Apart double special weapons of course,let me know what you think

When i first played ac7 and met brownie i was like "oh my the quiet depressed guy might fall in love" then she died so its my hope that she secretly survives and they all find out later after all the drone stuff. or something where she shows up at the end of the game.

Ever since ac8's release we have seen an uptick in people joking about burning Sotoa to the ground, moreso than we have with previous antagonist nations by my reckoning. To me this is pretty gross and a sign that a portion of the Fandom enjoys being racist towards a fictional people because there are no consequences (much like how some Mass Effect fans seem to love shitting on Batarians).

When I've brought this up before, one response I've seen is that it's justified because of the crimes committed by the Sotoan Military in the game. Some have even said people like me who don't enjoy jokes like this are ignoring those crimes.

This is where the misunderstanding lies and I feel I need to remind people of an important thing: No crime is so great that it justifies the condemnation of an entire people, no matter now many are complicit or active participants it will never be everyone and to pretend otherwise is prejudice.

I realise I'm taking this much too seriously but I felt something needed to be said. I feel like the AC Fandom is at risk of being dragged down by a toxic few, we can be better.

"History shows that if you live in a yurt and eat mutton you are NOT morally capable of launching a savage, unprovoked war for conquest and glory across an entire continent. This PROVES that when Sotoa did exactly that, they had *forgotten* how to paint with all the colors of the wind. They were just LARPing, duh? Besides, the bad Sotoans we see and hear throughout the game represent a few bad apples at the top, and everyone else invading was SO not into it, which makes it all VERY different. My upcoming fanfic 'Rex and Kate Hit the Head' explores ALL of this."

What the title says. The Phantom II was used by the US Navy, the in-game model has not only a tail hook, it has warning placards on the rear of the fuselage drawing attention to the fact it has a tail hook. To my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong), the primary reason a plane would be manufactured with a tail hook is so that it could land on an aircraft carrier. Not to mention the fact that the Phantom has been flagged as carrier capable in previous installments.

edit: Thank y'all for setting me straight. I was not previously aware that non-navy planes were outfitted with tail hooks.

I’m going to be honest, kinda underwhelming, don’t get me wrong for a ps2 game it’s amazing, I do like the branching story, I just set up my expectations to high, I thought there was going to be some slight graphical improvements and not just a port, was kinda short for my liking (I played the knight route) and going from 8 to zero might have not been the wises decision, I still like the story, the gameplay was kinda just eh to me, PJ was kinda just there. And the fight with pixy, it happens, most characters just exist to me, it may just me overhyping myself on the game

I think Rex is the Antichrist. At least symbolically. I've not seen anybody else with this analysis yet, so I thought it might be valuable to share here for discussion. I'd be interested to hear what people think.

Huge spoilers for both Ace Combat 7 and Ace Combat 8 follow.

Before I get into the meat of the idea that Rex was the Antichrist, I think it's worth briefly establishing that Trigger was the Devil, because Ace Combat 7 and Ace Combat 8 are loosely based on Revelation 12 and Revelation 13, respectively. I'm using the NIV Bible for these references.

Revelation 12:7–9 – Trigger is the Devil

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

I won't dwell on this much, because it could be a whole post in itself. There's a lot more to analyse in Revelation 12 and Ace Combat 7 than just this, but here are a few points:

• Mihaly is the Hungarian form of "Michael", and his theme is called Archange.
• Trigger's theme is called Daredevil.
• Trigger's story is about being cast into Hell (Spare Squadron) alongside the other sinners. In Dante's Inferno, Treachery (the lowest level of Hell) is reserved for betrayers, following Trigger's own "betrayal" of Harling.
• The sin lines mirror the idea of "levels" of Hell, with each line being reserved for a worse sin.
• In the context of Revelation 12, the dragon represents the Devil. Trigger's "sin lines" become a dragon's claw later in the story.

Trigger's story is about the War in Heaven, but this time the Devil (Trigger) overcomes the Archangel Michael (Mihaly Dumitru Margareta Corneliu Leopold Blanca Karol Aeon Ignatius Raphael Maria Niketas A. Shilage) instead.

Okay, so here we go. Just as Ace Combat 7 loosely follows Revelation 12, Ace Combat 8 loosely follows Revelation 13.

For a bit of added context, the Bible never explicitly uses the term "Antichrist" in Revelation, but the "beast" of Revelation is often understood to be the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John and 2 John.

Revelation 13:1 – The Beast From the Sea

The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.

• The beast rising out of the sea is Rex. You start the game on an emergency raft, get pulled out of the ocean twice, and spend most of your time aboard the Dauntless at sea.
• The ten horns are the members of Joker and Queen flights: Queen 1–4 and Joker 1–4, plus two more (Cope and Kate, again).
• Alternatively, they could be the members of Jackpot Squadron: Jackpot 1–9, plus Dealer.
• The phrase "on each head a blasphemous name" refers to each character's callsign written on their respective helmets.

Revelation 13:2–3 – The Dragon Gives the Beast Its Power

The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

• The "dragon" is probably Cope giving his authority to Rex. Alternatively, this could be about Trigger passing the torch to a new protagonist.

• Cope is Jesus Christ. He's essentially a pacifist because he won't shoot down the Sotoans, and he also embodies a Christian Trinity across his three lives:

  • As the Son, following Selene/Carmille Tewy.
  • As the Father and leader of Joker Flight.
  • As the Holy Spirit inside Rex's head.

  Jan Cope's initials are also JC, i.e., Jesus Christ.

• Rex means "king" in Latin. Both Cope and Rex/Ray use the callsign, and each of them, in turn, is the Ace of Aces, or King of Kings, which is what Jesus Christ is called in Revelation 17:14.

• The "fatal wound to the head that healed" could refer to Rex replacing Cope, with Rex being "resurrected" from a fatal wound; the brainwave results they obtained after pulling you aboard the Dauntless; or even the narrative resurrection of Kate, who is one of the "heads".

Revelation 13:4 – Worship of the Beast

People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”

• This refers to your wingmen following you after Cope and being shocked by your combat abilities.

Revelation 13:5–6 – Blasphemy and Deception

The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.

• Maybe not literally forty-two months, but the secret surrounding the "Wing of Theve" is eventually leaked by nonbelievers, which is what this is about.

Revelation 13:7 – War Against the Holy People

It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.

• The "holy people" Rex wages war against here are probably the Sotoans. The Sotoans are a group of people desperately searching for a "promised land", which doubles as an idea of the afterlife and their conquest objectives.
• The phrase "authority over every tribe, people, language and nation" could refer to the FCU being a federation of many other peoples and nations.

Revelation 13:8 – The Beast as a Symbol of Hope

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.

• It's revealed later, by a shepherd no less (Rosita Ortiz), that the Wings of Theve really are a "worshipped" symbol of hope.

Revelation 13:11–15 – The Second Beast

Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.

• This could really be about three people: D.D. (Lucas Díez Doniphan), Selene (Carmille Tewy) and/or Ares (Girish Toprak)
• D.D. "exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf", but it was really Selene who "performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people" (the Tonitrus Spear).
• Alternatively, this could be loosely about both of them and their actions. It could even be about the Enso Order.
• This second beast who "exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf" also sounds a lot like Girish Toprak

Revelation 13:16 – The Mark of the Beast

It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads.

• This is again about the callsigns on the helmets, but also the symbol of the Wings of Theve: the Hand of Theve and the five wings.
• It's the symbol that everyone rallies behind and posts online in the climax.

Revelation 13:17 – The Mark and Commerce

So that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

• This is about the dissolution of the Enso Order and the rise of Neucom Incorporated and General Resource Limited, setting up the events in Ace Combat 3.

Revelation 13:18 – The Number of the Beast

This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

• You can calculate the numbers from the intro and story, Countdown-style, to reach 666. The numbers the game draws your attention to are 4, 8, 900, 6, 17, 22, 180, 50, and 11.

• The equation is:

  8 * (17 + 11 − 22 − 6) + 900 − 180 − 50 − 4 = 666

• It's also worth noting that 8 is the number of this entry itself (Ace Combat 8), and (17 + 11 − 22 − 6) = 0, referring to Ace Combat: Zero, the game bundled with pre-orders.

• I think 17, 11, 22, and 6 are either about the squadrons and aces you fight or the title numbers (1, 2, 1+1, 1+2, 2+2, etc.), but I can't cleanly establish either.

• Cipher and Galm Team from Ace Combat: Zero were also references to the number of the beast: Galm Team's designation is the 6th Air Division, 66th Air Force Unit (666).

Conclusions: The Inverse Narrative

So, like Ace Combat 7, Ace Combat 8 follows this subtextual, inverse idea of the Christian narrative: the Devil overcomes Michael, who was prolonging the War in Heaven for selfish reasons, and the Antichrist takes over the deception of Christ to become something more true.

Ace Combat really seems to like playing with these inverse biblical ideas, like the space elevator (the Tower of Babel) being a symbol of globalism and a place for war refugees.

There's also a bunch of cool Greek mythological subtext, like Selene and Endymion, as well as plenty of things that have gone over my head.

I'd be interested to hear what everyone else has found!

I finished the campaign for ace combat 8 with no issues, uninstalled it and reinstalled it a week later. since the reinstall it can barely run at all - shaders take ages to load, cutscenes and load times are slow and the game itself is unbelievably laggy and stuttery - i've tried everything from trying different drivers to clearing the shader cache to even modifying the files themselves. Any help would be appreciated. I'm playing on PC with 16gb ram and a 5060ti

I'll try to be as spoiler free as possible; appreciate it if any replies also try to do so in kind.

so I'm still playing through AC8 and the thing is pretty, but I find I can and do put it down a lot. I'm not chomping at the bit to get to the next mission, and if I fail, I have been willing to call it a day more than once.
I preloaded it on steam and have been playing it here and there, and I still haven't gotten fully through the campaign.

I've played my fair share of AC in the following order
4, 5, 0, X, JA, AH, 3(JP), 7
4~3JP were all played on various sony stuff, 7 and 8 on PC via steam and a PS4 controller.

my PC can run AC7 pretty flawlessly, but AC8 seems to default to low specs, but no obvious dropped frames, so it runs smooth, but probably doesn't look as nice as it does on a PS5Pro.

something isn't working for me. I think its the story. I am listening to every briefing, watching every cut scene(I really don't care for the ability to control the camera; I don't need the press F to pay respect mode). the dialog feels... stilted?

I'm still getting the hang of most planes feeling heavier or having more real life inertia than previous controls. so far I've only done 1 short tunnel through the ocean fortress

I think the steam version has a bug? with the PS4 controller. some buttons are registered annoyingly as double presses. missile launch is almost always double barrels, and in the system settings, trying to select the graphics setting panel, the up and down arrows are registered as double presses; I need to go over this menu with my mouse or its absolutely uncontrollable via controller.

maybe it's just me. on paper it seems to be an out of the park success, but I just can't seem to be getting into it.

<SPOILERS>

I'm up to mission 27

Expert controls, veteran mode, at least my first time through.
planes used F14D, F15J, EA18, A10C, F2A, F22A, F35C, and all the upgrades required to get to the planes.

Maybe the formulaic nature is finally getting to me?
Easy first mission, somewhere you need to fly through radar cover, a rival(squad) that cheats physics, a star wars trench run, takeoff/landing/midair refueling, the mute murder machine, etc.

Maybe its the high co-pilot attrition that's bumming me out?
Land battle ships look stupid as hell when moving like a boat on surfaces.

I don't care how to skip the replays you need to press and hold the right button as opposed to just tapping the start once like in all previous ACs.

Really diggin the soundtrack though. expect for the chant like vocals when the rival squad comes in.
feels real high school basketball cheering. less dread, more like here comes the JV team(maybe its dread if I ramp up difficulty to ace)

</SPOILERS>

Am I the only one looking side-eyed on our AWACS?

On my first playthrough I just chalked him up to the story's designated "woe is us" character archetype, but on my current subsequent playthrough I think he's way too beta to actually be a beta.

Not a ton of evidence, I'll obviously admit, but something I noticed that I thought was quite telling was that outside of general words of encouragement throughout all missions (which really isn't a key factor in whether or not a squadron is successful on a mission to mission basis), he really doesn't contribute jack shit in terms of tangible solutions or leadership direction, especially it matters most. I'm some cases when it matters most, he is even a detriment to the situation.

It may seem (or at least it did to me on first playthrough) like he is making valuable contributions because he does the most talking and is the one guiding Rex through critical moments, but this only comes after the die is cast so continuing to play the role of the constantly pessimistic AWACS to play his role accordingly without actually furthering the squads success. Only when he can't increase their odds of success dramatically will you then hear from him.

For example, when he proclaims all is lost and "he has no cards left to play" when the Megafloat's laser sub-control system for the Spear comes online after decimating multiple carriers, is the one who notices & points out the now-vunerable access tunnel(s)? No it's Tasha - she says "Rex is that ..." followed by an acknowledging gasp by Coster. Brief, but clearly indicative of what she just pointed out. Only then does the AWACS "proclaim AH yes I see what you mean" followed by instructions and encouragement. Would have been nice if you had that card in your deck ...

Or what about during Mission 28 when he proclaims multiple times "too many blips on our radar, I don't have any ideas", "the deck is stacked, we are done for", and "they are going to wipe us off the map" at different points, forcing the civilian pilot in Joker squad to have to reassure everyone and keep moral high. Is there a card in your deck that says "convince Joker squad that this is all pointless" or were you planning to balance it out with some positivity later on??

Thoughts?

Edit: also to add, regarding that same mission (28) ... he also bows out when Moon 11 arrives and hands command over to Rex. Da fuck?

"Uh sir, I may be your best pilot, but there's a reason why pilots for any squadron don't also fill the role of the AWACS or issue commands, - I've got a couple of other things to focus on at the moment, such as not crashing my plane / being shot down / losing consciousness. Would you mind staying put for the moment? No, oh okay, sure I'll take command then."

Right after I mopped up all the ground forces, the Shadows, the unfinished land battleships, the game just would not let me continue. I tried restarting from the checkpoint, still happened. I'm so angry. They need to fix this!!!

Pensees is a really charming song, with the space elevator in the background too cuz haha French tower

AC8’s credit song is a way better song don’t get me wrong but it doesn’t fit the kinda somber mood of a credit song, my favs being near the border (AC0), normal ending (AC2) and as mentioned above.

Still a goated game tho

Anyone else find it much easier to S rank on Ace compared to Ace Combat 7?

Sure there are a few tricky ones like Mission 25 or 28 but it’s barely comparable to AC7’s difficulty

Do you clean your aircraft like a prissy virgin Satoan?

Or do you let your time in combat show like a based chad Usean

Ever noticed how the QAAMs and SaSMs feel like they don't belong in a pvp setting. Way too easy to get kills with and no skill is needed. Do you think they belong and why?

If you get mad, then I am talking about you.

EDIT: “Let people enjoy things 🤓🤓” I’m not proposing prohibition. I’m proposing a label. If a flair that lets uninterested users filter something out feels like an attack on your enjoyment, I’m not sure the problem is the flair.

And that f3h at the end really pulled some Toprak bullshit

Who tf is rosie and why's everyone slobberin on her G I R T H Y dong?

I hope the next protagonist in the next Ace Combat game is either a Belkan or Erusian trying to regain the honor lost by the crimes of their countrymen.

What do you guys think? Or what do you hope for?

Both hurt the gameplay of the online mode too much. It makes using planes that do not have either of These generally a worse choice then using ones with.

ECM makes dogfighting just flat out unfair for the side without, and LAAM's are way too annoying to evade and also hurt PVE.

I really want to continue playing Online but this together with way too short matches and the unrewarding Progression makes it a lot less fun then it could be.

On a playthrough stream when it reaches mission 28, the moment the Shilagean volunteers showed up, someone in chat said the volunteers squadron leader is Mihaly granddaughter. Is it true?

Am I the only one that's about to hit the point where playing multiplayer missions will result in zero meaningful progression? If you max out your player rank, complete the Ace Pass, and reach whatever aircraft level caps you could afford before running out of generic blueprints, your progress is effectively frozen and your only hope of not completely wasting your time is saving up XP tokens for later and hoping you max out your daily blueprint rewards (both of which are subject to some form of random chance). Even worse, if you don't buy another premium Ace Pass in six weeks youll get LESS THAN HALF of the blueprints granted to those who do.

I love these games, and I've been playing Ace Combat for more than 15 years. I met some of my best friends through playing previous titles online, and I hate saying anything bad about a game with such a beautiful singleplayer campaign. However, the Ace Combat Online is downright disrespectful of people's time and money. Nobody should pay 90 dollars for a game only to have basic progression capped outside of periodic paid battlepasses and see half the game modes locked behind artificial-FOMO-inducing slot-machine mechanics.

I played AC7 right up until the release of AC8 and bought every DLC that game had to offer. But I'm not spending another penny on a game that treats me like an F2P freeloader and demands more money every two months for basic progression after I paid $90 just to get in the door.