So you gonna defend a mediocre game that focus on animations and calls itself "Strategy"? facts are facts.
Also Ace Combat is awesome, not sure what that guy smoked, but your comparison was a poor attempt.
Maybe start explaining at which game and which part spamming the most powerful attacks everytime always nets you a win? Because I'm pretty dang sure in most series bar the newer entries like I said, you would get obliterated.
To list the one that I've tried:
EX: Melee based attacks has a pretty short range here with only a select few reach 3 (Dunbine Aura Slash only has 1 even) and real units while fast, don't have the firepower to take down mooks in a single hit, sending out either unit straight ahead will have your party picked apart by mooks, especially ranged real, really fast. So what's the best way to deal with this? Bait-and-switch with beefier units, chip enemies health with the gundams, then finish them off with map based attack or slowly one by one with another units.
Shin: Plenty of weirdness here that's not on a standard SRW games, let's start with the armor system that actively reduce mobility which make unit like Getter tricky to use, and weapon has to be upgraded individually, you better off using a fully upgraded head vulcan than the strongest attack available for longer battles, you also need roughly 3 playthroughs to fully upgrade all your units. Some units also has unique mechanics like Layzner being skipped for 1 turn after V-Max, and transformable unit like Combattler has to be combined manually.
F: Can't upgrade unit stats here, the scenarios is more streamlined like a basic grid-based RPG here, selection of multiple protagonist is a nice touch to accustom your play style, still can't play Leeroy Jenkins here.
Alpha/Alpha Gaiden: Finally used the mechanic that modern adaptation use, terrain rating matters here as shown on early scenarios with Getter unit, ground units without a long range weapon can't hit a flying unit at all, and water greatly reduces beam damage, iff you actually played this, you would know there is one scenario where half of the map is water and the game encourage you to retaliate by using kinetic weaponry, underwater, since the enemy mostly use beam weapons. And that's just one example.
Woohah, strategy!!
MX: You do have plenty of powerful units here, but a lot of scenario also put you in a hard situation as well, let's see, you had to hold out with half dead Grendizer for 3 turns surrounded by Vega armies, cleared the map under 6 turns when Medias Locus bugs you and the only decent unit at that is God Gundam, Baikanfu while pretty strong with his shield-piercing abilities, come and go many times before settling in the party for good almost late game, and many, many more.
Yeah sure you can spam Zeorymer's Meiou and turn everyone to dust but you will make a lot of your units missing out exp points, which brings trouble when you are facing the other 7 Hau Dragon's minions, not impossible to do with low level party, but still really hard.
GC: You are very unlikely to die here since for some reason, enemies rarely kill you straight off and aims at the head/arms/legs part instead, play it smart and you can finish the scenario under an hour, play recklessly and you are looking at 2 to 3 hours playtime per scenario. Also the buddy system is mandatory for few unit to bring out their potential, the worst offender comes to mind is Shiro who was only effective when paired with Aina during late game, good support pilot but stuck with mediocre unit.
A Portable: Nuff said.
OG: You are stuck with mediocre units (you have 4 basic gespenst as extra, fun) for the first 10s or so scenarios while being hounded with Elzam/Sanger/Shu who can easily kill you in a single turn if they want to, and the individual weapon upgrade is back, the most popular strategy is upgrading the weak and easily available 10mm Machine Gun 'cause you are not getting a FUB until very late into the game, or you can spam Leona's Lion stun attack, also only available late game.
OG2: Similar situation with OG1, bit better since you actually has decent unit like Kai with his Gespenst, you still need to watch SP consumption since some pilot like Kai and Katina already has high cost spirit like Valor which can only be activated like once at the beginning.
And have you actually defeated Mekibos and Vigagi in the first run? Did you actually rush head on with just Gilliam here and took down 2 enemy units with 6 digits HP, alone, while protecting the main battleship?
J: Easy due to enemy's stupidity most of the time, otherwise, it's similar to MX for me.
Z series: Okay this one is actually braindead easy like you said, only because they give you plenty of powerful units early on.
UX: Weird units all over the place, with lots of them relying on push-and-pull mechanic, Tobikage don't even appear unless one of it's unit gets below 30% HP, you are also limited with units' variety since the only viable wall character here were only the Macross and Mazinkaiser SKL. Sure, rushing ahead wins the battle, but you will also sacrifice a lot of your battle party too. The supers in this series also drain EN like a bitch that you cannot easily spam their strongest move at your leisure anytime.
The overly OP unit, Liber Legis, is only available at the final scenario, and as a secret, but you'd be done with 95% of the game by then so the point is moot.
OG Moon Dweller: Also similar with OG and OG2, just with better units, the difficulty while doesn't ramp up until mid-game, would still prevent you from rushing ahead due to limited Skill Points being distributed here. If you try to power up all your units early on without planning ahead, you'd be left with limited funds when all the heavy hitters joins late game, while if you try to save up for later and fully maximized Granzon to steamrolled the game, you can, but you will be stuck with under performance units most of the game, with only few reliable ones here and there.
V/X/T/30: Easy like I mentioned earlier.
Now, may I hear your rebutal?
