YMMV / Ace Combat: Assault Horizon

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Yes, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter can do an Aileron roll ("barrel roll").
  • Real-life aircraft have many damage control systems and back-ups allowing damaged aircraft to continue on their mission despite taking direct hits from ground fire. These measures include things like self-sealing fuel tanks, fire suppression systems, back-up hydraulics, the list goes on. And yet people tend to think that aircraft hit by a missile should go down with just one or two hits despite the stories of modern fighters being able to return to base after receiving horrendous damage - famous examples include the A-10 Thunderbolt II, which is designed to survive sustained ground-to-air fire, and the F-15 Eagle, of which one operated by the Israeli Air Force managed to return to base with only one wing still intact. This latter incident is highly likely the inspiration for Solo Wing Pixy's claim to fame in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  • Although the developers were right to remove Bishop's once-prominent facial hair, Air Force regulations do allow for trimmed mustaches.
  • American bombers do actually have equipment that show them the radar coverage they're coming into, allowing them to minimize the danger of detection. Remember, while a B-1B can outpace a pursuing fighter (it can hug the terrain while holding its afterburners for much longer than a fighter could), a B-2A is basically a big black Dorito chip with the maneuverability you'd expect - that is, none at all - and an easy gun kill if spotted. The weaknesses of the B-2 Spirit bomber actually make the B-1 Lancer a better choice for the mission in which it is available, since the enemy had been alerted to the operation by The Mole and is already scrambling its interceptors.
• Awesome Music: Keiki Kobayashi and his team show off once more.
• Broken Base: Gamers that bought Assault Horizon before picking up any of the other games in the series love it, most long time fans on the other hand hate it. The biggest break point is the DFM system, not only in this game but arguably in the entire franchise. Supporters love it because it makes dogfights very spectacular and intense, plus it encourages use for people who in previous games just used missiles over and over since using the machine gun was way too hard for getting the same results. Detractors hate it because they think it destroys any sense of skill or challenge, and turns dogfights into glorified on-rails shooting segments, if not straight-up Quick Time Events. It doesn't help that not only some climactic boss fights but even basic mooks with flares force you to use it. That said, some detractors are willing to admit it works better in multiplayer modes, since using it on another human player means it's possible to have it turned around on you rather than it being a glorified "I Win" button.
• Cliché Storm: One of the main criticisms of Assault Horizon. While an Ace Combat game set in the real world could be interesting, the writers do nothing unique or original with it. Instead opting for a generic "United States vs. Russia" storyline, which by 2011 people were already getting sick of after every other military game ever had already been doing the exact same thing for years.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Expect Capital Conquest to be the game mode that's frequently played online, mostly due to the discovery of exploits that allow completion of the mode within minutes.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Many players weren't too bothered when Guts was shot down, as his dialogue is almost as bad as Slippy Toad's.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Those Quick Air-to-Air missiles that were dreaded online and were the most broken missiles in the series? Yeah, they've been buffed back to AC04 status here, and when in Dogfight Mode, the reticule stays glued to the enemy plane you're targeting.
  • The CFA-44 Nosferatu from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation comes back as Downloadable Content, and its EML is essentially a win button in DFM once you get behind an opponent.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The penultimate mission, "Hurricane," fictionally takes place on January 2016, around the East Coast of the United States, where a hurricane designated as Alex brews up and partly hampers your gameplay. Fast forward to the real life January 2016, Hurricane Alex brewed up in the North Atlantic part of America, admittedly a rarity among hurricanes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A lot of mockery was made of the fact that, in the final cutscene of the game, players have to initiate a QTE in order to have Bishop triumphantly pump out his fist to the cheering crowd of onlookers. Years later, there'd be "Press F (X) to Pay Respects."
  • The main plot of the game involving Renegade Russian with nukes and the Big Bad is piloting the PAK-FA. Fast-forward to 2022, Top Gun: Maverick has the main plot of preventing nuclear development of what implied to be Russia or a Russian-aligned country and the faceless antagonists are piloting Su-57 (the finalized, flight-ready version of PAK-FA)
• Memetic Mutation:
  • In the form of an inter-fandom Borrowed Catchphrase, expect the common reaction to "White Devil" to be "IT'S A GUNDAM!" ^Explanation White Devil, the title of the music playing during Mission 09: Siege, is the also official nickname of Amuro Ray due to his exploits in the RX-78-2 during the One Year War, though it's more popularly attributed (in fanon) to Nanoha Takamachi, who happens to be heavily inspired by the Gundam franchise to the point that some fans refer to her as a human Mobile Suit. Humorously enough, the site of the mission is a Russian airfield known as Belyi Base. The word belyi, or bélyj, is Russian for "white," thus giving you... White Base, just like in MSG. Ace Ventura references are a distant second.
  • The infamous "Press Y to Fist Pump."
• Mis-blamed:
  • 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.
  • Considering the Strangereal nations are still based on modern or historical real-life countries, the concerns may or may not have remained legitimate had this game gone with the Strangereal setting. Besides, most of those criticisms lie anyway with the facts that the War Is Hell aspect of the series is much toned-down, the storyline spends too little time outside of Bishop's personal conflict (whereas those who already played any or all titles between 04 and 6 would likely expect much more than that), and that the player character is Bishop himself and therefore no longer stays anonymous in Assault Horizon.
• Narm:
  • Stagleishov's accent when he speaks Russian, his mother tongue. Even a person who doesn't understand Russian may find it hard to keep a straight face while listening to him (unless, of course, you're playing a version where he has a different VA, whose accent is much better).
  • The aforementioned Fist Pump by Bishop at the end of the story, a minor meme in its own right.
• Narm Charm: "Gotta Stay Fly" qualifies because the lyrics make little sense and yet manage to be awesome.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Unlocking planes for use from the get-go without buying them from a shop isn't new to the series. That goes all the way back to Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere.
  • Similarly, neither this title nor even Joint Assault were the first AC game set in the real world. The arcade games (Air Combat and Air Combat 22) took place in the real world, but apart from the world map being shown in the arcade marquee and selection menus, there's no other in-game explanations.
• Polished Port: The PC port adds a bonus content pack (extra planes, maps, skins and skills upgrades) and support for screen resolutions up to 1900x1200.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Close Range Assault mechanics are rather contentious, especially Dogfight Mode.
  • The helicopter controls are this too, due to the camera positions. Of the three, the third person camera is very awkwardly placed over-the-shoulder with the tail rotor almost sticking out of the screen, and with no way to rotate the camera other than rotating the entire chopper, which makes it difficult to maintain situational awareness when moving in a direction other than forward. The first person camera is little better, as is requires you to rotate the crosshair to the edge of the screen before it turns the chopper, which makes rapidly changing directions nigh impossible. The third camera is a first person with only the HUD, and while it is less cumbersome than the other first person camera, it shares the issue with the third person camera in that you cannot look any other direction than where you're facing, again making situational awareness difficult.
• Surprisingly Good Foreign Language: Both the NRF propaganda broadcast in the level "Motherland" and the song "Mrs. Krista Yoslav" are in completely accurate Russian.
• Tainted by the Preview: The demo forcing you to use Close-Range Assault to splash aces was not 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. It doesn't help that you have a whopping five scripted cinematic sequences before his plane is actually vulnerable. DFM is already contentious with fans because of its nature as a disguised quick time event. Have fun needing to do five of them before you're allowed to kill Markov. 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.
• That One Level:
  • The AC-130 Level is damn near impossible in Ace difficulty, because there's no way to prevent being shot at with SAMs from the ground and the SAMs are too fast to be shot. Couple that with the fact that you have to deal with two or three at a time, that two kill you and that you have to escort your allies, it's pretty hard. Adding insult to injury, it's pointless to play the mission on Ace because it's possible to get an A rank as well as over ten thousand points on Pilot difficulty!
  • The helicopter levels are often criticized for dragging on far too long and ending up dull and repetitive as a result. The fact that helicopter special weapons (of which you are only allowed to carry one of, despite the helicopter having multiple hardpoints and the ability to carry both AT missiles and rocket pods is standard on all attack helicopters) have a small ammo pool and will run out quickly means that you'll be forced to use only the chin-mounted gun halfway through the mission, with no resupply option.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Where to start...
  • Many Ace Combat fans were 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.
  • Another large point of contention is Bishop not being a Featureless Protagonist, a break from (nearly) every other ace you play as in Ace Combat. Even worse, not only was Lt. Col. Bishop a rather bland and generic military hero, but Warwolf 3 and Warwolf 4 are pretty much an afterthought throughout the entire game; they're never seen or named, unlike Guts, and don't get any substantial dialogue until the final two missions of the campaign. With only a few tweaks to the story either of them would have proved perfect for the spotlight had not Bishop been the viewpoint character. The immersion players felt in previous games was sorely lacking and dearly missed. It's telling that while Infinity is also set in our world, the Player Character is a return to form (and also a Mobius 1 analogue), with the Bone Arrows' flight leader Viper serving the authoritative role Bishop was arguably better suited for.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Pre-release and promotional materials hyped up the ASF-X Shinden II and featured a plot involving a pair of Japanese pilots, one of them being the real-world version of Kei Nagase. However, the plot thread was quickly swept away in favor of Bishop and his unit members, with Nagase's story relegated to the Ikaros in the Sky novel that never made it out of Japan. The Shinden itself only appears as a DLC purchasable aircraft with no plot relevance whatsoever in-game and can only be played in Free Mission and Multiplayer.