Only because the Growler isn't in AC7
http://pds17.egloos.com/pds/200912/27/40/f0075740_4b36876665859.jpg
I would certainly rather have a 2020-era F-4 or MiG-21 over a 1970-era F-4 or MiG-21. They might look the same as their 70s-era counterparts on the outside. But on the inside they are almost totally different animals.
Navy definitions are bit more straight forward. For instance, a flying squadron in the Navy is 2+elements of aircraft organized into a single unit. With an operational squadron ranging from four to 12 aircraft typically. All F/A-18 squadrons have between 10 and 12 aircraft, depending on availability and attrition. F-35 squadrons typically have 10 aircraft. A destroyer squadron is typically 3 destroyers. Easy rules to follow.
An Air Force squadron is... whatever the Air Force says a squadron is at the time it's created. The Air Force has flying and non-flying squadrons of variable numbers of people or equipment. Some squadrons have 12 aircraft, some have 24, some have 30. And that's just the F-16 community. Other fighter squadrons are the same way. Then there's non-flying squadrons- medical squadrons, legal squadrons, maintenance squadrons - which may not necessarily be assigned to the same aircraft squadron with the same number... but sometimes they are.
As for the F-35. I was hoping they would do that in Ace Combat Infinity. They had the F-35B was the multirole, F-35A was the fighter. They could have had the F-35C as the attacker to complete the trifecta. In the real world they are all multirole fighters... in fact, I'd argue /every/ fighter currently in use has multiple roles they fill. Even the A-10 drivers are trained to engage other aircraft and serve in the anti-SAM or anti-ship roles. The A-10 actually scored more air-to-air kills than the MiG-25 during the Gulf War... and the MiG-25 is a dedicated interceptor.
@Jboi18 - I tend to like Air Force jets more than Navy jets overall, F-18s being the exception, but I tend to like the Navy, more than the Air Force, way of doing things.
I think they ought to put in all three versions of the F-35. One for attacker, fighter, and multirole.
@Jboi18 - Several nations still use F-4s and MiG-21s, but none use them as front line air superiority fighters or interceptors anymore. While there have been reports that the Romanian MiG-21 LanceR, Indian MiG-21 Bison can beat the F-16, and the current Turkish F-4Es can beat the Chinese Su-27s, They are primarily used as recon or attack aircraft these days and not air superiority.
In real life and in games my favorites are the F-15s and F/A-18s of any variant. In AC7 I've been getting a lot of mileage out of the F-15C and F/A-18F. I do miss the Growler, though. The Growler was fun in Ace Combat Infinity.
I'm not especially eager to see the AC3ification of the Ace Combat franchise as a whole.
I prefer real aircraft over fictionalized versions of real aircraft. I only rarely use the fictional aircraft like Morgan or Wyvern.
I like the boss fights - stuff like the drones, or Morgan, or a giant falling satellite, but for me it's more fun to shoot the fictional aircraft than fly them.
I do find it amusing that the same nations that operate fictional super aircraft are also employing F-4s and MiG-21s as front line fighters though.
VR mode is my favorite mode of the game. I just wish we had more of it. A few more missions, maybe some random enemy unit pop ups so that there's some randomness as to where the enemies will appear and what type they are, and a mission that really capitalizes on the air-to-ground functionality of the A-10 and the anti-ship functionality of the F/A-18 and you would have had a really breathtaking experience.
Also, I use a Thrustmaster HOTAS and I position the throttle and stick relative to where the throttle and stick would be on either the A-10, F/A-18, F-22 or Su-30. I've never used the Dualshock 4 controller and I don't think I'd want to.
It's got a pretty epic feel to it. It's presented as a historical game, so you feel like you're making history as you play it. I'd say the fight with Pixy at the end is my favorite boss battle ever, in any game. The mechanics, setting, music, everything about it works really well. I like that they have an alignment that changes with your play style. As much as I like the F-22A, The F-15C's always been my favorite plane. So it's great seeing that as the official main character plane as well.
A lot of the acting and writing is kind of hokey, but it's serviceable. Probably would have been better if it was anime cut scenes instead of live actors to be honest. The story's not as good as Ace Combat 5, but the story telling in most of the Ace Combat games I've played (4, 5, 0, X, Infinity, 7) isn't all that remarkable.
But it gave us the most memorable meme of Ace Combat history.
"Yo Buddy, still alive?"
Raptor is the nice girl you bring home to your parents. But Rhino is the girl you have fun with on a Saturday night.
In the real world "Fox (number)" is a brevity code used by NATO members (e.g. US, UK) and NATO allies (e.g. Japan, Australia) when firing missiles. It basically reduces "I'm firing a/an (type of) missile" to two words.
"Fox One" in the real world refers to firing a Semi-Active Radar Homing Missile. In Ace Combat it's used when firing the SAAM.
"Fox Two" in the real world refers to firing an Infrared missile. In Ace Combat it's used when you shoot a MSL, HPAA or QAAM.
"Fox Three" in the real world refers to firing an Active Radar Homing Missile. In Ace Combat it's used when firing XMAA, 4AAM, 6AAM, 8AAM, HVAA, HCAA and LAAM.
It gets dicey from there though as the weapons don't have literal translations across all nationalities. Some games have "Rifle", "Magnum" and I think even "Brusier" which are air-to-ground missiles, anti-radar missiles and anti-ship missiles respectively in the real world and usually rendered as XAGM/4AGM/8AGM, LAGM and LASM, respectively, in Ace Combat.
Normally the pilot, or possibly the backseater, says these codes. But since the pilots in Ace Combat are silent and they rarely acknowledge any two-seat aircraft as actual two-seat aircraft, the AWACS says it.