YMMV / Ace Combat: Joint Assault

• Awesome Music: Even though it's a step-down to the previous games aside from recycling a handful of tracks from AC2 (as well "Linkage" from 3: Electrosphere as the briefing theme in addition to a remix), Joint Assault still has a great score much as the others.
• Cliché Storm: The game is basically Independence Day, only replace aliens with a combination of N.G.O. Superpower and Nebulous Evil Organization.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Many years later, Crimson 1 is arguably Sulejmani done right, As his Motive Rant happen in the middle of the duel, not before, and the fight against Crimson 1 is a proper climax with no scripted invulnerability Plot Armor. To cap it all off, it is heavily implied that Presidia, the capital of Cascadia and the site of the final stage in Project Wingman, used to be San Fransisco... where the final battle against Sulejmani is fought.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Oreos (Spoilers)^Explanation During the Sulejmani fight in the Varcolac, Sulejmani, in the Japanese version, has a lot of dialogue that says "I will, or I am", or Ore wo, but due to Narm in effect, the Japanese make a meme that he's more obsessed with oreos.
  • "MY HONOR! MY PRIDE! MY LIFE!" (Spoilers)^Explanation In the English dub, Sulejmani screams this upon receiving heavy damage before being finally taken down by Antares during his boss fight after bringing up his Freudian Excuse regarding him being sold by his parents and becoming a Child Soldier decades ago while planning to use his monetary gains to restore his lost life. Due to the Narmy voice acting in the English dub, his quote reeks of Wangst.
  • After the DLC missions for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown introduced Matias Torres, some started to jokingly refer to Nicolae Dumitrescu as Torres' long-lost cousin. It helps that the two look pretty similar and try to achieve their goals through nuclear bombardment.
• Narm: While not the same extent as its predecessor, the English voice acting can be cheesy at its worst, special mention goes to Sulejmani and the rest of the Varcolac squadron due to them sounding like a bunch of stereotypical 1990s super-villains with jets.
• The Scrappy: Sulejmani is generally agreed to be the worst Ace boss in the entire Ace Combat series, due to his rampant disregard of physics, extreme Plot Armor, and cheesy dialogue (especially in the English localization) that combines to make an unsatisfying That One Boss. It is so bad that sometimes that the infamously broken final boss from Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is considered better than his final boss fight.
• Tear Jerker: Gaviria and Oruma's reactions to their squadron mates' deaths in Reprisal, even if said "mate" is the utterly selfish Kiriakov. You can just feel the pain in their voice, and then you'll shoot them down as well. Sure, they were greedy enough to sell themselves out to murderous terrorists, but Even Evil Has Loved Ones.
• That One Boss: Sulejmani is cheesy even by the standards of the series's superfighter final bosses. His GAF-1 Varcolac aircraft makes visibly physics defying turns constantly, which the player (or other enemies for that matter) cannot do at all. He has a ridiculous hyperspeed barrel roll that lets him dodge missiles with 100% efficiency, and he can make turns so fast, he can instantly snap into any direction in less than half a second from any direction, and make sharp angle turns or even an instant 180 (Prior Assault Horizon and 7: Skies Unknown, where they introduced the ability to perform "post-stall maneuves"). As if the missile dodge wasn't enough, he also has a backwards-facing gun that shoots down 90% of the missiles, while his own missiles lock on to you instantly. To cap it all off, he has a long, cheesy speech to deliver throughout the boss fight, during which he is flat out invulnerable by Plot Armor. The best possible ways to take him out is either using an aircraft that's highly maneuverable when going toe-to-toe and using your trusty machine gun, attempting to exploit his barrel roll with a well-timed missile (preferrably the XLAAs) hit as he sometimes dodges too early or use the ADF-01 Falken's tactical laser system (though you must unlock it after beating Special Mission 2: "Ace of Aces" first).