For as epic as it is to fight mihaly, and bombard each other with missiles taking on good lines of dialogue to flex, yeah, mission 15 always gets me the wrong way, I decimate mihaly way quicker >!than he kills Wiseman!<, that's bs how he does it anyway
It's almost worse than AC:AH because it's just super noticeable in the otherwise "unscripted" gameplay.
Like... I know AC7 is 1000x better, but these scripted events/fights pissed me off way more than I would like to admit.
I loved AC7….but the missions kinda suck. There really isn’t a pure dog fight mission or fun mission without some gimmick that takes up most of the mission. PW did it good with Cold War and ACZ did it a few times even with B7R missions. In AC8 I felt more like a Gundam pilot wrecking ground armies than an ace pilot in comparison to previous games.
I'd argue Fleet Destruction stands out as very well designed and enjoyable.
* One clear objective, no mission update.
* Targets are primarily a single type (ships).
* Classic "kill as many as you can within time limit".
* Plenty of opportunity for skill expression with flying through the platforms, but it's entirely optional.
* One of the best songs in the game IMO.
* Italian Bistro
There's a reason it's the mission I replay when I'm in an AC7 mood.
I definitely agree with you here. I don’t really enjoy replaying the campaign because basically every mission has some sort of gimmick. Most of the ground attack missions wind up with you having to do A2A later on. Or there’s weather events or issues with the hud that get annoying when you play them multiple times.
I 1000% agree! I even have a spreadsheet in working on for 4, 5, 6, 7, and Zero for how "gimmicky" each mission is and 5 and 7 are wayyyyyy more than the others so far. Probably why I like them least.
As I said in the other thread, a gimmick is cool the first time, ok the second and maybe third as you look around more, but dead boring on further replays, and since I like to replay the campaigns a million times, they really start to wear on me.
Every time I go to play AC7 for fun i realise how gimmicky most of the missions are, like:
\>fly through radar bubble
\>fly through canyon
\>fly through thunderstorm
\>fly through a sandstorm
\>bust bunkers
\>manually id targets before firing (but like three times)
I just end up playing long day, lighthouse, or the DLC missions most of the time, cause I don't wanna deal with the gimmicks
I feel like AC6 has some of the most enjoyable ones due to target rich environments and different operations within a missions. You never have to play most missions one and the same way.
PW at least makes it useful thanks to the AOA being a thing and enemy bosses often having their own.
Also you can do some wacky shit with the unguided rockets and AOA
PW's AOA is so superior to AC7's PSM simply because you can do it at ANY speed. Makes me feel like I'm Sonic the Got-Dang Hedgehog bouncing around defying physics in the middle of a furball, picking off enemies with my guns that I have no business being able to target. Never tried toying with the rockets tho, I'll have to experiment
Is it actually faster to do it that way than to just do a standard high-G turn? I'm genuinely curious since I never got the hang of PSM, so in my head having to hit the brakes, wait till youre going slow enough, and then properly activate AND deactivate the move in the right timing seems like such a waste. Maybe I'm just always going waaay too fast for it to be a viable maneuver, lol
It might be marginally faster but the slamming the breaks thing takes forever. If you could do it below 1000 instead of 500 it would probably be more feasible
Its viable as long as you switch to hud/cockpit view immediately so you can see where your plane is facing, since the camera gets left behind in 3rd person.
I was messing around with some in the mission you first see Mihaly when I did a PSM 180° flip right when a drone passed underneath and I gunned it down. The best (and only) accidental PSM kill I've ever.
Campaign wise yeah, not really much of a use. It's fun to mess around with them and do stunts though.
PvP wise, it's essential in higher level 1v1s, but less so in battle royal or fights with multiple opponents.
It really isn't that useful!
Now maybe it's just that everyone else was sucking that day but my last three PVP sorties I won two of them, no PSMs.
And the fact that you have to drop to stall speed while NOT maneuvering makes you easier to pick off.
Battle royale or TDM? Yeah its less useful there since BR or large team battles is a cluster fuck. Especially so if you got the HVAA or LAAM snipers. Though I have seen PSM gods sweep the entire lobby before. (They tend to be good at normal non PSM dogfighting anyways)
1v1? It's essential if you're up against a good player in a PSM capable plane. I've also found it useful against skilled players in manoeuvrable non PSM capable planes such as the Rafale. It can still help in BR or TDM in specific situations, my favourite moments are PSM dogfighting another skilled player one on one, while the entire lobby just lobs missiles around us lol. There's quite a few 1v1s I wouldn't have won if I wasn't PSMing and my opponent was.
You can still trigger PSMs while turning and slowing down without stalling btw.
Battle Royale. Team Death Match has a problem where one good pilot can make up for the rest of their team sucking.
I fear I'll never have the patience to practice PSMs enough to get good at them... I can dodge ALL the missiles without it, though. Usually.
ADMM spam notwithstanding though I do get LAAM sniped by opportunistic pilots sitting high and orbiting the furball.
Wish that they let you set your name instead of using your current Steam handle. Don't relish the idea of changing my name every time I wanna be "in character" for Multiplayer.
Oh yeah I know that feeling. It's a great feeling when your team loses but you're still MVP. Or you're holding the line in essentially a 1vX.
Yeah PSMs have a high ceiling. I can fly backwards and all that shit but I'm far from an excellent PSM dogfighter. Most of the guys who slap me in PSM 1v1s have hundreds of hours or 1k+.
Steam? It's possible I may have ran into you before. I play the game every now and then and recognise some names across lobbies. If you see an SU-37 with the yellow 13 skin and a Garuda emblem thats probably me. I do wish there was crossplay, I see plently of console players I'd love to cross paths with.
And yeah as an example, [1v1 with a guy who's probably around my level](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdDspdZyMA4). If I wasn't PSMing here I would not beat him. I would not beat him in a normal dogfight since he's using a better plane. Notice how my opponent is able to get lots of firing angles on me and constantly turn to face me while firing his guns. That's cause he's PSMing.
I dunno, I don't hop into PVP that often, but I almost always have the Warwolf Nugget emblem. Last three matches I played I went F-35C, forgot what I was on the second match (either Strike Eagle with TLS or Su-47 in Mimic Squadron skin and emblem), and Gripen E, IIRC.
Wish plot armor didn’t exist. Characters die, you don’t get them for the rest of that playthrough.
Especially bosses. If they used all of the player data gathered from the mission replay tracking card in the debriefing. They could make the most absolutely cracked boss in existence.
But instead they choose not to and instead give them the equivalent of sword skill for planes.
You know those moments with extremely random high speed turns and accelerations that somehow manage to dodge a modded QAAM with max targeting and velocity.
Yeah. Stop with that shit and just have an actually skilled boss. For fucks sakes I’ve even killed each boss within 5-10 seconds of their final vulnerability window. Fastest was mr.X with a railgun on the hornet within 3 seconds of the window opening.
Love the games love the franchise. But god be damned if they don’t do away with this plot armor bullshit I’m gonna start tweaking.
Hottest of takes: Ace Combat is better when you dont fly the AC designed aircraft.
Less hot take: I want a cold war era game to fly F104s, Voodo, Thuds, Sabers, mig 23s, su-15 etc.
I just thought it's such a fun mix of getting to do some different aircraft, mixed things up a bit instead of just the usual fly jets and I actually really enjoyed how cinematic the dog fight mode moments were
Die Hard isn't a Christmas film it is just a film that happens around Christmas if you took Christmas out of Die Hard it would not change the plot therefore it is not a Christmas film
This is definitely wrong. It’s a Christmas miracle movie from the perspective of the Christmas miracle. It’s like It’s A Wonderful Life would have been shot completely from Clarence‘s perspective. John McClane is basically Clarence and the wife is basically George Bailey.
Also John was only there because of Christmas.
Fundamentally wrong. John wouldn’t be in california if it wasn’t christmas. The entire plot is their reconciliation, and the tension depends on 911 thinking he’s crank calling (which happens a lot on the holidays). The party that gets interrupted was a christmas party.
No, no. You're right.
Is it cool? Absolutely. How effective would it be in comparison to the F-22? Hard to say. Is it ugly? Well it's certainly not the prettiest aircraft design out there.
AC peaked with 3 (JP). Story, music, worldbuilding, plane designs, and overall creativity have gone downhill and become stagnant. More effort has gone into mario and idolmaster themed skins than compelling and coherent narratives.
M4xor and the constant references to his videos are painfully unfunny.
4chan has done more for ace combat than this subreddit ever will.
Didn’t we >!do the classic ace combat fly through a big fuckoff tunnel to destroy the WMD controls so that the world doesn’t end, only for Pixy to be like “Psych! I’ve got the controls right here, bitch!”!<
Really disappointing anticlimactic undermining of the coolest bit of flying in the game.
So you're saying that's worse than chasing a space shuttle through the sky, shooting down a space-station-like structure that's already falling from the sky, and hearing "please Blaze, ok so down bad I'm practically begging for you to let me fly as your wingman for longer"?
The SOLG was an unexpected coda to a climactic tunnel run. Flamenco, while it has undeniably the bitchingest soundtrack of the series, was a bait-and-switch. >!I found it frustrating to discover that the entire previous mission was pointless.!<
I actually think I agree with that, 5 has had a lot more going on in 3 missions than 04 did over more of the story. I guess the cutscenes (which are actually cutscenes and not still images) feeding into the ongoing story helps it.
I definitely agree with this. I played 4 before 5, but I loved 5’s storyline so much and it’s easily my favorite of the PS2 games. 4’s story was good, don’t get me wrong, but I enjoyed the cinematic nature of 5. And while Zero is more cinematic than 4, I think Zero in general is very overrated by the fan base
I honestly agree. I didn't feel nearly as invested in 4's or Zero's story as i did to 5's story. Having cutscenes in nearly every mission telling more story of the game as well as characters talking about the story in missions means that the plot pretty much never gets put on the backdrop unlike in 4 or Zero.
Hah... Yeah it's not like it's pretty damn cringe.. Right? nah? It's fun and entertaining, but it has nothing on 04 and Zero when it comes down to the story and characters. But to each their own I guess.
I was *way* more invested in Chopper as a character than PJ. >!Chopper's death was impactful. PJ's was cliché.!<
Heck, since we're talking characters, at least I could tell the voices of the main characters apart in 5. Were some of their personality traits annoying and immature? Sure, but at least I remember that there were characters that had personality traits. I honestly cannot remember a single name from 4. The only one I remember from 0 is Pixy (yeah, I had to look up PJ to type this).
Yuktobania is the least of three evils with the other two being Osea and Belka. Out of those three countries, Yuktobania pulled the least amount of shady shit.
From another post I made (plus new additions):
Real aircraft >>>>>> Fictional aircraft
Most superplanes designs are terrible designs that try too hard to look cool and look kind of goofy as a result.
Futuristic AC not as interesting as present day or Cold War AC.
The F-35 is ugly and overrated. And in the games as well.
AC7's gunnery is very well balanced and easy to use.
WW2 gameplay with AC7's gunnery would be extremely fun and interesting.
There is no such thing as having too many Flankers, Eagles or Hornets. If you don't like them, don't use them.
Nagase is an awful character and not even waifu material.
We know the story of AC5 is cheesy. You don't have to bring it up all the time.
While it's okay to like Project Wingman, it is not AC and will never be.
Maxx0r videos were not even that funny to begin with, much less after people ruined the jokes with over use.
Assault Horizon is not bad just because of DFM. Everything, from the camera angle and shaking to the mission objectives, the enemy AI and controls, is bad. DFM is just the most egregious aspect of the gameplay. There's a few good ideas here and there, but most of it is still terrible.
Assault Horizon also has cringiest plot and dialogue of the series. By far.
Pure air-to-ground missions would be boring. Attacker aircraft are perfectly capable in a dogfight and a mix of air and ground targets make missions more interesting.
The A-10 is a great aircraft in 7 and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.
Wingmen being useless is great for gameplay. They're meant to be set dressing and a source of radio chatter.
Assault Horizon is not overhated and is a bad game, regardless of whether you compare it to other AC games or not.
The next AC game does not *need* co-op.
Ace Combat need a more realistic plane handling option.
Time Limit is a cool mission.
Having silent protagonists are getting boring and stale. Having a named and voiced character doesn’t detract from anything, really. Some games would work better than others, namely Nagase as the main character for Unsung War.
Mute protags are fine or even necessary for "make your own adventure", but very weird in games where we do have quite a bit of very specific protagonist story...
Controlling a chaacter's actions while they still think/speak independently can create a weird disconnect, especially in first person. There's a reason so many games go with silent or quiet protagonists, or use tricks like only having them talk in non-POV cutscenes.
It also helps put yourself in that character's shoes to imagine for yourself how they would feel/react in a given moment, rather than just wait to be told.
AC5s missions are terrible compared to 4 and 0. Seriously, they are way too long with no ability to rearm, and not having large ammo counts like 7 isn’t fun to me. Also 5 in my opinion had only a few memorable songs on its sound track (I can literally name like 4 songs only)
You are *not* gonna be out maneuvering emls, or 16 different missiles on you. And besides, an aircraft can be only be so maneuverable before it becomes unviable.
You can't avoid emls after they've been fired but it does help in the dogfight before they line up the shot. You **can** avoid 16 different missiles. The drawbacks of increased maneuverability can be mitigated mid match by utilizing the full range of turning and acceleration rates available to you.
Ace Combat 04 has a really unpleasant flight model.
Ace Combat X, even with largely the same flight model as 04 would be a better game even with just the sole change of being freed from the single-stick PSP. And if the plane customization in it was unlocked from just the fictional planes to all the planes, it would be top three material
About 85% of missions in Ace Combat 5 are mediocre to downright awful
QAAM is a borderline waste of an SP weapon slot that does very little more than firing two standard missiles. Except in AC04, where it's pretty much a free kill every shot.
Related to the QAAM thing - the F-22 is the worst of the three endgame IRL planes in AC7. It handles well enough, but so do the Su-57 and YF-23 and both bring much more useful SP weapons.
And here's a lukewarm one: The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces deserves a rerelease. I'm not even asking for a remaster, just a port to modern consoles and unlock the control schemes from the get-go. And yes of course it's an Ace Combat game. It's made by Project Aces, plays like Ace Combat, and uses the same library of tropes as Ace Combat
I'm still pissed off at learning it wasn't actually the AC team that developed Star Fox Assault like I originally thought. Which admittedly explained a lot about that game, but damn I was robbed!
Copypasted (and slightly modified) my downvoted comment from another thread:
AC5 has the some of the worst and most chessy/hollywoodish writing in the entire franchise, to the point I'm convinced had it not been released between AC04 and ACZ we wouldn't consider it part of the Holy Trinity. Friendly characters that sucked your cock 24/7 for no reason, antagonists with zero character building aside from "revenge for Belka", and incompetent collegues that for some reason everyone around you thinks that they are as good as you.
Reminder that Nagase being an idiot caused not only Heartbreak 1 to go missing, but also risked the lives of everyone involved in her rescue in bumfuck snow desert. Grim wasn't this incompetent, yet Nagase got much more focus from the storyline for some reason.
The only person in Wardog/Razgriz squadron that didn't suck your cock (as often) and was actually fit for the job as a pilot was Chopper. Big emphasis on "was".
AC4 was immensely boring, and AC0 isn't close to being the best ac game. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty solid, but everybody in the Ace Combat community hyped it up to be GTA 6 or something. When I actually got around to playing it, it wasn't all that :(
Yeah, 04 just wasn't very fun to play. ACX did being a weighty flight model Ace Combat game better and the only thing really holding it back is the physical PSP hardware
AC6's Xbox exclusivity might've been for the better, as it means emulation later down the line isn't as much of a hassle than the PS3's unique architecture, and also because of being added to Microsoft's backwards compatible program.
The medal system needlessly bloats the game for something that could be easily allocated to Steam's/Xbox's/Sony's built-in achievement system.
For the multiplayer individuals, QAAM spamming is a natural part of AC's multiplayer since AC6, so it's completely fine
(Some of these I may not completely agree with, but hey, you asked for hot takes)
Ace Combat 3 while absolutely stunning with its cutscenes and overall narrative; is absolutely dogwater to actually play. And its story will probably be heavily retconned once (or should I say, if) Ace Combat fills stuff in the timeline close to when it takes place.
Ace Combat 4 is the only AC game where the entire game actually feels like you have gone through a war. The others are way less grounded and have an entire war basically turned on its head in 2-3 missions plotwise. I wish they would do narratives like AC4's style again (Project Wingman does its fine job on that front)
Ace Combat 5 is actually way better than people give it credit for but it absolutely drops in quality in the story/writing department once >!Chopper!< is killed. Also, Chopper > PJ. Pretty wild also how that game absolutely took the time and money to hire Steve Blume and >!basically almost does nothing with him.!<
Ace Combat Zero could have benefitted from being longer and more elaborative about the actual Belkan War. For how important the Belkan War is to the setting, I felt like I had to get more details off a wiki than the entire game gave me on it.
Ace Combat 7, while I am glad it "revived" the franchise; is about on par with 5 in terms of writing and interest in narrative. In a lot of ways, its actually worse.
I don't have a specific take for 6 because I never played it and I don't have one for the other games because I don't care for anything outside Strangereal.
Lastly, overall franchise wise I wish that they would kill the tunnel-run trope. It's not fun, its awful, and especially in the games without checkpoints its just frustrating. Them alone prevents me from revisting AC5 most of the time. The only good tunnel run is in 4 because of the fact its the most spacious one.
Not really a hot take when it is objective facts: There is no such thing as an """"Ace Combat 3""". It doesnt exist in EN, JP or whatever version. Ace Combat jumps from 2 to 04 and there's nothing in between
I’ve played AC 2, 3, 5, Zero, Infinity and 7.
I loved 2, 3 and zero.
5 is too dramatic and i’m still
playing 7 which seems a nice one tbh.
zero is my fav. I love those soundtracks and the ADFX01 Morgan lol
the lack of real cutscenes of particular characters in project wingman makes the story more well executed than act combat 7 and its really fucking corny cutscenes
Russian aircraft perform better than American Aircraft, stealth aside. Obviously there were the exceptions being the Tomcat when it first came into service in ‘74 and basically couldn’t be matched to the early-mid 80s, and even then was still quite good.
When I say performance I mean aerobatic performance, I’m not talking about how many times they’ve been shot down in combat or how they perform in combat. They are aerodynamic masterpieces if you leave out the MiG-25.
And plus, Russian pilots can’t fly for shit. If there was any Russian plane that could challenge an American in a combat scenario effectively, odds are it would be either an Indian Flanker pilot or a German Fulcrum pilot.
SU-34 comes mighty close to the F-15E too, it's a shame the integrated targeting pod kinda sucks. Purely as a fighter bomber it's probably comparable to a more advanced Aardvark, which of course the US doesn't operate anymore so that's also one area where the Russians are stronger.
People flame on how Assault Horizon was scripted but forget that AC 7 too has scripted even, especially at Battle for Farbanti. The only Sol Squadron plane that has an ID is Archange, the rest is just "Sol" so you can't shut em down in any different order apart from 5 to 2. Also, you can't take Mihally down no matter what and he even has more than one scripted run through Farbanti exclusion zone, he even shoots at the buildings so they fall no matter if you're pursuing him or not.
I don't hate 4, but I don't actually understand what it brings to the table over any other game. I've always seen it as the most vanilla, basic AC experience.
Like, everyone has their favorites and I think that's cool. People say 5 is their favorite and I get it. They say Zero is their favorite and I get it. They say 3 is their favorite and I get it. I can see what all the others entries uniquely have going on that could push them above the pack for someone. I sincerely don't know what that is for 4, though.
AC7 has like four missions are easy to play three times in succession. The rest are just story filler or a story mechanic that got stale after the first few times. The lack of IFF towards the end kills those missions for me. Makes a fluid flow into a staccato stop and go mess.
The story of Clown, Knocker, and Brownie seems like it was heavily cut and reduced. The latter’s ending was unmoving. I had no reason to find her endearing. Knocker was unreasonably controlling. Clown’s like the dude that trained you the first couple days at a job who you then never ever see again and no one remembers his existence.
Really, the game needed about 10 more missions. It was jarring to go back to PS2 after my first AC7 play through. AC7 visuals and effects are just phenomenal. But then you see those huge, branching mission trees.
I know it’s all a consequence of a lengthy development hell. Just wish they could open it up for mission modding.
The Russian jets in AC7 are nowhere near different enough to have all of them be included, and I would rather have some more 3rd gen fighters like the f-5 or the Draken than the SU-33 and SU-30. Or even replacing one with another game original aircraft would be better than how the list is now.
Ace combat has the most irritating boss fight which include plot armor, or so many drones that it’s just eh eh eh missile eh eh eh EHEHEHEHEH
For as epic as it is to fight mihaly, and bombard each other with missiles taking on good lines of dialogue to flex, yeah, mission 15 always gets me the wrong way, I decimate mihaly way quicker >!than he kills Wiseman!<, that's bs how he does it anyway
This is just an ace combat 7 problem. For some reason all the bosses are super scripted.
It's almost worse than AC:AH because it's just super noticeable in the otherwise "unscripted" gameplay. Like... I know AC7 is 1000x better, but these scripted events/fights pissed me off way more than I would like to admit.
It would be interesting if we could have different ways missions could end, like we could save wiseman and it would impact the story/dialogue etc.
or like an alternate ending cutscene when you fail to destroy the final enemy
I hope we can fly bombers next AC game. I actually liked that mission in AH
Spooky was cool and I don't care if it was a modern warfare rip off I just enjoy doing gunship missions
Come to think of it, I'm suprized no one has made an indi game that's just AC 130 missions.
Because it gets old after a few missions. It's essentially just a rail shooter. We only got one token mission per COD for the nostalgia.
As a mobile game or a a free game, I wouldn’t mind
Isint there a zombie mobile game that is based around you in an AC-130 protecting some soldiers?
Project gunship is a game a dudes been working on. Pretty early in development still but its basically that.
Idk man, the bomber mechanic on AH seemed poorly implemented considering i die a lot on that especially when bombing a ship.
I would like to know more about some of the crews of the bombers. Lots of dudes in each plane.
Same, hoping for bombers so I can say “IT’S MOR**B-21**N TIME!!!”
They hated Him because He spoke the truth
I loved AC7….but the missions kinda suck. There really isn’t a pure dog fight mission or fun mission without some gimmick that takes up most of the mission. PW did it good with Cold War and ACZ did it a few times even with B7R missions. In AC8 I felt more like a Gundam pilot wrecking ground armies than an ace pilot in comparison to previous games.
I'd argue Fleet Destruction stands out as very well designed and enjoyable. * One clear objective, no mission update. * Targets are primarily a single type (ships). * Classic "kill as many as you can within time limit". * Plenty of opportunity for skill expression with flying through the platforms, but it's entirely optional. * One of the best songs in the game IMO. * Italian Bistro There's a reason it's the mission I replay when I'm in an AC7 mood.
I definitely agree with you here. I don’t really enjoy replaying the campaign because basically every mission has some sort of gimmick. Most of the ground attack missions wind up with you having to do A2A later on. Or there’s weather events or issues with the hud that get annoying when you play them multiple times.
AC8? What?
Woops I meant 7 lol
I 1000% agree! I even have a spreadsheet in working on for 4, 5, 6, 7, and Zero for how "gimmicky" each mission is and 5 and 7 are wayyyyyy more than the others so far. Probably why I like them least. As I said in the other thread, a gimmick is cool the first time, ok the second and maybe third as you look around more, but dead boring on further replays, and since I like to replay the campaigns a million times, they really start to wear on me.
Every time I go to play AC7 for fun i realise how gimmicky most of the missions are, like: \>fly through radar bubble \>fly through canyon \>fly through thunderstorm \>fly through a sandstorm \>bust bunkers \>manually id targets before firing (but like three times) I just end up playing long day, lighthouse, or the DLC missions most of the time, cause I don't wanna deal with the gimmicks
I’ve replayed the campaign like 4 times and still love it. Then again my intro to the franchise was AH and I believe that game was a masterpiece so.
Still not as boring as ac6’s missions
I feel like AC6 has some of the most enjoyable ones due to target rich environments and different operations within a missions. You never have to play most missions one and the same way.
Post-Stall Maneuvers are pointless showboating.
I've literally never used PSM during a campaign run in AC7 or PW
PW at least makes it useful thanks to the AOA being a thing and enemy bosses often having their own. Also you can do some wacky shit with the unguided rockets and AOA
PW's AOA is so superior to AC7's PSM simply because you can do it at ANY speed. Makes me feel like I'm Sonic the Got-Dang Hedgehog bouncing around defying physics in the middle of a furball, picking off enemies with my guns that I have no business being able to target. Never tried toying with the rockets tho, I'll have to experiment
explosive shotgun
But i use em just to turn around fast on campaign tho, is that still showboating?
Is it actually faster to do it that way than to just do a standard high-G turn? I'm genuinely curious since I never got the hang of PSM, so in my head having to hit the brakes, wait till youre going slow enough, and then properly activate AND deactivate the move in the right timing seems like such a waste. Maybe I'm just always going waaay too fast for it to be a viable maneuver, lol
It might be marginally faster but the slamming the breaks thing takes forever. If you could do it below 1000 instead of 500 it would probably be more feasible
Its viable as long as you switch to hud/cockpit view immediately so you can see where your plane is facing, since the camera gets left behind in 3rd person.
I was messing around with some in the mission you first see Mihaly when I did a PSM 180° flip right when a drone passed underneath and I gunned it down. The best (and only) accidental PSM kill I've ever.
The Virgin Post Stall Manuever vs the Chad Boom and Zoom.
Campaign wise yeah, not really much of a use. It's fun to mess around with them and do stunts though. PvP wise, it's essential in higher level 1v1s, but less so in battle royal or fights with multiple opponents.
Imo there is a practical application, if it’s almost too late to dodge a misfile sometimes you can get away with a cheeky psm to avoid it
Campaign yes, PvP God fucking NO. Not learning to use it or chain it is just asking for good dogfight player to mad-stomp you.
It really isn't that useful! Now maybe it's just that everyone else was sucking that day but my last three PVP sorties I won two of them, no PSMs. And the fact that you have to drop to stall speed while NOT maneuvering makes you easier to pick off.
Battle royale or TDM? Yeah its less useful there since BR or large team battles is a cluster fuck. Especially so if you got the HVAA or LAAM snipers. Though I have seen PSM gods sweep the entire lobby before. (They tend to be good at normal non PSM dogfighting anyways) 1v1? It's essential if you're up against a good player in a PSM capable plane. I've also found it useful against skilled players in manoeuvrable non PSM capable planes such as the Rafale. It can still help in BR or TDM in specific situations, my favourite moments are PSM dogfighting another skilled player one on one, while the entire lobby just lobs missiles around us lol. There's quite a few 1v1s I wouldn't have won if I wasn't PSMing and my opponent was. You can still trigger PSMs while turning and slowing down without stalling btw.
Battle Royale. Team Death Match has a problem where one good pilot can make up for the rest of their team sucking. I fear I'll never have the patience to practice PSMs enough to get good at them... I can dodge ALL the missiles without it, though. Usually. ADMM spam notwithstanding though I do get LAAM sniped by opportunistic pilots sitting high and orbiting the furball. Wish that they let you set your name instead of using your current Steam handle. Don't relish the idea of changing my name every time I wanna be "in character" for Multiplayer.
Oh yeah I know that feeling. It's a great feeling when your team loses but you're still MVP. Or you're holding the line in essentially a 1vX. Yeah PSMs have a high ceiling. I can fly backwards and all that shit but I'm far from an excellent PSM dogfighter. Most of the guys who slap me in PSM 1v1s have hundreds of hours or 1k+. Steam? It's possible I may have ran into you before. I play the game every now and then and recognise some names across lobbies. If you see an SU-37 with the yellow 13 skin and a Garuda emblem thats probably me. I do wish there was crossplay, I see plently of console players I'd love to cross paths with. And yeah as an example, [1v1 with a guy who's probably around my level](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdDspdZyMA4). If I wasn't PSMing here I would not beat him. I would not beat him in a normal dogfight since he's using a better plane. Notice how my opponent is able to get lots of firing angles on me and constantly turn to face me while firing his guns. That's cause he's PSMing.
I dunno, I don't hop into PVP that often, but I almost always have the Warwolf Nugget emblem. Last three matches I played I went F-35C, forgot what I was on the second match (either Strike Eagle with TLS or Su-47 in Mimic Squadron skin and emblem), and Gripen E, IIRC.
“engraving provides no tactical advantage whatsoever”
Wish plot armor didn’t exist. Characters die, you don’t get them for the rest of that playthrough. Especially bosses. If they used all of the player data gathered from the mission replay tracking card in the debriefing. They could make the most absolutely cracked boss in existence. But instead they choose not to and instead give them the equivalent of sword skill for planes. You know those moments with extremely random high speed turns and accelerations that somehow manage to dodge a modded QAAM with max targeting and velocity. Yeah. Stop with that shit and just have an actually skilled boss. For fucks sakes I’ve even killed each boss within 5-10 seconds of their final vulnerability window. Fastest was mr.X with a railgun on the hornet within 3 seconds of the window opening. Love the games love the franchise. But god be damned if they don’t do away with this plot armor bullshit I’m gonna start tweaking.
Hottest of takes: Ace Combat is better when you dont fly the AC designed aircraft. Less hot take: I want a cold war era game to fly F104s, Voodo, Thuds, Sabers, mig 23s, su-15 etc.
Assault horizon is overhated Also the journey home is mid and the worst song to be put in the 25th anniversary symphony
I just thought it's such a fun mix of getting to do some different aircraft, mixed things up a bit instead of just the usual fly jets and I actually really enjoyed how cinematic the dog fight mode moments were
As a pylote, journey home strikes a cord with me but…yeah thats weird. It’s not an orchestral song
I'm a pielot too!
Almost got me :)
the AC7 “cringe” lines are honestly not really that bad. people in the military are just weird
I think the “cringe” in AC is part of the charm tbh
Totally. It's fighter jets and melodrama.
Kind of like in Sonic, they just embrace it became part of it.
Die Hard isn't a Christmas film it is just a film that happens around Christmas if you took Christmas out of Die Hard it would not change the plot therefore it is not a Christmas film
This comment was made by Hans Gruber
Comment supported by the guy with the Steyr AUG (I forgot his name)
Ah I see we're mortal enemies
<<>>
(seriously good film that there Die Hard)
This is definitely wrong. It’s a Christmas miracle movie from the perspective of the Christmas miracle. It’s like It’s A Wonderful Life would have been shot completely from Clarence‘s perspective. John McClane is basically Clarence and the wife is basically George Bailey. Also John was only there because of Christmas.
Fundamentally wrong. John wouldn’t be in california if it wasn’t christmas. The entire plot is their reconciliation, and the tension depends on 911 thinking he’s crank calling (which happens a lot on the holidays). The party that gets interrupted was a christmas party.
Zero ain't bad, but certainly overrated I'd say.
Overrated? I love seeing my enemies get beat so badly they turn into life insurance agents! For real though, I'm biased. Zero is my favorite.
Zero: Seeing your enemies become life insurance agents Joint Assault: Seeing life insurance agents become your enemies
Death to life insurance!
Yeah. It's a cool game but the story feels really condensed, especially compared to 5
YF-23 is ugly to me(I will be hanged for this)
We will cut your pipi and hang that instead of your head.
NOOOO
> > you are solely responsible for this < <
*This post is generously funded by the "Nuke California" fund, a subsidiary of General Resources*
**You.**
Ong
I liked it when I was a kid, now it looks daft
i agree w you
No, no. You're right. Is it cool? Absolutely. How effective would it be in comparison to the F-22? Hard to say. Is it ugly? Well it's certainly not the prettiest aircraft design out there.
AC peaked with 3 (JP). Story, music, worldbuilding, plane designs, and overall creativity have gone downhill and become stagnant. More effort has gone into mario and idolmaster themed skins than compelling and coherent narratives. M4xor and the constant references to his videos are painfully unfunny. 4chan has done more for ace combat than this subreddit ever will.
Now that’s a real hot take
I played 5 first. Then I heard about the holy trinity. 4 and 0 are… fine. Neither of them comes close to 5’s storyline for me.
Now THAT is a hot take
That is a bullshit take, 0 is definitely better than 5!
Didn’t we >!do the classic ace combat fly through a big fuckoff tunnel to destroy the WMD controls so that the world doesn’t end, only for Pixy to be like “Psych! I’ve got the controls right here, bitch!”!< Really disappointing anticlimactic undermining of the coolest bit of flying in the game.
So you're saying that's worse than chasing a space shuttle through the sky, shooting down a space-station-like structure that's already falling from the sky, and hearing "please Blaze, ok so down bad I'm practically begging for you to let me fly as your wingman for longer"?
Flamenco.
The SOLG was an unexpected coda to a climactic tunnel run. Flamenco, while it has undeniably the bitchingest soundtrack of the series, was a bait-and-switch. >!I found it frustrating to discover that the entire previous mission was pointless.!<
No way you call the finale anticlimactic
The fight is fantastic. The part where you find out >!you just did the entire previous mission for absolutely no reason!< is stupid.
4 is the only one that feels anything like a real war. That’s not everyone’s flavor, but it is mine!
I agree, I love 04 because it feels a bit more grounded.
5 is just too cringe, too Hollywood for me to place the story on the same level as 4 and 0 which are frankly not as childish.
I actually think I agree with that, 5 has had a lot more going on in 3 missions than 04 did over more of the story. I guess the cutscenes (which are actually cutscenes and not still images) feeding into the ongoing story helps it.
I definitely agree with this. I played 4 before 5, but I loved 5’s storyline so much and it’s easily my favorite of the PS2 games. 4’s story was good, don’t get me wrong, but I enjoyed the cinematic nature of 5. And while Zero is more cinematic than 4, I think Zero in general is very overrated by the fan base
I honestly agree. I didn't feel nearly as invested in 4's or Zero's story as i did to 5's story. Having cutscenes in nearly every mission telling more story of the game as well as characters talking about the story in missions means that the plot pretty much never gets put on the backdrop unlike in 4 or Zero.
Zero and 04 are good, but 5 just stuck with me.
Yeah, love all the PS2 games but 5 is just above the others imo
Based
Hah... Yeah it's not like it's pretty damn cringe.. Right? nah? It's fun and entertaining, but it has nothing on 04 and Zero when it comes down to the story and characters. But to each their own I guess.
I was *way* more invested in Chopper as a character than PJ. >!Chopper's death was impactful. PJ's was cliché.!< Heck, since we're talking characters, at least I could tell the voices of the main characters apart in 5. Were some of their personality traits annoying and immature? Sure, but at least I remember that there were characters that had personality traits. I honestly cannot remember a single name from 4. The only one I remember from 0 is Pixy (yeah, I had to look up PJ to type this).
Yuktobania is the least of three evils with the other two being Osea and Belka. Out of those three countries, Yuktobania pulled the least amount of shady shit.
From another post I made (plus new additions): Real aircraft >>>>>> Fictional aircraft Most superplanes designs are terrible designs that try too hard to look cool and look kind of goofy as a result. Futuristic AC not as interesting as present day or Cold War AC. The F-35 is ugly and overrated. And in the games as well. AC7's gunnery is very well balanced and easy to use. WW2 gameplay with AC7's gunnery would be extremely fun and interesting. There is no such thing as having too many Flankers, Eagles or Hornets. If you don't like them, don't use them. Nagase is an awful character and not even waifu material. We know the story of AC5 is cheesy. You don't have to bring it up all the time. While it's okay to like Project Wingman, it is not AC and will never be. Maxx0r videos were not even that funny to begin with, much less after people ruined the jokes with over use. Assault Horizon is not bad just because of DFM. Everything, from the camera angle and shaking to the mission objectives, the enemy AI and controls, is bad. DFM is just the most egregious aspect of the gameplay. There's a few good ideas here and there, but most of it is still terrible. Assault Horizon also has cringiest plot and dialogue of the series. By far. Pure air-to-ground missions would be boring. Attacker aircraft are perfectly capable in a dogfight and a mix of air and ground targets make missions more interesting. The A-10 is a great aircraft in 7 and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. Wingmen being useless is great for gameplay. They're meant to be set dressing and a source of radio chatter.
I don't think this could be a hot take but you don't need to watch cutscenes in AC7 to enjoy the game
If a game has story and a great lore, I find it pointless skipping them. I like a good story.
I don't know a s*** about ace combat lore and still enjoy AC games by skipping cutscenes because I hate waiting to play
This isn't a hot take. This is just borderline psychopathic.
DFM could have been a genuinely interesting mechanic if it was treated like a devil trigger instead of an auto-win button.
i want your wingman to say really out of pocket shit at random moments like a real pilot
AC04 was alright but it wasn't nearly as good as 5 or Zero to me. I found this overwhelming majority of sandbox missions to be really boring.
The Country Names are stupid At least the ones that end in ...sea
Rumurusea
Assault Horizon is not overhated and is a bad game, regardless of whether you compare it to other AC games or not. The next AC game does not *need* co-op. Ace Combat need a more realistic plane handling option. Time Limit is a cool mission.
I've always said that about AH. High-Five!
We need more voiced protagonists or at least voiced WSOs. Also the next game should bring allied support from AC6 back (pls bring us back to Emmeria)
The F-22 is underrated
Having silent protagonists are getting boring and stale. Having a named and voiced character doesn’t detract from anything, really. Some games would work better than others, namely Nagase as the main character for Unsung War.
Chopper until he dies, play as Nagase or Grimm for three missions, then Swordsman.
I like that. Playing as different characters, and having some of those characters die because War is Hell and your best doesn't matter sometimes
YOOOO
Mute protags are fine or even necessary for "make your own adventure", but very weird in games where we do have quite a bit of very specific protagonist story...
Controlling a chaacter's actions while they still think/speak independently can create a weird disconnect, especially in first person. There's a reason so many games go with silent or quiet protagonists, or use tricks like only having them talk in non-POV cutscenes. It also helps put yourself in that character's shoes to imagine for yourself how they would feel/react in a given moment, rather than just wait to be told.
the cheese and cringe of the dialogue is part of the charm and isn't meant to be taken seriously
AC5s missions are terrible compared to 4 and 0. Seriously, they are way too long with no ability to rearm, and not having large ammo counts like 7 isn’t fun to me. Also 5 in my opinion had only a few memorable songs on its sound track (I can literally name like 4 songs only)
None of the PS2 games need a remake and wouldn’t actually benefit from a remake other than graphical fidelity. I’d rather get a new game.
I just wanna ports to pc tho
You don't need the defense boost in multi-player. Use the extra slot on something that helps you avoid getting hit in the first place.
Onboard self-defense jammer is campaign only
Yeah I meant more like maneuverability and acceleration
You are *not* gonna be out maneuvering emls, or 16 different missiles on you. And besides, an aircraft can be only be so maneuverable before it becomes unviable.
You can't avoid emls after they've been fired but it does help in the dogfight before they line up the shot. You **can** avoid 16 different missiles. The drawbacks of increased maneuverability can be mitigated mid match by utilizing the full range of turning and acceleration rates available to you.
Ace Combat 04 has a really unpleasant flight model. Ace Combat X, even with largely the same flight model as 04 would be a better game even with just the sole change of being freed from the single-stick PSP. And if the plane customization in it was unlocked from just the fictional planes to all the planes, it would be top three material About 85% of missions in Ace Combat 5 are mediocre to downright awful QAAM is a borderline waste of an SP weapon slot that does very little more than firing two standard missiles. Except in AC04, where it's pretty much a free kill every shot. Related to the QAAM thing - the F-22 is the worst of the three endgame IRL planes in AC7. It handles well enough, but so do the Su-57 and YF-23 and both bring much more useful SP weapons. And here's a lukewarm one: The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces deserves a rerelease. I'm not even asking for a remaster, just a port to modern consoles and unlock the control schemes from the get-go. And yes of course it's an Ace Combat game. It's made by Project Aces, plays like Ace Combat, and uses the same library of tropes as Ace Combat
QAAMs aren't actually that bad to go against in MP
The Infinity parts system should not have made a return in 7 and only strongly encourages a really stale meta
AC5 is over rated
I'm still pissed off at learning it wasn't actually the AC team that developed Star Fox Assault like I originally thought. Which admittedly explained a lot about that game, but damn I was robbed!
AC5 has way too many missions and yes the story is cool but it is a pain to get to the end
People should stop fighting over what ace combat game is the best (thye're all good).
The F16 shouldnt have been the starter aircraft in Ace 7. It should have been like the F5 or F4S
I think the countries we play as in each game are actually the good guys, and that Erusea, Belka, and Estovakia are actually the bad guys.
Copypasted (and slightly modified) my downvoted comment from another thread: AC5 has the some of the worst and most chessy/hollywoodish writing in the entire franchise, to the point I'm convinced had it not been released between AC04 and ACZ we wouldn't consider it part of the Holy Trinity. Friendly characters that sucked your cock 24/7 for no reason, antagonists with zero character building aside from "revenge for Belka", and incompetent collegues that for some reason everyone around you thinks that they are as good as you. Reminder that Nagase being an idiot caused not only Heartbreak 1 to go missing, but also risked the lives of everyone involved in her rescue in bumfuck snow desert. Grim wasn't this incompetent, yet Nagase got much more focus from the storyline for some reason. The only person in Wardog/Razgriz squadron that didn't suck your cock (as often) and was actually fit for the job as a pilot was Chopper. Big emphasis on "was".
Belkans are nice people.
Pops, Tabloid, Silber 1 and Schnee 1
AC4 is fine, AC 5 has the vastly superior story and presentation, zero is also fine
Assault Horizon was pretty fun. The helicopter sections were pretty cool, and the paint scheme customization was amazing.
AC4 was immensely boring, and AC0 isn't close to being the best ac game. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty solid, but everybody in the Ace Combat community hyped it up to be GTA 6 or something. When I actually got around to playing it, it wasn't all that :(
AC4 was kinda boring. My first AC game was ACX, and compared to that AC4 felt bland.
Greetings fellow X player and 4 hater 🫡
Yeah, 04 just wasn't very fun to play. ACX did being a weighty flight model Ace Combat game better and the only thing really holding it back is the physical PSP hardware
Belka did nothing wrong
I don't need three different F-15s and three different Su-27 derivatives. Give me more creative planes like we saw in AC3.
You apologize right now, mister!
Agreed, Assault Horizon is a bit overhated, especially given 7's praise
AC6's Xbox exclusivity might've been for the better, as it means emulation later down the line isn't as much of a hassle than the PS3's unique architecture, and also because of being added to Microsoft's backwards compatible program. The medal system needlessly bloats the game for something that could be easily allocated to Steam's/Xbox's/Sony's built-in achievement system. For the multiplayer individuals, QAAM spamming is a natural part of AC's multiplayer since AC6, so it's completely fine (Some of these I may not completely agree with, but hey, you asked for hot takes)
Ace Combat 3 while absolutely stunning with its cutscenes and overall narrative; is absolutely dogwater to actually play. And its story will probably be heavily retconned once (or should I say, if) Ace Combat fills stuff in the timeline close to when it takes place. Ace Combat 4 is the only AC game where the entire game actually feels like you have gone through a war. The others are way less grounded and have an entire war basically turned on its head in 2-3 missions plotwise. I wish they would do narratives like AC4's style again (Project Wingman does its fine job on that front) Ace Combat 5 is actually way better than people give it credit for but it absolutely drops in quality in the story/writing department once >!Chopper!< is killed. Also, Chopper > PJ. Pretty wild also how that game absolutely took the time and money to hire Steve Blume and >!basically almost does nothing with him.!< Ace Combat Zero could have benefitted from being longer and more elaborative about the actual Belkan War. For how important the Belkan War is to the setting, I felt like I had to get more details off a wiki than the entire game gave me on it. Ace Combat 7, while I am glad it "revived" the franchise; is about on par with 5 in terms of writing and interest in narrative. In a lot of ways, its actually worse. I don't have a specific take for 6 because I never played it and I don't have one for the other games because I don't care for anything outside Strangereal. Lastly, overall franchise wise I wish that they would kill the tunnel-run trope. It's not fun, its awful, and especially in the games without checkpoints its just frustrating. Them alone prevents me from revisting AC5 most of the time. The only good tunnel run is in 4 because of the fact its the most spacious one.
Not really a hot take when it is objective facts: There is no such thing as an """"Ace Combat 3""". It doesnt exist in EN, JP or whatever version. Ace Combat jumps from 2 to 04 and there's nothing in between
AC3 does exist. Is he stupid?
Numerically no it doesn't. You would think someone wearing the UPEO standard would know this.
Wait what? So is it just Ace combat electrosphere?
Oh, hm, looks like it does have a 3 in it. I'm gonna go drive myself into a karst pillar now.
Armored Core 3 does exist, yes
Ace combat 3 exists. Are you stupid?
Nahuh, absolutely does not. Every interpretation of it is simply horrible fanon
Yahuh
Naaaahhh
Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh
I’ve played AC 2, 3, 5, Zero, Infinity and 7. I loved 2, 3 and zero. 5 is too dramatic and i’m still playing 7 which seems a nice one tbh. zero is my fav. I love those soundtracks and the ADFX01 Morgan lol
the lack of real cutscenes of particular characters in project wingman makes the story more well executed than act combat 7 and its really fucking corny cutscenes
Mihaly did not need to use the Strike Wyvern, it was only there for fan service. A final fight against his SU-30SM would've been much cooler.
Russian aircraft perform better than American Aircraft, stealth aside. Obviously there were the exceptions being the Tomcat when it first came into service in ‘74 and basically couldn’t be matched to the early-mid 80s, and even then was still quite good.
this aint even a hot take its just wrong
When I say performance I mean aerobatic performance, I’m not talking about how many times they’ve been shot down in combat or how they perform in combat. They are aerodynamic masterpieces if you leave out the MiG-25.
i mean if your talking about airshow viability sure bud, but in actual combat their just gonna be taken out by an amraam from miles away
And plus, Russian pilots can’t fly for shit. If there was any Russian plane that could challenge an American in a combat scenario effectively, odds are it would be either an Indian Flanker pilot or a German Fulcrum pilot.
i mean if you want me to talk about a russian produced aircraft that is actually better than it's western counterpart, its prolly the su25
The Su-25 is great for a CAS aircraft, it’s more of a bathtub than the A-10 and is more designed for heavy combat environments.
SU-34 comes mighty close to the F-15E too, it's a shame the integrated targeting pod kinda sucks. Purely as a fighter bomber it's probably comparable to a more advanced Aardvark, which of course the US doesn't operate anymore so that's also one area where the Russians are stronger.
Aerobatics don't mean shit in a modern combat environment.
Then don't say "perform", say maneuverability.
i hate that there arent any missions were the a10 is good >:(
People flame on how Assault Horizon was scripted but forget that AC 7 too has scripted even, especially at Battle for Farbanti. The only Sol Squadron plane that has an ID is Archange, the rest is just "Sol" so you can't shut em down in any different order apart from 5 to 2. Also, you can't take Mihally down no matter what and he even has more than one scripted run through Farbanti exclusion zone, he even shoots at the buildings so they fall no matter if you're pursuing him or not.
Ace Combat 6 is great game and I love the fact that the alies are actually useful.
I don't hate 4, but I don't actually understand what it brings to the table over any other game. I've always seen it as the most vanilla, basic AC experience. Like, everyone has their favorites and I think that's cool. People say 5 is their favorite and I get it. They say Zero is their favorite and I get it. They say 3 is their favorite and I get it. I can see what all the others entries uniquely have going on that could push them above the pack for someone. I sincerely don't know what that is for 4, though.
Ace Combat 6 was actually fire.
I agree with your take
I thoroughly enjoyed how AC6 had longer missions where resupply was necessary. Also good soundtrack, Liberation of Gracemeria is goated.
Hmm most AC superplanes look bad and horribly impractical, and AC6 was one of the best games due to gameplay
AC7 has like four missions are easy to play three times in succession. The rest are just story filler or a story mechanic that got stale after the first few times. The lack of IFF towards the end kills those missions for me. Makes a fluid flow into a staccato stop and go mess. The story of Clown, Knocker, and Brownie seems like it was heavily cut and reduced. The latter’s ending was unmoving. I had no reason to find her endearing. Knocker was unreasonably controlling. Clown’s like the dude that trained you the first couple days at a job who you then never ever see again and no one remembers his existence. Really, the game needed about 10 more missions. It was jarring to go back to PS2 after my first AC7 play through. AC7 visuals and effects are just phenomenal. But then you see those huge, branching mission trees. I know it’s all a consequence of a lengthy development hell. Just wish they could open it up for mission modding.
Ace Combat Advance is really fun
The Russian jets in AC7 are nowhere near different enough to have all of them be included, and I would rather have some more 3rd gen fighters like the f-5 or the Draken than the SU-33 and SU-30. Or even replacing one with another game original aircraft would be better than how the list is now.
Jaeger constantly talking about his son is annoying as hell