Adaptation Displacement: The movie is far more well-known in the English-speaking world than the series of novels it is based on, likely due to being directed by Mamoru Oshii. The aforementioned novels were eventually translated, but the work was done by a relatively small, Japan-based publishing house, meaning that they still remain relatively obscure in comparison to the film.
Anvilicious: War Is Hell, and it will do nothing but ruin lives regardless of how involved they are, where the battlefield is or how the definition of the conflict is changed.
Kusanagi's blank face when Mitsuya wants to kill her is just... scary. Her silver eyes are just ghost-like, and yet, pretty cute at the same time.
Her appearance when she comes out of the ladies' room in the Krakow restaurant is also quite creepy, with her newly slicked back hair and glaringly red lips - she looks more like a doll come to life than a person in that moment. Even Yûichi stares with his mouth open. This could be a reference to another one of the director's films Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.
The videogame contains examples of:
Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack qualifies as one, but special mention goes to BGM 5 and all its variants (11, 21, 28 & 29). The composer is Kazuhiro Nakamura.
Narm: Mozume. Despite having a great voice actor (or rather, because of it) his last lines are one of the most hilarious in video games.
CHEEEETAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
Spiritual Successor: In nearly every respect, save for the title and lack of jet aircraft and guided missiles, Innocent Aces is an Ace Combat game, made by the same developers and published by the same company and using basically the same tropes. Furthermore, many aspects of the game would cross back to the parent series.
Many later Ace Combat games would feature piston-engined fighters with similar flight models to those used in Innocent Aces, and when used in Ace Combat Infinity, the game would adopt a HUD very similar to that used by Innocent Aces.
The Tactical Maneuver Command system would return to the parent series in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy. However, the maneuvers that can be performed using this system would first make their appearance as counter-maneuvers in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon's much-maligned Dogfight Mode.
The "Explosive Bullets" (EPB) subweapon is essentially an unguided predecessor to the "Short-range Aerial Suppression Missile" (SASM) and the "Rapid Guns" (RPG) subweapon is a predecessor to the "(Machine) Gun Pods" (GPD or MGP) seen in most Ace Combat titles since Innocent Aces's release in 2008.
That One Achievement: Or, in this case, five achievements. What makes them so difficult to earn is that they require you to go through the entire campaign and avoid doing something in particular, whether it be failing a mission, missing a S rank, restarting a mission, or using a TMC. If you do any of the above in a mission and then save, the current story run will become ineligible for some or all of these achievements, depending on what forbidden action you did. Of course, you can instead use Save Scumming to roll back to the last good mission and try the current one again until you clear it perfectly. The lack of an option to reset campaign progress doesn't help matters either.
That One Level: The second part of Mission 6: Baruka, in which you have to save your three wingmen after Lautern forces ambush your recon planes. The first time you play it, you are given no definitive indication that you have to save them all. Then, once you realize that you fail the mission if even one gets shot down, you'll have to deal with how difficult the task actually is, thanks to the fact that you can only use the Senryu, whose poor mobility and speed makes it hard to fend off their attackers. The mission's prohibition of special weapons due to a spy camera occupying the special weapon slot, as well as the lack of upgrade parts available up to that point, doesn't help matters either.
and all its variants (11, 21, 28 & 29). The composer is Kazuhiro Nakamura.