mostly by misleading the player entirely. You'll see what I mean in a second.  Got a new plane. It's a nice all-rounder, as you can see, but I did say we'd be trying out the new S-rank plane.  So the JSF it is! The Talon II can wait for the next mission.  The mission briefing suggested that aerial combat would be the role of the day, so we'd best outfit ourselves for the occasion. AAMs will remove any of those annoying little planes from the sky in a single shot, they're homing, and this bird comes with 80 of them.  A decent summary of the carnage to come.  So, welcome back to the jungle. Been a while since we've seen this map.  Still on this nonsense, eh? It's a good thing we've got a minimap to show us where the actual objective is, right?  As we approach the objective, our first victims roll up. You'll notice that they're only 50 points each, so getting to 1500 might take a while.  Don't ask me who these guys are. I suspect they're supposed to be our wingmen who are totally flying with us as we speak, but in effect, they're the cheerleaders of the sky.  SAMs are worth 100 points each, and this level has a whole lot of them, since we're flying through enemy territory like a total dingus. An alternate strategy to farming planes might be to bomb every single ground target in the level and make up whatever's left with the default 96 mini-missiles. As a matter of fact, that's probably a lot smarter than shooting at planes. Wonder why I didn't do that.  Moving right along, our actual goal for this level is a repeat of Mission 1, following a series of nav points while dodging anti-air fire. Now granted, I haven't actually run out the clock to see if I can win the mission that way, but given how the rest of the game works, that would probably net me an instant failure.  Looking at it, taking out all the ground targets would have easily let me reach my goal. And I'm reasonably certain that the oil rig mission had more planes coming at me at any given time. I actually had to divebomb a couple of anti-air placements just because I was nervous about meeting my goal. That's how dire the plane situation was.  Anyways, once we reach our third nav point, something interesting happens.   That's right! The instant we're told to come home, our radar starts intermittently flipping out, pointing us in the wrong direction and making it impossible to see enemy targets. Now I want you to think about that. With the narrow field of view that the game gives us, the radar has basically been our only way to see enemies before they start shooting at us.  Oh look, two more pla-  And just like that, the radar's gone again. Granted, in this case we can actually see the planes physically, but it's completely possible to just blow on by a bunch of juicy targets when we need to make up the points.  Also, this might just be some fault in the way the homing missile code works, but at this point in the recording, the AAMs start going off at weird tangents as well, making it hard to shoot these guys down.  Screw it.  At least our plane flies straight. Now, as long as we go the way the radar's pointing when it's not broken...   If there's any consolation to this crappy gimmick, it's that this is the only time they pull it on you. Instead, we just have to deal with the ordinary kind of garbage. For instance... Coming Up: Escort missions. Y-25C JSF Speed: The MIS but better Air-to-Air: The MIS but better Air-to-Ground: The MIS but the same Mobility: The MIS plus one Defense: Did I mention the MIS? 80 Air-to-Air Heat-Seeking Missiles 20 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 20 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 40 Cluster Missiles Analysis: Basically, if you aren't going anti-air, find another plane. This one's phenomenal for its chosen role, but outside of that role, and a lot of missions in this game involve dealing with ground targets, there are far greater options to choose from.
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Oct 4, 2016 02:55
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Chapter 6: Bridge Convoy I have no idea what they're talking about. There's going to be a lot of destroying, mind you, but it's by no means mandatory.  These next two missions ought to be short and sweet. Definitely worth waiting two weeks for.  As mentioned, we're taking the Talon II for a spin this time around. Seems to be an okay machine, a definite all-rounder, but what does it have under the hood?  Why, only the best kind of missile, of course. We'll be needing this.  Because this mission is a bit heavy on the land units.  Looks like a lot of nothing to me, but if this is strategically valuable somehow, who am I to argue?  So yeah, nothing whatsoever about clearing a base out. We're actually protecting a truck convoy.  There's they, going at about the speed of a turtle on crutches. If you want a general idea of how long this mission takes, the timer will be at 30 seconds by the time we're finished. That's a lot of flying around in circles.  Our primary enemy will be our old friends, the tanks, driving slowly towards the convoy in the hope of taking potshots at it. Naturally, we need to head them off at the pass, and in doing so, we also can rack up the points for our sub-objective super quickly.  There are planes too, but as far as I can tell, they're never outfitted with bombs, so they're only a threat to us, personally.  Now as you may expect, not all of the tanks are within spitting distance of the convoy, so you have to abandon it and fly a distance away if you want to kill enough targets in time for the goal.  Still though, that 1200 point requirement is pretty generous with all the targets milling around.  With a minute and a half to spare, we're already at our quota, and it's just a matter of waiting.   Let's not do this mission again.  Ever. Mission 7: Airport Attack   Oh boy, we're bombing stuff again.  And wouldn't you know it, but the game's decided to give us just the right plane for the job.  We'll be going with napalm for this sortie, because all the targets are bunched up together, and it makes the level go by super fast.  You remember how Ace Combat 4 had an early mission involving bombing an airport? Good times.   : Aim for the control tower! Prevent the alarm!Sure thing, Chief, just so long as they don't-  Yeah, that.  I have never been able to do this mission without getting enemy reinforcements called on me. The radio tower is that radar dish-looking thing right there, I think, but before I can even get there, the planes always bust me. It's annoying.  On the plus side, all the structures and airplanes are lined up close together in an easily-bombable clump. A quick napalm sweep takes them out in short order.  As for the secondary targets, it's just about half a dozen SAMs in a perimeter around the site. This mission requires almost no flying at all.  That is quite a lot of planes though.  One refill later, we're already done, and thank goodness for that, since this mission only gives you about two and a half minutes to get it done in.   We are scary efficient at what we do. Coming Up: In a game about airplanes, we finally get an aerial target. I hope you're as excited as I am! F-E Talon II Speed/Air-to-Air/Air-to-Ground/Mobility/Speed: Take everything that the Talon did and add numbers to it. Doesn't matter what numbers, just add them. 40 Air-to-Air Heat Seeking Missiles 20 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 30 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 20 Precision Guided Bombs Analysis: Definitely an improvement over the original design. If the S rank planes didn't exist, this is the one that I think I'd be most comfortable using on a regular basis, since it does a good show at everything. UG-16 Hawk Speed: Eh. Air-to-Air: Not happening. Air-to-Ground: Best of all non-S Ranks. Mobility: Actually usable. Defense: Even sturdier than the last bomber. 40 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 60 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 20 Napalm Bombs 20 Precision Guided Bombs Analysis: Hope you like anti-ground, because that's all you're getting with this one. Unlike its embarrassing cousin with the same name, this guy's actually good for something, and that something is blowing stuff up.
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Oct 14, 2016 06:01
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nine-gear crow posted:I keep feeling like I need to apologize to you every time you post one of these updates, Blast. Well, if it's any consolation, the game only has 12 missions. We should have this thing wrapped up in 3-4 more updates.
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Oct 14, 2016 17:37
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Mission 8: The Bombers  Oh boy! This is the good mission! Nothing but flying around and blowing up planes left and right!  And what better machine for that kind of destruction than...well, to be frank, this sucker's good at everything.  Literally everything. There is nothing that the SI-40 cannot do in this game. And yet there's one more plane after it.  I'm sure there'll be some reason to use the last secret plane, but for now, we'll just have to wait and see.  Back in Dirt Land. Not that it matters much. We won't be seeing those tanks again.  Our goal is to prevent the enemy bombers from reaching a base in the middle of the map.  Which is their base, apparently? But the buildings in the base are white on the minimap and we can't shoot them. Wouldn't it make more sense for this to be the same base that we escorted a convoy to in Mission 6? Eh, whatever. To complain about the game's story, it actually has to have one to begin with.  So you might have noticed that we picked Cluster Missiles in the loadout screen. We haven't seen them yet in the game, but they're an anti-air shotgun that's about twice as powerful as a homing anti-air missile if all the shots hit. Naturally, the ordinary planes that we come across are far too small for this to occur, but what if there was a plane big enough to accommodate all four?  I think you know where I'm going with this.  In addition to the bombers, worth 250 a pop, there are boatloads of smaller planes for us to chew through. There are no anti-air defenses on this map to pester us. It's all bombers and planes.  There's a reason why I love this mission. Seeing as the engine doesn't allow real dogfighting, this is the closest you're going to get to it.  The biggest thing to watch out for on this mission is that the bombers move super slowly. Even the slowest planes in the game will catch up at drifting speed, and if you accidentally collide with one of them, it's an instant game over. On a machine like the SI-40, you're constantly in danger of flying up their tailpipe.  Already? But we still need 650 more points!  Eh, whatever. Plenty of time to just kill pilots for fun.  The cheering section approves.   Unfortunately, this was probably the high point of the game. It only goes downhill from here. Mission 9: Yamato   This mission sounds kind of familiar. Weren't we protecting an island from boats a few missions back?  On the plus side, this mission marks the last time we get a plane from story progression. It's...durable, I guess?  Napalm's straight out because this is a sea battle, so I guess we're going with the dummy-fire missiles.  Little did I know at the time, but the F-H Hunter II only has 20 of those. Oops!  No time for regrets. We've got boats to sink.  For some reason, the Chief starts giving us some kind of a timer. This is completely pointless, for reasons we'll soon see.  Here's the Yamato in question. Glad they took the time to create a unique sprite for this one mission. That's at least some effort.  Boats...this is exciting.  See, when the timer expires, they want you to sink the rest of the boats anyway. What's even the point?    Boats. Yeah. Coming Up: It's time for a stealth mission. I wish I was kidding. F-H Hunter II Speed: Pretty good Air-to-Air/Ground: Passable Mobility: Does it really matter anymore? Defense: Now we're talking! 20 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 20 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 20 Cluster Missiles 10 Napalm Bombs Analysis: This flying brick would probably be great for killing planes with your face, but its armaments make it ill-suited to basically anything. Just stick with the Talon II SI-40 Just look at those stats. It's ridiculous, I tell you. 40 Air-to-Air Heat Seeking Missiles 30 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 60 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles (!) 30 Cluster Missiles 20 Napalm Bombs 30 Precision Guided Bombs (!!) Analysis: Why are you even looking at other aircraft? Just pick this sucker and never look back.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:58
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Mission 10: Spy Game  This is different.  Unlike the rest of the missions in the game, Mission 10 does not give us control over the plane we get, nor do we get to see its stats beforehand. Therefore, for this spy mission, all I can give you is the plane's loadout specs. To whit: 60 Air-to-Air Heat-Seeking Missiles 40 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 30 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 40 Cluster Missiles 10 Napalm Bombs 10 Precision Guided Bombs Plus the plane seems to be pretty fast and it can take a sizable hit. Makes me wonder why, with a bird like this, the ASF's aircraft die so easily.  Still though, aircraft stealth. How's that even going to work?  Pretty easily, actually.  Turns out that all you have to fit in with this crazy division is not crash into or shoot at anything. As far as stealth goes, it's surprisingly inoffensive and straightforward.  So as the Chief said, our goal is to go to the waypoints on the map in order for structures to start showing up like they normally do. This chapter is just overflowing with one-off gimmicks.  This goes on for a while. There are about four or five different bases that we have to mark, and we have to be sure to find every single one.  Now pay attention to the timer here...  : Analysts found something! Repeat: turn back! Eliminate the targets!Yup! Not content to have us identify all the buildings in the game, we're now tasked with swinging right back around and blowing them to bits.  It's now allowed-nay, required-to blow our cover, so we can expect to fall under fire as normal.  As you might expect, an S rank requires us to destroy all the buildings on the map instead of just the targets. Business as usual.  If you're just going for the standard objective, you don't have to blow up a lot at all, but come on! What do people play Ace Combat for besides blowing up everything?   I hope you enjoyed that break from standard AC Advance gameplay, because the next mission is... Mission 11: The Oil Refinery   Not sure what they're refining since we destroyed their rigs, but sure.  On the plus side, we've got our last plane of the game, which is...oddly weak considering its predecessors.  Now you might be wondering why, with that stat spread and the lack of anti-air armaments, we'd use the F-A over the SI-40. Once you see the loadout at the end of this update, I think it'll all become clear.  As for the mission itself, let's just cut to the chase.  We bomb buildings.  A lot of buildings.  Also there are SAM sites.     Moving right along. Coming Up: It's the last mission of the game. There might even be a final boss. F-A Stealth "Fighter" Speed: Why is it this slow? Air-to-Air: By all rights, it shouldn't have anti-air at all. Air-to-Ground: Okay, at least this part makes sense. Mobility: Look at that design. How does it even turn at all? Defense: I thought the whole stealth thing was so it wouldn't get shot at. 50 Unguided Air-to-Ground Missiles 70 Homing Air-to-Ground Missiles 40 Cluster Missiles 30 Napalm Bombs 30 Precision Guided Bombs Analysis: So the big secret about this plane is that it has a lot of missiles. If you want to fly a mission and never reload, this would be the craft for the job. Otherwise, take the SI-40.
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Oct 23, 2016 23:19
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Mission 12: Finale You heard correctly, ladies and gents. This here is the final update of this LP.  After the basically one-sided thrashing we've been dealing them all game long, it's time for General Resource to up the ante.  They've even gone so far as to invest in one of those newfangled "Boss" things. This could be dangerous.   Seeing as this is the final mission, we'd best bring our A-game. It's time to fight bombs with somewhat smaller bombs!  Let's ride.  To think this will be the last time we fly above the frozen tundra. Or really, any kind of terrain.   Naturally, for this final mission, we'll be facing more ground targets than ever before. And if we want an S-rank, we'll have to get them all.  I'm sure if they could have managed it, they'd have snuck in some tanks and boats as well, but instead, we'll have to contend with our old classic staple of anti-air missiles and planes.  Here's one of the nukes, just casually sitting outside of its secure bunker because...Actually, why are they out like this?  Well obviously, it's so we can shoot them, but I mean in terms of the game's internal logic. Also, while you would assume that the nukes would have some extra health, what with being the last objective of the game, they're actually just as weak as any other structure. Go figure.  In order to satisfy the secondary objective, the game will require you to go out of your way to deal with these outlying structures as well. It's fortunate for them that I enjoy blowing stuff up.  Second base and plenty of time left. I completed this level once by diving down and destroying all the buildings with my gatling gun. That's how much time they give you. Now where's that boss...  Oh, hello! The Boss is in a giant plane kitted out with cluster missiles and has a ridiculous amount of health. He'd be a serious threat indeed if it weren't for one problem:  His dogfighting AI is absolute garbage.  I really don't think that he's supposed to just turn around and run away, but that's what ends up happening basically 100% of the time.  In fact, the only way to get him to do anything is to get in front of him, at which point, he'll turn and try to avoid you.  This is an important tactic because of one thing I neglected to mention: the game puts boundaries on the mission area in order to prevent the player from flying out too far, and if you pass it, it's an instant failure.  Generally if you see this message, it's because The Boss passed over the boundary line, which is usually a sign that you failed your S-rank.  But in this case, I just barely managed to eke out a victory.  After that nail-biting battle, all that's left is cleanup.  Turns out that GR Ltd only had three nukes in its arsenal, all concentrated in one area. Poor tactical planning, all told. Now, back to base.  Well, there's still the terms of surrender, dissolution of the company, federal hearings for the board of directors, and thousands of disgruntled ex-employees with piloting skills they could sell to the highest bidder...  But sure, I guess effectively that's the end of the war. Now it's time for the end credit-  Or just a static screen. That's good too. Right.  So what is there to say about this game? It's really frustrating at first when you have nothing but the slow and terrible planes, then it gets super easy and dull once you don't. The music's forgettable, you can count the fun objectives on a single hand... In short, I can't really think of any reason to recommend this game. Thanks to Nine-Gear Crow for getting me back in the Let's Playing mood, but man, was this a stinker. I'm just glad that I played it so that nobody else has to. Please, nobody play this game. Ever. And with that, THE LP IS OVER! See you, kids.
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Oct 31, 2016 04:00
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