Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-172.1.44.57-20150206011443/@comment-25467429-20150206112218

In addition to what Sly says, as an Ace he is probably the one in-game setup to be the "best". The F-22 is his signature plane. Most other player-characters have much earlier planes in the tree [Cipher's F-15, Blaze's F-14 (Wardog and Razgriz)]. Even if as a player you can pick a different plane or whatnot, in-story most of the time the palyer-character is set to go through it all with that one plane. I'd say Scarface is the exception since they flew Su-35s, but that gets into the general problem that Ace Combat's own history of designation on the Sukhoi series has been a little wonky at times so I know some who aren't that into things easily mix up the various Sukhois of that general design (Su-35, Su-27, Su-37, to say nothing of the in-line variants of the 27 and 35). Even then, the F-22 and Su-35/37 are of the same generation, with the 22 having stealth, which of course is part of the dogma that stealh beats non-stealth.

Furthermore, in terms of his skills, the only character to receive more veneration in-game may be Blaze and the Wardog squad. Mobius was a single plane flight that early on matched the supposedly superior in skill and equipment Yellow Squad toe-to-toe. Rose fear amongst an enemy that had counquered the continent, and was so powerful/infamous that they made an entire squad just for him to go into battle with at the end of the game. Then for Katina, he's deemed solo more effective than an entire military apparatus and gets deployed to wipe out remnants with only an AWACS and refueling plane. In terms of in-game lore, the only other lead to get similar acclaim was Blaze, whose flight was so apparenlty overwhelmingly great that they were considered both ghosts and demons who had to have thier true identities covered up after the war. But he was part of a squad, so the acclaim and credit gets diffused amongst the other squad members. Due to the mercenary status of the lead in other games like 02 and Zero, and the general lack of thrill assigned to the player-character in 06, they don't get much acclaim as their very nature as pilots is somewhat shrouded in mystery. They have to be treated with a little more of a subdued pressence as a matter of telling their story, so they don't fully get the "our country's heroes" treatment. In 06 the story is so diffused and off-center focus that the player character, despite getting similar radio-chatter treatment, never really stands out so I expect players just never had anything to latch onto.

Of course, it doesn't help that Scarface isn't particulary featured in many games after-the-fact. I don't think there's been a game since AC:04 that hasn't had some mention of Mobius - be it his special mission in 5, the B7R dogfight with him in Zero, or just his livery as one of the toughest or last unlocks in the game. Blaze and the Wardog/Razgriz are probably a little closer to Mobius right now, but not at all the same level despite being in almost every game since 05 as a plane/skin. Scarface hardly makes appearances in other titles, so the limited exposure 02 has as an old title is made that much worse. That Scarface is as popular as it is shows something though, because it's one of the upper echelon right now.

Went on a bit there, but basically there are numerous factors that go into why Mobius 1 is so venerated by the Ace Combat community. Some of it is just luck of the draw - the player-character of the first interation of the series on the best-selling console of all time - and some of it is the construct of the game makers.