An Ace Combat Tierlist (And my first ever forum thread)

[THE GUILTY ACE]

Hey there, my name is Ahab, or The Guilty Ace, this is my first forum thread EVER. This is a tier list I made about a year ago after playing through every single Ace Combat game i possibly could. (including the Sky Crawlers game + Ive also played Project Wingman.) I had so much fun playing all of these (except for X2 and Advance ), and the games have been great inspiration to me in my various world-building projects. Of Course my favorites were the Japan version of electrosphere, Zero, and Innocent Aces (which is part of my usernames inspiration!!). I love these games so much and I'm very very excited to see Ace Combat 8 release. And maybe a hot take; but besides the story, i quite enjoyed the gameplay of Ace Combat Assault Horizon, its pretty fun imo. Every other game is just awesome and ill eventually play through them all again before Ace Combat 8 arrives. Other than that, I don't have much more to say than that really. Feel free to talk about your favorites, how you'd rank them, etc. Have a good day/night, stay safe, and stay awesome!!

 

[Yousef Yousef]

Hello ahab and welcome to the forum! Cool tierlist you got, my favorite is AC7.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Hey there, my name is Ahab, or The Guilty Ace, this is my first forum thread EVER. This is a tier list I made about a year ago after playing through every single Ace Combat game i possibly could. (including the Sky Crawlers game + Ive also played Project Wingman.) I had so much fun playing all of these (except for X2 and Advance ), and the games have been great inspiration to me in my various world-building projects. Of Course my favorites were the Japan version of electrosphere, Zero, and Innocent Aces (which is part of my usernames inspiration!!). I love these games so much and I'm very very excited to see Ace Combat 8 release. And maybe a hot take; but besides the story, i quite enjoyed the gameplay of Ace Combat Assault Horizon, its pretty fun imo. Every other game is just awesome and ill eventually play through them all again before Ace Combat 8 arrives. Other than that, I don't have much more to say than that really. Feel free to talk about your favorites, how you'd rank them, etc. Have a good day/night, stay safe, and stay awesome!! View attachment 181564

Alright let’s see how te-
Ace Combat 2 in A
Ace Combat X in S
I can’t disagree.
Also take a look at Airforce Delta.

 

[THE GUILTY ACE]

I will eventually... its in my game collection, I've got a lot of other stuff i wanna play first. Already played a tiny bit a while ago and i did like it. Thanks for the reminder though! edit; oops forgot to reply lol

Post automatically merged: May 6, 2026

Hello ahab and welcome to the forum! Cool tierlist you got, my favorite is AC7.

Thank you! I look forward to posting more in the future. And good choice!

 

[Dr.Kisaragi Dr.Kisaragi]

Not gonna lie I want to get into series one of this days

If you recommend what is the first play of this series.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Hyggelig å møte deg / welcome!

Cool list, but I don't have enough experience with the franchise to comment on it ^^U!

 

[THE GUILTY ACE]

Not gonna lie I want to get into series one of this days

If you recommend what is the first play of this series.

I'd start with 7, though the PS2 Holy Trinity (4, then 5, and 0 last) is also a good starting point. I wouldn't recommend playing X2 or Advance at all unless you're that dedicated to playing all of the games. Everything else is up to you. Hope this helps! and have fun when you can get around to playing them.

 

[Joliro]

Hey there, my name is Ahab, or The Guilty Ace, this is my first forum thread EVER. This is a tier list I made about a year ago after playing through every single Ace Combat game i possibly could. (including the Sky Crawlers game + Ive also played Project Wingman.) I had so much fun playing all of these (except for X2 and Advance ), and the games have been great inspiration to me in my various world-building projects. Of Course my favorites were the Japan version of electrosphere, Zero, and Innocent Aces (which is part of my usernames inspiration!!). I love these games so much and I'm very very excited to see Ace Combat 8 release. And maybe a hot take; but besides the story, i quite enjoyed the gameplay of Ace Combat Assault Horizon, its pretty fun imo. Every other game is just awesome and ill eventually play through them all again before Ace Combat 8 arrives. Other than that, I don't have much more to say than that really. Feel free to talk about your favorites, how you'd rank them, etc. Have a good day/night, stay safe, and stay awesome!! View attachment 181564

Well I see you never played infinity... Me neither but a couple of days ago I was hit with this on my recommendation, maybe take a look on the video if you are interested!

There's some ace combat games that I haven't played that I'm going through them right now (atm playing electrosphere) but for now AC zero, AC5 and AC2 are the best from what I tried, with 4 and 6 following close I think. Though depending on how electrosphere goes I can definitely see it getting on the top 3, game left a promising impression to me on the first couple of missions.

Can't wait for ace combat 8, really interested to see and even if its just decent I know I'm gonna like it a lot like all entries xD

 

[ArchienineArchienine's icon]

Welcome to the forums

 

[Blamhammer]

AC4 is still a pretty solid starting point for this series. Zero, X, and 3 are high on the must play list but make sure it's the Japanese / English translated version of 3.

 

[THE GUILTY ACE]

Well I see you never played infinity... Me neither but a couple of days ago I was hit with this on my recommendation, maybe take a look on the video if you are interested!

There's some ace combat games that I haven't played that I'm going through them right now (atm playing electrosphere) but for now AC zero, AC5 and AC2 are the best from what I tried, with 4 and 6 following close I think. Though depending on how electrosphere goes I can definitely see it getting on the top 3, game left a promising impression to me on the first couple of missions.

Can't wait for ace combat 8, really interested to see and even if its just decent I know I'm gonna like it a lot like all entries xD

Thats actually awesome!!! Thank you for sharing this with me, while looking around i also saw that a recompiled version of 6 was released. Ill have to check it out soon. And good luck/have fun with Ace Combat 3!! Its above even S tier for me for a reason.

 

[beefbowl]

my name is Ahab

How's the whale hunting going captain?

I always wanted to get into Ace Combat series but never got around to it, this tier list looks like a good place to select an entry to play.

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

I would bump up 6, but that's my own personal bias as 6 was the reason why I brought an Xbox 360 back in the day.
Infinity on the PS3 was great, but ultimately a daily log in/mission gacha game. The combat and flight mechanics were Ace Combat to the core but you would need to grind materials to research components, weapons & aircrafts.

Still, we got to fight Godzilla:

Also if you pre-ordered AC7 on the PS4 you got a whole remake of Zero included.
Unfortunately its locked to your PSN account and never been made purchasable separately.
After all the PSN Hacks & Data leaks In wonder if anyone can still access it lol
As PlayStation's policy towards hacked accounts is partial refund & permanently locking said account.

 

[THE GUILTY ACE]

How's the whale hunting going captain?

I always wanted to get into Ace Combat series but never got around to it, this tier list looks like a good place to select an entry to play.

Its going well, no luck finding that white whale though...
As for a starting point, id recommend 7 or the PS2 trilogy. But of course thats up to you. They're all good choices tbh. I hope you'll be able to get around to them soon and have some fun.

 

[JG5009]

The Ace 3 translation is what got my attention, all I can say is that there was me before Ace 3 and me after Ace 3. Playing all routes in a CRT on hard and using a PSP go as the controller all the way was a surreal experience, I felt that I've changed significantly since then.

I feel a bit undecided whether I want to play the other games since the beautiful aesthetics of 3 are so one of a kind and I'm not exactly a planes person.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

Hey there, my name is Ahab, or The Guilty Ace, this is my first forum thread EVER. This is a tier list I made about a year ago after playing through every single Ace Combat game i possibly could. (including the Sky Crawlers game + Ive also played Project Wingman.) I had so much fun playing all of these (except for X2 and Advance ), and the games have been great inspiration to me in my various world-building projects. Of Course my favorites were the Japan version of electrosphere, Zero, and Innocent Aces (which is part of my usernames inspiration!!). I love these games so much and I'm very very excited to see Ace Combat 8 release. And maybe a hot take; but besides the story, i quite enjoyed the gameplay of Ace Combat Assault Horizon, its pretty fun imo. Every other game is just awesome and ill eventually play through them all again before Ace Combat 8 arrives. Other than that, I don't have much more to say than that really. Feel free to talk about your favorites, how you'd rank them, etc. Have a good day/night, stay safe, and stay awesome!! View attachment 181564

Nice tierlist! and it makes me happy to know there are other Ace Combat fans who understand how good ZERO is.

 

[FateLanegod]

Also take a look at Airforce Delta.

Delta Strike rocks!

I would recommend to start with first Dreamcast game Airforce Delta. It is a bit basic compared to PS2, but as good as an introduction. The missions follow same style, but they’re more linear. You can still buy/sell airjets, however no armament customisation.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Nice tierlist! and it makes me happy to know there are other Ace Combat fans who understand how good ZERO is.

Most people do, it’s consistently pretty high rated on lists

Post automatically merged: May 7, 2026

Delta Strike rocks!

I would recommend to start with first Dreamcast game Airforce Delta. It is a bit basic compared to PS2, but as good as an introduction. The missions follow same style, but they’re more linear. You can still buy/sell airjets, however no armament customisation.

Noted.