YMMV / Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception

• Complete Monster: Diego Gaspar Navarro is the commanding officer of the Democratic Republic of Leasath. Eager to build a new attack aircraft and strengthen the country's military, Navarro stole the funds donated from Aurelia during a Leasathian civil war. He later persuaded Leasath into believing that Aurelia manipulated and took advantage of them during the civil war. When Leasath declared war on Aurelia, Navarro used all of the Leasathian military forces to annihilate most of the Aurelian forces, and even permitted them to attack civilian locations. After Aurelia gradually regains their independence and takes back their capital city, Navarro flees to a series of islands as Aurelian forces pursue him. He later launches the attack aircraft to destroy the Aurelian pursuers and broadcasts it to the public just to show off the aircraft's power.
• Memetic Mutation: "This is the Naiad." ^Explanation Ace Combat X's voice acting is generally considered to be shoddy and subpar compared to the entries in the series, and this particular line uttered by the eponymous submarine is the target of mockery due to how narmy it becomes when repeated several times.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Hamlet unit's use of a biochemical agent to attack Santa Elva makes it quite difficult to sympathise with Leasath's military. So does the Gleipnir captain attempting to use his Shock Cannon to blow up Santa Elva just to spite Gryphus One.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: X is generally seen as a harder game in the series, with harder missions and, via Story Branching, the ability to make said missions even harder.
• That One Level: 7C, Time Limit! You are tasked with dumping antidote bombs on nerve gas outlets that have been released on Santa Elva by the Hamlet terrorist unit of Leasath, just like Mission 12 of Ace Combat 5; however, the antidote bombs in ACX are VERY unstable, meaning too much G-force from your plane (such as accelerating too quickly or doing really sharp turns) will detonate them and kill you, making your mobility and speed (combined with the aforementioned time limit to clear the toxic gas before it kills any civilians which fails the mission) very limited. Hard enough? No?! Here, have some enemy planes not only hunting you down whilst you are trying to clear the gas, but make fun of your flying because it sucks whilst you try not to get killed by your bombs! Thankfully, after getting rid of all the gas, your bombs automatically empty out, allowing you to slaughter the mouthy enemy pilots. Thankfully, the mission is skippable (and non-canon).
• That One Boss: Scarface One/Phoenix in "Operation X", flying his signature XFA-27. The Z.O.E Commander in the same fight is only slightly harder than the four FALKEN targets. Phoenix, however, is the hardest enemy in the entire game (Keep in mind that Skies of Deception is one of the most, if not the hardest game in the series.). He is obscenely quick, fast enough to fly behind your plane within seconds and shoot you down easily and agile enough to dodge even the QAAMs, as well as extremely aggressive to the point where you WILL hear the "Missile Alert" siren throughout the entire fight. That's on top of trying not to get sliced in half by the FALKEN's TLS. He's damn near impossible on Ace Difficulty, though thankfully, defeating him is entirely optional.

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