Ace Combat – Assault Horizon Legacy

Ace Combat – Assault Horizon Legacy, released as Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble in Japan, is a 2011 combat flight simulation video game developed by Access Games and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Nintendo 3DS. Despite the game’s international title outside Japan, it has little relation to Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and is instead a remake of Ace Combat 2. The original Japanese version features compatibility with the Circle Pad Pro accessory. The plot of Assault Horizon Legacy is similar to the original plot of Ace Combat 2.

Featuring updated lore relating to its settings and plot events, including the series’ fictional universe of Strangereal, where Earth has entirely different nations, geography, and history. The game’s story details the 1998 Usean coup d’état, fought between the Usean Allied Forces (UAF) and the Usean Rebel Forces (URF) in the continent of Usea. In 1997, two years after the Belkan War and two years before the Ulysses impact event, the nations of the continent of Usea, concerned about Osean and Yuktobanian expansionism, agree to form the Usean Allied Forces, an alliance between Usean countries.

However, some countries in southern Usea consider siding with the Osean Federation after it offers to sign a military treaty with them, sparking objections and controversy. On May 30, 1997, the day of the treaty signing, conservative extremists in several Usean militaries, including some UAF defectors, the Lancer Squadron, the Cocoon Squadron, the Beast Squadron and the Albireo Squadron, engineering a continent-wide coup d’état, forming the Usean Rebel Forces. The Usean Allied Forces fights back, but by 1998, the Usean Allied Forces, suffering from defections and pushed to their last line of defense in the Twinkle Islands in southwest Usea, initiates “Operation Fighter’s Honor”, a counterattack led by Scarface Squadron.

The elite mercenary fighter squadron that put down the Skully Islands insurrection four years prior. Assault Horizon Legacy is a combat flight simulation game that is presented in a more arcade-like format in contrast to other flight-sim games. Its gameplay has been updated to fit contemporary Ace Combat gameplay, including newer features from the games released since Ace Combat 2, such as the high-g turn maneuver from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation and the enemy ace squadron boss battles from Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.

Two new mechanics introduced in Assault Horizon Legacy are “Attack Maneuvers” and “Evasive Maneuvers”, which simplify aerial maneuvers in a manner similar to Assault Horizon’s Dogfight Mode. Attack Maneuvers require the player to stay as close to an enemy aircraft as possible to fill up the AM Gauge, and immediately position the player behind the targeted enemy aircraft. Evasive Maneuvers are performed to evade incoming missiles from any direction, and condense missile evasion to moving the Circle Pad left or right.