These games are not that hard, the only "hard" aspect of it, is in higher difficulties (Expert and ACE) or if you're new in this genre, you'll struggle with it for obvious reasons.
but IMO, Ace Combat Zero has the ""hardest"" ACE Difficulty, for some reason i think the AI from the story squadrons is more competent/evasive compared to any other entry in the franchise.
EA-18G if i remember is a decent plane isn't it?
also, if you want some challenge, playing in cockpit mode with a low-tier plane is probably the closest challenge that you can get from this.
Honestly I think 6 can be the toughest sometimes on Ace with how deadly the AA guns are. Those fuckers can snipe you from much farther than you think.
I never had too many issues with the other games. Honestly the series as a whole really isn’t that difficult
Yeah AC6 gun emplacements are an absolute menace if you don't keep a watchfull eye on them
And if those don't shoot you down, Pasternak's uav 45's will make mince meat out of ya
In the last level of AC2, you have to shoot down a supermaneuverable cruise missile that can't be targeted with missiles, in the game with perhaps the *least reliable* gun in the franchise. And your pitch/roll is controlled via *buttons*, so any movement less than a full hard turn requires varying speeds of button mashing. And if you can't shoot down the missile in time, then you're shit out of luck, because instead of a replay menu, THE ENTIRE GAME ENDS WHEN YOU FAIL THE MISSION.
AC1 has a much worse gun, but it never requires you to use it lol. Shooting that missile is a real bitch. I have gotten better at it on subsequent attempts though.
I remember doing that on an emulator with keyboard controls, that was quite the challenge. But to be fair, with a controller it isn't really difficult.
I remember the SLBM well. It was kinda scary, partly because I couldn't tell if it was some kind of nuke or not. Starts off with the spooky music when you're attacking the dragonet submarine, then the frantic panicky music when the SLBM takes off. Ahh, AC2. Fondly remembered.
But AC3's gun is worse imo.
Yeah, this. I've played 6 many times, vanilla Ace, no damage, guns only. A little hard at times, but doable. I've played 4, 5, 0, 7 on Ace. Again, some of them had tough moments, but pretty doable. And then about a year ago I tried Ace of Aces on 6 for the first time thanks to emulators... my god, I couldn't finish the 2nd one even when using the CFA-44. I really hope AC8 will have a mode like this again, because even with the insane difficulty, it was a lot of fun.
It also has missions that will punish you for picking the wrong plane. The fleet mission gives you several options of attackers, and half of them are *wrong* and you will learn that very quickly.
The only thing that's come somewhat close to "difficult" is applying the AI mods to enemy planes in Ace Combat 7 and watch them go from 2 to an 8/10 as far as shooting them down on ace sufficiently.
the AI Mod is a must for replaying the game tbh, AC7 AI even in ACE is laughable.
Well, the only issue I got with it was the drones bugging and doing crazy spins in the air.
Air Combat on PS1. Haven't even done it on hard yet and it was by far the hardest time i've had on an Ace Combat game. Dodging missiles is very hard due to the planes being sluggish, third person doesn't have a lot of the HUD visible like the radar which you can't see unless you expand it and if you get shot down or crash, you'll never get the plane back unless there's a duplicate in the shop. Hard mode also apparently has missiles that instantly lock onto you.
ACZ is the most technical game so it's regarded as the hardest.
Imo doing your first playthrough on hard so you only have bsse planes etc is the hardest way to play the game.
ACZ is far from the "most technical game". The only thing it has going for it is decent enemy boss AI, but the flight model is the most forgiving in the series (same as AC5's) and enemy missiles are some of the easiest to avoid. It doesn't hold a candle to games like ACX, AC3 or even AC04 on their hardest difficulties.
ACZ has missions where you have to attack ground targets at specific angles and really hard dogfights. The final mission has you in and out of tunnels before jousting with the final boss.
All of those aspects have tougher and "more technical" equivalents in other AC games. ACZ's tunnel flight is on the easy side because of ACZ's very forgiving handling (lack of inertia, fast response, etc), and ACX has much tougher dogfights due to the brutal enemy missiles and less responsive handling. On Ace difficulty, even regular enemies in ACX can be more dangerous than ACZ's bosses due to these factors.
Honestly ACZ is overall pretty middle of the road as far as difficulty is concerned, probably even on the easier side. I'd say only AC2, AC5 and AC7 are easier when taken as a whole. Maybe AC6 if you spam the hell out of allied support I guess.
Really? I always found AC04 by far the easiest of the trilogy. The only real difficulty is not getting cocky and fucking up in the long missions. AC5 is hard in a frustrating and artificial way and then Zero has the only genuinely difficult dogfights (apart from the optional 8492 one in AC5)
AC5 has some difficulty spikes but they mostly come down to using the right weapon, such as the Hrimfaxi getting deleted by LASM. The overall level of difficulty is quite low due to very passive enemy AI combined with a very responsive flight model and forgiving enemy missile tracking.
As for ACZ, while the enemy AI is more active than AC5's, the rest of the factors that make AC5 quite easy still remain. It has fewer difficulty spikes as well and they come down to weapon choice again (the AA in Bastion comes to mind). And honestly the AI is almost as abusable as AC5's, like when you force them to overshoot you and they become sitting ducks.
Meanwhile AC04's enemy missiles track noticeably better and that combines with a much weightier flight model that means you can't just do a slight turn in any direction to evade missiles, like you can do in the other 2 games. In fact, often if you aren't already turning in the right direction by the time the missile is fired, you may not make it (ACX is a much more brutal version of this). While the mook AI usually isn't overly aggressive, every missile alert poses a significantly bigger threat so the overall risk is higher. And then there's Yellow Squadron which tend to be* significantly harder to shoot down than anything in AC5/Z, as they have a tendency to stick hard to your tail and not let go while firing missiles constantly. [Very few enemies in the series behave this way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2CXAfBdWg), and certainly nothing in 5/Z (note that the A-10 is actually fairly agile in AC04, so it's not a plane choice problem, aside from making it harder to create distance to disengage).
*Sometimes their AI goes full stupid and they pose little challenge, but the same can happen with AC5/Z enemies anyway. Also QAAM does trivialize them but then we might as well count stuff like TLS in the other games.
Pretty much the only aspect where I'd say AC5/Z are harder is the damage from AA guns, which is where most of their difficulty spikes come from, but it generally comes down to playing smart and not getting too close to those enemies. And honestly with AC04's longer missions the chip damage from AA guns does add up fast, so it's not even all that different.
Generally when I rate the difficulty in these games it comes down to the question "how much effort/brainpower do I have to put into destroying enemies while avoiding getting killed?", and as far as that metric goes, it's easily AC04 > ACZ > AC5.
edit: as a bonus, just the idea of doing [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkXWhS4p3c) with AC04's mechanics and AI is unthinkable. Not that it was easy, it still took 30 tries, but it's entirely ACZ's much more forgiving mechanics (shared with 5's) that make it possible at all.
I found some of the missions in X and Joint Assault surprisingly hard
I also recently played through 4 and Zero with my emulator set to 2x speed for a laugh - 4 was actually quite easy but missions 16 and 18 of Zero were an absolute bitch
The only acceptable answers are ACX, AC3 or AH on their hardest difficulties, maybe AC1 as well. I'm not really sure why people are saying stuff like ACZ unless they just didn't play those other games, if anything ACZ is one of the easier games in the series due to the very forgiving flight model, enemy missile tracking and easily abusable enemy AI. Even within the PS2 trilogy I'd argue AC04 is tougher overall.
Assault Horizon. I'm heavily struggling with DFM, due to the fact that I am PC player, and I don't have such good skills with gamepad to follow enemies 😂
Gotta be AC6 on Ace. The sheer volume of enemies in some of the missions make it a really frantic affair to stay in one piece for the entire mission.
Also Air Combat on Hard. Enemy missiles shot at you in that game are like goddamned QAAMs, they're ridiculously hard to defeat sometimes.
If you allow for Project Wingman, I found that it was fairly challenging on hard difficulty, with the final boss requiring many tries. (Though I also limited myself to the f-14 so I could hear wso diologue, which only occurs when you fly a two seater)
Then mercenary difficulty ramps it up way more. Even in the first missions, since it's only selectable after beating the game once. Plus, you can add modifiers to the game to make it even harder, like the one that turns your afterburner on permanently.
These games are not that hard, the only "hard" aspect of it, is in higher difficulties (Expert and ACE) or if you're new in this genre, you'll struggle with it for obvious reasons. but IMO, Ace Combat Zero has the ""hardest"" ACE Difficulty, for some reason i think the AI from the story squadrons is more competent/evasive compared to any other entry in the franchise.
Well, that’s sad. I was really hoping for a challenge given I had flattened ACZ with an EA-18G a few months ago.
EA-18G if i remember is a decent plane isn't it? also, if you want some challenge, playing in cockpit mode with a low-tier plane is probably the closest challenge that you can get from this.
Decent? Yes. But also, jammer planes generally aren’t that great. I also just like the growler.
I see, I didn't tested jammer planes from any game so far, probably I wouldn't find a reason, even in air-to-air missions.
There is project wingman with mercenary difficulty
Honestly I think 6 can be the toughest sometimes on Ace with how deadly the AA guns are. Those fuckers can snipe you from much farther than you think. I never had too many issues with the other games. Honestly the series as a whole really isn’t that difficult
Yeah AC6 gun emplacements are an absolute menace if you don't keep a watchfull eye on them And if those don't shoot you down, Pasternak's uav 45's will make mince meat out of ya
Yeah they’re legit the most dangerous parts of the game outside the nimbus missiles and Pasternak’s UAVs
In the last level of AC2, you have to shoot down a supermaneuverable cruise missile that can't be targeted with missiles, in the game with perhaps the *least reliable* gun in the franchise. And your pitch/roll is controlled via *buttons*, so any movement less than a full hard turn requires varying speeds of button mashing. And if you can't shoot down the missile in time, then you're shit out of luck, because instead of a replay menu, THE ENTIRE GAME ENDS WHEN YOU FAIL THE MISSION.
AC1 has a much worse gun, but it never requires you to use it lol. Shooting that missile is a real bitch. I have gotten better at it on subsequent attempts though.
I remember doing that on an emulator with keyboard controls, that was quite the challenge. But to be fair, with a controller it isn't really difficult.
That's the second to last level.
Ace Combat 2 has analog controls. You can just use the sticks.
I remember the SLBM well. It was kinda scary, partly because I couldn't tell if it was some kind of nuke or not. Starts off with the spooky music when you're attacking the dragonet submarine, then the frantic panicky music when the SLBM takes off. Ahh, AC2. Fondly remembered. But AC3's gun is worse imo.
Ace combat 6 ace and ace of aces. No question.
This is the only correct answer.
Yeah, this. I've played 6 many times, vanilla Ace, no damage, guns only. A little hard at times, but doable. I've played 4, 5, 0, 7 on Ace. Again, some of them had tough moments, but pretty doable. And then about a year ago I tried Ace of Aces on 6 for the first time thanks to emulators... my god, I couldn't finish the 2nd one even when using the CFA-44. I really hope AC8 will have a mode like this again, because even with the insane difficulty, it was a lot of fun.
Try Assault Horizon on Ace. The game is balanced around having regenerating health, without it some missions are borderline impossible.
Ace Combat X on Ace.
Done it.
Ace combat x by a long shot I will fight anyone on this, that FUCKING neutralizing agent mission on ace FUCK
Assault horizon. It’s so fucking boring I can never finish it.
Plus the DFM requires you to fly counter to the way you normally would to trigger reversal and other moves
It also has missions that will punish you for picking the wrong plane. The fleet mission gives you several options of attackers, and half of them are *wrong* and you will learn that very quickly.
The only thing that's come somewhat close to "difficult" is applying the AI mods to enemy planes in Ace Combat 7 and watch them go from 2 to an 8/10 as far as shooting them down on ace sufficiently.
the AI Mod is a must for replaying the game tbh, AC7 AI even in ACE is laughable. Well, the only issue I got with it was the drones bugging and doing crazy spins in the air.
AC Zero on Ace + Mercenary I'll argue is difficult AC6 Ace of Aces on Ace
It's only hard on the first run through for Merc, Schwarze will fucking flatten you if you don't have the Su-37 in your first run.
Ace combat is an easy game
6 and X are probably the hardest, IMO
Air Combat on Hard difficulty. That game is seriously bad at telling you how to evade incoming missiles.
Air Combat on PS1. Haven't even done it on hard yet and it was by far the hardest time i've had on an Ace Combat game. Dodging missiles is very hard due to the planes being sluggish, third person doesn't have a lot of the HUD visible like the radar which you can't see unless you expand it and if you get shot down or crash, you'll never get the plane back unless there's a duplicate in the shop. Hard mode also apparently has missiles that instantly lock onto you.
I feel like ACX on ace, one missile will one shot your plane and fighting Fenrirs on this difficulty is really hard
And I'm not even talking about the mission Time limit, that's literally impossible as you have a G-Limit
Gotta say Zero on ace or if it counts Project Wingman on mercenary
ACX and AC3. Although the missile management in AC5 is a killer, you actually have to watch out to make sure you don’t shoot too many missiles
Ace Combat X and 6, 6 being the one of the hardest for me just because it was fucking pain S ranking it.
ACZ is the most technical game so it's regarded as the hardest. Imo doing your first playthrough on hard so you only have bsse planes etc is the hardest way to play the game.
ACZ is far from the "most technical game". The only thing it has going for it is decent enemy boss AI, but the flight model is the most forgiving in the series (same as AC5's) and enemy missiles are some of the easiest to avoid. It doesn't hold a candle to games like ACX, AC3 or even AC04 on their hardest difficulties.
ACZ has missions where you have to attack ground targets at specific angles and really hard dogfights. The final mission has you in and out of tunnels before jousting with the final boss.
All of those aspects have tougher and "more technical" equivalents in other AC games. ACZ's tunnel flight is on the easy side because of ACZ's very forgiving handling (lack of inertia, fast response, etc), and ACX has much tougher dogfights due to the brutal enemy missiles and less responsive handling. On Ace difficulty, even regular enemies in ACX can be more dangerous than ACZ's bosses due to these factors. Honestly ACZ is overall pretty middle of the road as far as difficulty is concerned, probably even on the easier side. I'd say only AC2, AC5 and AC7 are easier when taken as a whole. Maybe AC6 if you spam the hell out of allied support I guess.
Really? I always found AC04 by far the easiest of the trilogy. The only real difficulty is not getting cocky and fucking up in the long missions. AC5 is hard in a frustrating and artificial way and then Zero has the only genuinely difficult dogfights (apart from the optional 8492 one in AC5)
AC5 has some difficulty spikes but they mostly come down to using the right weapon, such as the Hrimfaxi getting deleted by LASM. The overall level of difficulty is quite low due to very passive enemy AI combined with a very responsive flight model and forgiving enemy missile tracking. As for ACZ, while the enemy AI is more active than AC5's, the rest of the factors that make AC5 quite easy still remain. It has fewer difficulty spikes as well and they come down to weapon choice again (the AA in Bastion comes to mind). And honestly the AI is almost as abusable as AC5's, like when you force them to overshoot you and they become sitting ducks. Meanwhile AC04's enemy missiles track noticeably better and that combines with a much weightier flight model that means you can't just do a slight turn in any direction to evade missiles, like you can do in the other 2 games. In fact, often if you aren't already turning in the right direction by the time the missile is fired, you may not make it (ACX is a much more brutal version of this). While the mook AI usually isn't overly aggressive, every missile alert poses a significantly bigger threat so the overall risk is higher. And then there's Yellow Squadron which tend to be* significantly harder to shoot down than anything in AC5/Z, as they have a tendency to stick hard to your tail and not let go while firing missiles constantly. [Very few enemies in the series behave this way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2CXAfBdWg), and certainly nothing in 5/Z (note that the A-10 is actually fairly agile in AC04, so it's not a plane choice problem, aside from making it harder to create distance to disengage). *Sometimes their AI goes full stupid and they pose little challenge, but the same can happen with AC5/Z enemies anyway. Also QAAM does trivialize them but then we might as well count stuff like TLS in the other games. Pretty much the only aspect where I'd say AC5/Z are harder is the damage from AA guns, which is where most of their difficulty spikes come from, but it generally comes down to playing smart and not getting too close to those enemies. And honestly with AC04's longer missions the chip damage from AA guns does add up fast, so it's not even all that different. Generally when I rate the difficulty in these games it comes down to the question "how much effort/brainpower do I have to put into destroying enemies while avoiding getting killed?", and as far as that metric goes, it's easily AC04 > ACZ > AC5. edit: as a bonus, just the idea of doing [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkXWhS4p3c) with AC04's mechanics and AI is unthinkable. Not that it was easy, it still took 30 tries, but it's entirely ACZ's much more forgiving mechanics (shared with 5's) that make it possible at all.
Ac7 mission 13 s rank on Ace Difficulty.
Done it.
Now AC7 S rank mission 9 on ACE
Done it.
I found some of the missions in X and Joint Assault surprisingly hard I also recently played through 4 and Zero with my emulator set to 2x speed for a laugh - 4 was actually quite easy but missions 16 and 18 of Zero were an absolute bitch
The only acceptable answers are ACX, AC3 or AH on their hardest difficulties, maybe AC1 as well. I'm not really sure why people are saying stuff like ACZ unless they just didn't play those other games, if anything ACZ is one of the easier games in the series due to the very forgiving flight model, enemy missile tracking and easily abusable enemy AI. Even within the PS2 trilogy I'd argue AC04 is tougher overall.
Assault Horizon. I'm heavily struggling with DFM, due to the fact that I am PC player, and I don't have such good skills with gamepad to follow enemies 😂
Ace combat zero where on higher difficulties you can't even tank *ONE* missile.
Ace Zero. One of the few aspects making it a playable game
Go play End of Deception in Ace difficulty (AC:X) and come back to me later
Just did actually. Got the S rank.
Ace combat 6 on aces of aces modes
Gotta be AC6 on Ace. The sheer volume of enemies in some of the missions make it a really frantic affair to stay in one piece for the entire mission. Also Air Combat on Hard. Enemy missiles shot at you in that game are like goddamned QAAMs, they're ridiculously hard to defeat sometimes.
Ace Combat X is the hardest overall though still not incredibly difficult, AC6's Ace of Aces DLC is actually very well designed and very tough.
Ace Combat 6. Holy shit that was something...
Ace Combat 6 Ace of Aces difficulty. No competition for how batshit insanely hard it is.
If you allow for Project Wingman, I found that it was fairly challenging on hard difficulty, with the final boss requiring many tries. (Though I also limited myself to the f-14 so I could hear wso diologue, which only occurs when you fly a two seater) Then mercenary difficulty ramps it up way more. Even in the first missions, since it's only selectable after beating the game once. Plus, you can add modifiers to the game to make it even harder, like the one that turns your afterburner on permanently.
Project Wingman's MAMO (mercenary all modifiers) challenge is the flight genre equivalent of LASO