Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24440536-20150221212608/@comment-24.101.18.66-20150222162702

To be honest, the entire series, to me, has become more than soundtrack.

It's the fact that Ace Combat has it's own little, absurdist world where they can do literally anything they want, but they have standards in it. Most of it is familiar, too, making for easy self-insertion. Compare this to it's second-closest (basically shrimp-sized) competitor that Konami made FOREVER ago, Air Force Delta Strike. It's also it's own world, but one filled with way too much liquid cheese, lots of cliches, and big-boobed women. Liking AFDS for it's world is kina difficult, really.

It also has a fun, if somewhat simple flight model, that offers little danger to learning pilots. I've only ever not liked the fact that stalls are COMPLETELY negligible, and often even useful. What should happen is: you shudder whenever you hear the word "Stall". What actually happens is that you simply don't gave a fuck. Apart from that, the series' FM has always been fun. 6's especially, I just love Hi-G maneuvering.

I also like how Ace Combat has superweapons, but not nearly as many as AFDS, thus making each one just that much more frightening. And that they're much more powerful than in AFDS.

AFDS has 3 railguns in one mission you fly down. There are just squaric tunnels that go blue when they're gonna fire, just dont be in them, shoot the core, you're okay. Noone helps out.

AC6 has, of course, ms. Chande-fucking-lier, an absolute behemoth railgun with an entire army division (at least in size) just to defend it, along with LOADS of automated AA guns and SAMs. IRL, the US of A would need to send basically all of their A-10s to reliably blow up this battery. Even in-game, an entire Emmerian air division is sent out specifically to take it out. Chandie, as I call her, basically sealed me into the console Ace Combats, all on her own.

ACZ has more, and AC3 has god-damned EVERYTHING, but those get crazier and crazier. Delta Strike is just.. boring. It has big superweapons that can be brought down with 12 missiles, if even.

And, of course, Ace Combat's soundtrack still has an effect on me. It's some of the most beautifuly orchestrated stuff ever. One of the few close competitors in this department I can think of is Monster Hunter. Okay, so the average MH track is of higher production value than the average AC track (and there are some fuckin' funny ones too), but AC's big tracks are some REALLY BEAUTIFUL works, just take The Unsung War. My personal favourite, right now, is The Valley of Kings. Sets the mood just perfectly.

Ace Combat's only really outpaced by AFDS in plane count. AFDS, alone, had over 110 PLAYABLE planes. Like, JESUS CHRIST. Ranging from the common starter, the F-5E, to things that were only experiments, or even paper planes, like the F-15U+, X-29, and Su-55. Ace Combat has around 50 at most (though with Infinity that should get bigger and bigger), and 6 has.. 15. No iconic Russian creations like the Fishbed, either. Wouldn't it be fun to fly the X-29 in 6?

Shortened up, Ace Combat, statistically, has 3/4. Interesting flight model, few but MASSIVE superweapons, and a soundtrack of higher production value outright.