[PS2] Ace Combat Thread (a.k.a. We Do Not Have Air Superiority)

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I'm not gonna lie, the AC stories aren't really that great, but keep in mind, this isn't the type of game that even cares about a story.

That's not true at all. Since 3, they've learned their lesson to implement stories and make sure they're deep and interwoven with the game, so I dont know what you're talking about, but that statement is totally untrue.


And for the record, no it wasn't Osea that dropped seven nukes, it was Right-Wing Military leaders who dropped them telling the world the north part of Belka was the 'Holy Land'.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

On that note, I agree with Stealth. I dont get why everyone fanboys off of AC04, when clearly AC5 in terms of story and depth is more dominant.

And about the bombs...well first, Belka wanted to hold the allies in place, and two, the military didn't want the country to be overrun so easily and they wanted the whole world to see how fierce and powerful they can be. Lets also not forget...the huge bomber did have the markings of Belka on it. Maybe it was going to be used for the country, and but somehow during the six month quiet period, the rebel team got ahold of it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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People fanboy off AC04 because to do so off AC5 is an embarrassment. Give me silent, competent allies who advance the story by doing their jobs any day of the week over Nagase. Of course AC04 isn't quite as epic a war story as AC5, but you're not constantly getting pulled out of it by lines like "Man, this is the worst day ever!" when you blow up a bunker in Lit Fuse or "Where'd he learn to fly like that?" when you execute a 60-degree turn in Final Option.

That's bullshit. 'Embarrassment'?? Why, because the real point in the story of AC5 was to be harmonic and peaceful with each other in the world? That's embarrassing? That's such crap dude. No one here is disagreeing that Chopper got annoying, hell even Nagase felt that way...but Nagase, just as much as another person 'doesn't want to see anymore young men or women lose their lives', especially if it's over a war that had no meaning but to exhaust each other's power so another could gain superiority. How sick is that? Would you want a war based on such superficial things? Lives wasted because of old war vendettas from years ago? THAT is what Nagase meant, she didn't want to see people in the war she's in, die in vain. I am proud of AC5's message and proud to be a big fan of that game. It was a wargame with a message, and I think it's something we all should listen to.


AC04's story was based from a kid's perspective of the war and how he was in it. Mobius One, in a way...wasn't the real main character. It was just a basic story though, like AC2's. A group forced out of Usea, trying to reclaim it so the continent can be peaceful once again. There ya go. Linear as can get.

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Damn, Karasu...don't you think you're overreacting a little? Don't get me wrong: there are plenty of moments in AC5 that make me feel warm and fuzzy, but there comes a point when soldiers engaged in combat generally shut up and concentrate on what they're doing. Nobody in Blaze's squadron, with the occasional exception of Grimm, ever hit that point. Eventually, it simply gets ham-handed: just how many times do you have to hear "Killing is immoral, pointless and wrong, except when you, me, he or she does it" to get the point?

Just because I say "Bullshit" doesn't mean in anyway that i'm overreacting. But you're telling me though it's an embarrasment to love AC5 over 4 because of the whole 'peace' thing. I'm sorry...but we do live in a world where there is a fake, vain war going on. I bet the writers of AC5 kinda played off of that, and brought their message in. I heard it, and I find it to be a positive message that should take heed. And if you forget....the Oseans have the Osean Air DEFENSE Force. Meaning, they attack when attacked upon. They are not agressors, and I found that to be rather noble. A superpower country such as Osea, plays diplomacy and defense before a battle and war.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I pre-ordered AC0's OST a month ago, and it was originally gonna come out on the 25th I think...then it got pushed to the 31st. So tomorrow, all places that have advertised it, should have it and should be shipping out. I got mine at yesasia.com

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

free shipping at yesasia only applies to items that are over 40$ I think...

I'm not complaining, it's only two bucks and it comes within a week, so it's all good.


EDIT: I stand corrected...I dont think i'm paying for any shipping. Just looked at the order online, and it says 0.00 at the shipping fee. Nice.

FELIPE NO

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No, that'd just be the way you've been ad hominem on me from the moment you first posted a reply. Check your tone, Karasu: it started at derogatory and it's gone downhill from there, although I don't believe I've ever insulted you.

You can tell my tone on the internet? That's very perceptive of you. However, my 'tone' and attitude are not dergatory at all. I have in no way insulted you, or whatever you think I did. Don't make this something that it isn't, and don't make e-drama ok?

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No, I'm telling you that it's an embarrassment to love AC5 over AC04 because the whole 'peace' thing was much more maturely handled in AC04 than AC5. I consider both to be honorable narratives that make powerful statements against war, but AC04 achieves that objective without draining my suspension of disbelief like an inconvenient wetlands area, filling the void with verbal diarrhea from my wingmen and building a peace park atop that shaky foundation FTW.

Peace was not a strong point in that game. Like I said before...it was a narration in the hands of a boy who was in the war. The story in general didn't have a 'This land needs to be at peace' feel at all. It was all about the occupation and the legendary pilot who fights Yellow 13, in the eyes of a child.

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You don't say. I guess it's a good thing that Namco incorporates these barely concealed parables about current events into the series, because how else would the pathetically stupid and deliberately ignorant members of its target audience even know about, let alone frame and discuss issues like Iraq? Now, if only ACZ had more closely resembled Sudan...

Now who's getting an attitude... Christ dude.

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An Air Defense Force that not only maintains a legitimately albeit supremely expensive network of air bases and aircraft capable of unaided intercepts, but has also wasted billions more taxpayer dollars to make its nation's borders bristle with redundant surface-to-air missiles capable of bringing down an SR-71? An Air Defense Force that encourages mercenary aggression by paying frontline fighter pilots up to $60,000 per sortie on a commission basis for each enemy kill, presumably with the money it saves by not employing humans to make shoot/no-shoot decisions on potential targets acquired by its SAM grid? Interesting definition of nobility.

This country is a super power country, I would think they have the money to have such technology for their defense, I would think. President Harling BTW cut their defense budget for the Mass Driver, so don't think they just wasting money with offensive weapons non-stop. And that mission is an escort mission dude, try not to look too hard in it. It's a game mission. Where did you get mercenaries from? Osea has no mercenaries at all, it's Ustio who had them.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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I'm trying not to. It's just that I keep raising arguments in support of my points, and instead of rebutting them you've responded by suggesting that I'm a fanboy, a warmonger, and ignorant of what "OADF" stands for. Eventually it gets frustrating.

No, no and no. All I said was I don't get why people fanboy over that game when clearly in terms of story...AC5 was leaps beyond it. Never did I call you a warwonger, and never did I call you ignorant. All I did was bring up how the Osean air force is more of a defense force, than offensive. Seriously...cut it out, it's pissing me off.

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Exactly! Peace was one of several points, but framing the story from the perspective of a child who effectively lost his father to you above Farbanti leads to the same places AC5 does...how many other fathers do you take away in that war to become a hero?

In my opinion, I dont think the boy saw Yellow 13 as a father to him. And to be honest...if I knew that Yellow 13 caused my parents to die by him shooting down an enemy of his, I wouldn't 'bide my time' and then just accept him just because he played the same song his Dad did on guitar. But oh well...it's a video game story, not a big deal. It's all good.

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And here we come to perhaps the primary difference I've seen between us: you prefer the pacifist component of the story obvious and paramount, don't you? For me, AC5 is a relentless tearjerker of a plot, the kind of story that makes me cry the first time I see it unfold, but becomes annoying in hindsight as I realize just how calculated that effect was.

I prefer all of it...the pacifism, the battle, the action, the twists, the epic-ness. Everything. To me, it was one of the more epic games with a posititve message, both visually and through the script.

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What, you don't think educating gamers about current events through the medium of Ace Combat would be a good thing? If it's a positive message in AC5, then why not all subsequent entries in the series?

Unless, of course, you dare to presume that the people who play these games are intelligent enough to read the news, perhaps even intelligent enough to recognize the Iraq parable and find it not only condescending but redundant alongside the game's already overwhelmingly pacifist theme?

Actually, I find most of the people who play this game [besides majority of people here], are flat-out, right wing, pro-war, kill kill kill type of people [aka, most of ACSkies]. So they for the most part...don't see the connection.

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So just because the USA-sorry, Osea-can afford to make its borders resemble those of the Soviet Union means it should?

Well who fucking knows what kind of neighbors they have in that world. We don't know a thing about it, only it's wars and semi-politics of the wars. Don't look so much into one mission, damnit man....*rolleyes and sighs*

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Ah, but you're the one inexplicably holding up the OADF as a force somehow more noble than ISAF or the UAF, when all three begin their respective games on the defensive and the OADF is the only one not fighting for its very existence. So when the facts become inconvenient to that theory, I'm at fault for pointing them out?

When the fuck did I say they were more noble than the other air forces we've seen so far? And I don't even know what your question is about it man, be more elaborative.

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Look the word up; it also has an adjective form.

Don't get frickin' cocky with me, got it? In no way does the term or adjective have ANYTHING do with Osea's Air Defense force.


I think in all honesty, you are looking way too hard into this game, especially with the info we have, that isn't very expanding in their universe. It's a pity we don't have the info from the Japanese sites, because it seems they put a lot of work into it, and I bet those would shed a lot of light onto our un-answered questions.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Taji, you are intelligently looking into the smallest details of this game...but in the end it's turning out stupid. Lemme back up my point:

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I suppose I owe you an apology on that last one for implying I'm forgetful, not ignorant.

Don't take what I said as personal. I said 'if'.

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I'd like to think I wouldn't do that either, but the kid was damn young and thrust into a series of events that would be traumatic even for an adult. If anything, Yellow 13 became a father figure to him through sheer default, but the attachment was certainly there: why else would he choose to follow 13 west from San Salvacion?

Where else could he have gone? He has no family in San Salvacion anymore. His only 'family' was the Yellow Squadron as you said. His uncle was taken and prolly killed, and his mom and dad died due to the plane crash. He had no choice. Now, don't ask me "Well after Yellow 13 died, what did the boy do?" Again...I don't have a clue. Maybe since he was with the Barkeep's Daughter, he went back to San Salvacion and lived with that family, and from there on...their relationship grew. Who knows. All of the AC games have had their own story within the world, with the exception to AC Zero being a prequel to AC5.

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As do I, although one of my issues with AC5 is that it's a sick joke to constantly discuss pacifism with your wingmen while you're killing people.

We don't know that. Yes, the PLANES of the enemy were destoryed, but the pilots possibly ejected. No one knows exactly. The theme of death in that game is more along the lines of MANY people rather than the few, with the exceptions to the pivotal aces of the wars, and the main characters.

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Stop me if I'm wrong, Karasu, but you seem to be saying one of two very unpleasant things here

No, i'm just saying that since i've been a fan of this game....i've encoutered MANY of the people I just pointed out, with the exception to the people here. Hell, I even know a kid where I work and he plays this game...wanna know what his political stance is? Republican, and PRO-WAR all the way. He likes the killing aspect of the game, rather than the story and message of it. I have yet to meet people like here at GFF in real life.

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Oh, there's a dozen ways we could retcon or dismiss even a project like the Osea AA system whose scope is matched only by its idiocy...but it's a glaring counterexample to the point at hand. Besides, I'd actually like to hear your argument about the OADF's nobility, if and when you care to make it.

It's a game mission that the makers wanted to try out. End of story. Stop going overboard on one stupid mission. It's a stupid idea to have a AA missle system, but it's part of the game, get over it dude.

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That was an inference of mine, taken from the fact that we were discussing the relative merits of AC04 and AC5 when you said you found the OADF noble. I still question that statement, though: do you really think lining a border with thousands of SAM launchers that automatically fire on anything except craft with Osean IFF signals is noble? For my part, the only specifically noble thing I see about the OADF is its name; if names alone conferred nobility, the moral center of the globe would be the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

And I can't help but point out that for a noble force, the OADF has some serious retention issues with active-duty personnel...

Recent Ace Combat air forces, ranked by number of known pilot defectors:
ISAF: 0 squadrons, 0 pilots
UAF: 0 squadrons, 1 pilot (Pixy)
OADF: 3 squadrons, 21 pilots (Wizard 1-8, Sorceror 1-8, Ashley and company in 8492, Hamilton)

Oh man...

Again, finding a country that would rather spend it's defense budget to build something to prospect on, and using diplomacy before war...was something I found noble. However, if you wanna keep over-ranting on the whole stupid AA missile net...feel free.

And seriously, your whole pilot defectors point fails so bad, because AC5's story was so long and rich with detail that it actually spawned a prequel, where as AC4's was linear, and didn't focus on the military of ISAF...just one pilot: Mobius One. Sorry, but your whole point is negated on that aspect.

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But if you knew "mercenary" could be used as an adjective, then why did you pretend to be dense and ask where I got mercenaries from? And again, how is it noble and not mercenary that the OADF pays you a bounty for every single enemy you eliminate, regardless of its threat level to you or the mission? Just about the only way Iraq could look worse than it does today would be if if we paid soldiers that way.

Ok wow...

You do realize this is a game? Since the BEGINNING of this series, it has had that money system. It has and will always be apart of the GAME. It was in no way..connected to the freakin' story. I don't know how in the hell you put something from a game into being part of the story. That's unbelievable. You still haven't answered my questions as to what mercenaries have to do with Osea, since they still have their own pilots and military?

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I do take a hard look at things; it's called critical thinking, and it's a gift I'm glad I have. My only objective when I mentioned my old Osean-nuke theory was to point out missed opportunities in ACZ...since then I've gone into detail about my problems with that game's plot, but I've said pretty much everything I have to say on those topics. If I'm offending you by questioning your positions, I'll stop.

Your critical thinking is on haywire then, because you're even confusing a game's currency with part of the story, which blows my mind. You are not offending me at all..but you are becoming like Chopper: Obnoxious.

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I think we're just looking too deeply at this though. I understand what you're trying to do. When you get below the surface of AC5's story it begins to fall apart, and AC0 didn't really fix those plotholes. But some things just weren't made for such analyzing. I do it all the time myself, but sometimes you just have to accept it at face value lol.

Again someone mentions the exact same thing I said. lol. I mean, come on. Does it really make sense that the Razgriz can fly from the Kestrel to other places around Osea and Yuktobania, and not be detected? Even if they gave Osean Air Command osean codes to hide that they were the Razgriz, the Osean military would have picked up the patterns between the Razgriz missions and the times these aircraft left with Osean coding. It's just silly to get anal about it...its a game. Just have fun with it and enjoy it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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Ah, Karasu. Good to see you again, although you're far more entertaining when you make points with your own words. Anyhow, now that we've exchanged the requisite opportunistic potshots, I think my reply to Rei above pretty much covers my points.

Although the real question with that example is how the Osean Navy could not only forget to replace a carrier's air wing, but forget the existence of its entire battle group...

Umm..touche? *shrugs*

Well me personally...I hope they leave the Circum-Pacific war and it's connections alone, so that a new war on that earth can take place. Hell, i'm hoping the new AC coming out this fall will still be on that earth, just another part of it.


About the Osean Navy....either they're just dumb and don't see the connection, or Namco kinda left it up to the player to figure it out. Maybe like in the ending of AC5, Razgriz and the events leading to the final mission will be kept secret until they get released to the public. It was the president's personal airfleet. I'm sure he told the Military of this action, which is prolly why it's kept secret.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've already begun re-playing Ace Combat 4 and Ace Combat Zero. It's really amazing how far the series has come in terms of story, drama, and graphics.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I liked the music to that stage. The one thing that irk'ed me about the stage was the wingmen were retarded. They wouldn't follow orders and bomb the shit out of the place.

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