Ace Combat: Assault Horizon/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: The reveal of the Sukhoi PAK-FA (Russia's 5th Generation superplane, the only currently existing equal of America's F-22) at Gamescom 2011.
  • Broken Base: Gamers that bought Assault Horizon BEFORE picking up any of the other games will love it. Most Long time fans hate it.
  • Crazy Awesome: Bishop gets several moments:
    • Stopping an ICBM launch by slipping under the missile's wake and accelerating upward after it, getting close enough to take damage from the thing's exhaust.
    • Engaging in a dogfight within the outer edges of a Category 5 hurricane.
    • Rescuing Guts when his ejection system is damaged by using his cannon to shoot off the canopy on Guts' Raptor.
  • Game Breaker: Those Quick Air-to-Air missiles that were dreaded online and were the most broken missiles in the series? Yeah, they're back, and they've been buffed back to AC4 status.
  • Misblamed: As stated in the trivia section, Jim DeFelice had plans for a story set in the Strangereal setting, but the decision to go into the real world was Project Aces'. Forum hopping on GameFAQs has people up in arms with regards to DeFelice's story for the game.
  • Ruined FOREVER: Some changes sparked an Internet Backlash for things like leaving the Strangereal World in favor of the real world.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: The Close Range Assault mechanics are rather contentious, especially Dogfight mode.
  • Tainted by the Preview: The demo forcing you to use Close Range Assault to splash aces has not been warmly received.
  • That One Boss: The final battle with Markov is absolutely SAVAGE. His plane can TARGET YOU WITH MISSILES EVEN WHEN YOU'RE CHASING HIM IN DFM. And those missiles have truly insane homing ability. AND he maneuvers like a spider monkey on crack, speed, and acid, meaning even getting your assault circle primed is a herculean task. And then, his plane is COMPLETELY INVULNERABLE until just before he gets into firing position for his cruise missile, something the game neglects to mention.
    • Of course, this fight can be cheesed if you either a) bring an aircraft that has ECM, or b) learn to exit Dogfight Mode whenever you hear the lock-on beep and enter it again to make the missiles useless. Or you can do both to be sure.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Where to start... many AC fans are unhappy about the change in setting, the lack of superweapons, the introduction of Close Range Assault, the Regenerating Health and the addition of piloting different kinds of aircraft like helicopters and bombers, for starters.
    • HAWX was deemed inferior to Ace Combat by AC fans, yet many old-time AC fans think that HAWX is superior to Assault Horizon. It's more of a "It's a completely different game with a completely different gameplay" than complaining about the changes, though.