Ace Combat HDWA Challenge - Day 13: Ace Combat Joint Assault (PSP, 2010)

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HDWA = Hardest Difficulty, Worst Aircraft.

RULES
1) Beat the game at the highest difficulty using the worst aircraft available.
2) Cheats, intentional glitches and bugs are forbidden.
3) Savestates are forbidden.
4) This is not a speedrun! Take your time and try to achieve a good score if possible.
5) Choose any emulator you want.

SOME WORDS ABOUT ACE COMBAT XI: SKIES OF INCURSION
Ace Combat XI: Skies of Incursion was released in 2009 for iOS devices. The only way to play this game is to use an iPhone/iPad or emulating it with a MacOS computer, there’s no way to emulate this on Android or Windows.
Installing a Hackintosh or jailbreaking my phone isn’t worth it, so I’m just gonna skip this game.

ACE COMBAT: JOINT ASSAULT
PREREQUISITES
1) Beat the every single-player mission in the Campaign to unlock “Ace” difficulty (this will take you at least 3 playtrhoughs).
2) Unlock the F-6F by beating mission 2 on your second playthrough
AND/OR
Unlock the A6M5 by completing mission 18 on your second playthrough with a rank of “A” or higher.

HARDEST DIFFICULTY
Ace.

WORST AIRCRAFT
F-6F-5 “Hellcat” and A6M5 “Zero”; F-4/F-5/F-1.

HDWA CHALLENGE DIFFICULTY: 10/10

ADDITIONAL CHALLENGE
Shoot down enemy aces if possible/reasonably practical.

DESCRIPTION
Once again I didn’t bother changing the BIOS, so once again vi beccate il gioco in italiano senza lamentarvi.
This is the first Ace Combat game set in the real world and not in Strangereal (actually the very first game would be Air Combat 22, because during the difficulty selection you can see a world map, but there’s no mention on where the game takes action).
Game mechanics are very similar to Ace Combat X, being on PSP.

The plot is fairly simple: you’re a mercenary that fights for a private military organization, and the other mercenaries that fight with you, Rigel Squadron, decide to betray you and join the enemy just because they promised a much higher pay.
Part of the soundtrack is taken from Ace Combat 2 and 3, and the rest was made for the game, and I must say that the result came out very good.
This is the first Ace Combat game that lets you fly WW2 piston airplanes and...a damn civil airliner, the 747!
Also, you can tune your aircraft and install performance parts to improve their stats.
There are checkpoints in this game as well, and you can change aircraft and/or weapons when loading from checkpoint.

About the HDWA challenge.
First of all, what’s the worst aircraft? It’s the 747, because it’s a civil airliner with no weapons, but can be used only during one mission.
So the next contenders are the WW2 airplanes, the Hellcat and the Zero. They have very similar statistics: poor air-to-air, air-to-ground, they’re slow and can’t fire missiles, but all of this is compensated by the fact that their cannons are fairly powerful, and they have a very good maneuverability.
As for the jets, the worst of them all are the F-4, F-5 and F-1.
Until mission 18 (and except for mission 15, in which you fly the 747) I’ve used the F-4-F Hellcat without many problems. The only performance part installed was in the engine, to slightly increase its speed (or else, it would be impossible to take on this challenge).
Unfortunately the Orgois on mission 18 are too fast for the airplanes, so I had to switch to the F-4 to complete the mission.
Same for mission 20: I could play part 1 with the Hellcat, but had to switch to the F-4 once again because on part 2 the Spiridus was too fast and I couldn’t catch up.

Overall the challenge was frustrating but nothing impossible...until mission 21.
First of all: I had the brilliant idea to update my graphic card while I was recording mission 21, so there are some slight video splices here and there.
Anyways, mission 21 part 1 takes some time and patience to master, because of the damn AEGIS ships that can shoot you down with a couple of missiles, so you have to come up with a strategy to attack the ships without taking too much damage.

Part 2 is not that hard: while facing Varlorac, just be careful on your surroundings and shoot down Gaviria, Kirikov and Oruma with your cannons, and after that damage Sulejmani.

Once you deal enough damage to Sulejmani, shit starts to hit the fan.
He starts using high G maneuvers, and his jet is deadly. First he has his back turned to you, and in an instant he’s facing you, fires missiles at you and if you don’t react fast, you’re dead.
I don’t think there is a real strategy here, I just tried everything: fly below 500m, fly above 5000m and do a dive attack; go slow; go fast; go behind him; attack him face to face...
It took me ages to end this battle, and I got very lucky when I landed the last hit on him, because he was gonna hit me with his missiles.

Emulator used: PPSSPP.

SHORT REVIEW
Plot: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Controls: 8/10
Game difficulty (besides my challenge): 8/10
Frustration: 7/10 until level 21, then 10/10
Overall score: 7.5/10




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