Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"This is the Round Table. Dead men's words hold no meaning."''}}

 

 

In its final days, Ustio took desperate measures and recruited a number of mercenary pilots in a last ditch effort to fend off the encroaching Belkans. One of these pilots is the true interest of Thompson, a legendary ace known as the Demon Lord of the Round Table. In his time, he was known by the callsign, Cipher, and was number one of the Galm Squadron alongside Larry "Pixy" Foulke, aka Solo Wing. As Cipher, you play through the most famous battles of the Belkan War and deal with its bloody and tragic aftermath.

In terms of the ''Ace Combat'' series, ''The Belkan War'' differs mainly in its presentation of the story. It takes the form of a retrospective using live action actors to play the parts and invests a significant amount of effort in demonstrating the extent to which the Demon Lord affected the lives of everyone who fought him.

 

 

* [[Air Jousting]]: {{spoiler|The final mission has you do the closest equivalent fighter jets can get to knightly jousting. Considering the Arthurian motifs present, it was most likely deliberate.}}

* [[The Alliance]]: The Osean-led Alliance against [[The Empire|Belka]].

* [[Bait and Switch Boss]]: Happens in the Gauntlet on the highest difficulty. {{spoiler|The final squad is wiped out by the real boss... Mobius 1 in his signature Raptor. If you manage to shoot him down, that's ''30,000'' points for you. Yes: Mobius 1 is considered so badass that shooting him down is equivalent to shooting down ''six'' Pixy+[[Super Prototype|ADFX-02]], or rougly ''twenty'' "normal" Aces!}}

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: The player is this to the Osean air force in Mission 10.

** The X-02 Wyvern is the same. It's a bonus given to you when you unlock it. It's description still says it's the latest in Erusian technology, even though it wouldn't be developed until the Erusian War many years later.

** Mostly averted with the Morgan itself, which comes out of nowhere to fight you, but its defenses are addressed when you encounter it.

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Knowing some German (and to a lesser degree, Russian and Spanish) helps you recognize references.

* [[Book Ends]]: It is snowing during both the first and last missions of the game.

* [[Boss Remix]]: "Zero".

* [[Boss Rush]]: The bonus stage 'Gauntlet' allowed the player to face four randomly chosen enemy ace squadrons in a row.

* [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]]: ''Beautifully'' averted. ''Zero'' is the king of all AC heroes in the respect department: some of the cutscenes between missions are full-motion video interviews with ace pilots ''about you, the Demon Lord of the Round Table'', ten years later.

* [[The Empire]]: Belka.

* [[Evil Is Easy]]: Not so much. You get better planes, yes, but you have to defeat ace squadrons flying them against you first, and you have to take time to destroy yellow targets to stay evil. It definitely [[Evil Pays Better|pays better]], though. That's not to say the ace squadrons specific to that path are much more difficult than the others, but they do tend to outnumber you more severely than other squads.

* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|Pixy}}. Even though he's obviously reconciled with the player character by the time of his video interview, {{spoiler|he still killed the replacement wingman PJ}}.

* [[Fatal Family Photo]]: Though {{spoiler|Patrick "PJ" James Beckett}} was never considered the sharpest tool in the shed, his sense of [[Genre Blindness]] reaches a head when the last words out of his mouth are "I'm gonna ask her to marry me when I get back, I even bought flowers!" Boom.

* [[Gameplay Ally Immortality]]: [[Averted]] with the mission-critical carrier ''OFS Kestrel'', and only if you choose Operation Costner for your fourth mission.

* [[Genre Blindness]]: A particularly cruel example with PJ: "Now the war is finally over. I got a girlfriend back at the base. I'm gonna propose to her when I get back. I even bought flowers." Three seconds later, {{spoiler|he's blown out of the sky.}}

* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: P.J's last words {{spoiler|before he gets shot down by Pixy?}} ''"DANG IT!"'' Notable for being the ''only'' time P.J. loses his cool; he also sounds genuinely furious, ''not'' like he's toning down his language.

* [[Hufflepuff House]]: Ustio and Sapin are this to Osea and Yuktobania despite the fact that the player character is from one of these Third-Party Countries.

* [[Insult Backfire]]: An amusing conversation between Pixy and PJ:

{{quote|'''Pixy''': Galm 2 to Crow 3, if you get shot down, crash where I can't see you.

** The bombers' radio chatter is borderline [[Axe Crazy]] as well:

{{quote|'''Bomber pilot:''' Turn it to ashes! (pause) That's ''not enough!'' DROP MORE BOMBS!!}}

* [[King Arthur]]: ''Ace Combat Zero'' is so positively rich with Arthurian motifs. Notable ones included names like the "Hydrian Line" as a defended area and "The Round Table" as a nickname for a famous battlefield. Also present are the Excalibur laser tower (complete with a comment from a soldier after its destruction that "the sword has been pulled from the stone") and fighter pilots with names like Joshua "Lucan" Bristow and Anthony "Bedivere" Palmer. Furthermore, members of A World With No Boundaries begin to refer to {{spoiler|Pixy}} as their "King" and note that he has departed for "Avalon", actually a code name for a weapons lab hidden under an artificial lake, and at the end of the game the last boss fights you in a plane called the ADFX-02 "Morgan" and the mastermind behind A World With No Boundaries delivers his final speech from prison where he is serving his life sentence for war crimes, much like Merlin locked in his stone tower (appropriate for the leader of a squadron named "Wizard").

** Don't forget that the only way for you to finish off said last boss is {{spoiler|[[Air Jousting|pretty much as close as jet fighters can get to knightly jousting]]}}. When combined with the epic, EPIC musical score playing, it was also the game's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: Despite attempting to invade half a dozen countries at once to expand its borders and avoid an economic crisis, Belka had corps of extremely loyal pilots proud of their own nation. In an interesting game concept, there are cutscenes of interviews of the Belkan pilots the player fought, depicting them as obviously likable men ten years after the war. Mainly since Belka {{spoiler|detonated 7 nuclear weapons on their own country late in the war.}} The pilots explicitly state that they hold no animosity towards their enemies, during and after the war. It was just war, and it was just what they were trained to do. In fact, many of them revere Cipher, the player character, in a decidedly odd twist, one character even states that Cipher is comparable to the old orders of Belkan Knights, an honor that he doesn't even give himself.

* [[My Nayme Is]]: It's the case with Galm, which is supposed to be Garm. Likewise, the briefing text for one of the missions in Zero refers to "Operation Broom", whereas the spoken briefing clearly calls it "Operation Bloom".

* [[Not So Different]]:

{{quote|{{spoiler|Pixy}}: "You and I are both sides of the same coin."}}

* [[Oh Crap]]: Happens in the mission briefing for the Hresvelgr mission:

{{quote|'''Base commander:''' Your mission is to pursue the craft and... [[Interface Screw|(radar screen flickers and a warning message appears)]] Wait... unidentified aircraft are approaching the base! Quick, there's no time! ''Get into the air immediately!!'' [[Nothing Is Scarier|(radar screen goes completely black)]]}}

* [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]: ''"Zero"''.

* [[One-Man Army|One Man Airforce]]:

** In the FALKEN's case, its inclusion, along with the inclusion of the Wyvern, is most likely non-canon. Since this is an alternate world, the inclusion of the Su-47 and such fits in with this world's more advanced technology

* [[Scenery Gorn]]: The Hresvelgr mission opens with your airbase being bombed to flaming ruins by what is basically a flying aircraft carrier/battleship. And you see it happen ''in first person, from the cockpit of your plane still on the ground.''

* [[Sequential Boss]]: Morgan.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Solo Wing Pixy is a shout out to a real life situation where [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_EXtBEaBbs an accident caused an F-15 to continue flying after losing it's ENTIRE RIGHT WING]. This is actually not a fluke, the way the F-15 is designed, it can stay in the air if it loses one wing and half of the other one, albeit precariously.

* [[Theme Music Power-Up]]: ''Zero'' likes doing this. Cue the Spanish Guitar and prepare to wet your pants.

* [[Title Drop]]: "We'll start over from 'zero' with this V2..." (complete with quotations in the subtitles).

* [[True Final Boss]]: {{spoiler|Mobius One and his Raptor}} in the Gauntlet.

* [[Truth in Television]]: Though the times and planes are different, Belkan enemy pilots seem to show some signs of the code of Chivalry, In real life early World War One pilots displayed such acts.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: Taking the Mercenary Ace path revolves around intentionally gunning down retreating planes, destroying civilian/unarmed ground targets, and refusing to spare enemy pilots whose weapons have been taken out of commission. On the plus side, you get more money; on the downside, you face harder enemy ace squadrons.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]: Aforementioned facing of harder enemy ace squadrons.

*** For added bonus points, as the enemy ambushes you, they even scream [[You Bastard|"Those damn mercenaries, haven't you earned enough?!"]]

** This doesn't ''always'' work exactly that way, however. Take for example the second fight over the Round Table, each squad has their own advantage over you: the Mercenary squad has 8 planes, which is nearly twice as many as the other possible bosses, but the Knight-path squad's leader is much better trained than his wingmen (who are already pretty good, [[Oh Crap|unless you take said leader out first]]), and the Soldier squad can fire at you from much farther than you can at them.

 

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[[Category:Simulation Game]]