The Let's Play Archive

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

by nine-gear crow

Part 19: Mission 19* – Operation Katina, September 20th-24th, 2006

Operation Katina

Mission 19*: Operation Katina [Ace Comabt 5 Arcade Mode] – September 20th-24th, 2006


Overview: The Shattered Skies War is over, and ISAF stands victorious, but the fighting is far from over. An organized force of ex-Erusean military officers, pilots, and soldiers have staged a rebellion against ISAF and the interim Erusean transitional government. Calling themselves “Free Erusea”, the rebels have stolen large stockpiles of weapons and aircraft scheduled for decommission as part of the Erusean disarmament treaty, and have begun attacking ISAF bases across Usea in a coordinated campaign of terror.

Free Erusea demands the immediate withdrawal of all ISAF forces from Erusean territory, a halt to the Erusean disarmament, the dissolution of the interim Erusean civilian government and the restoration of military rule over the Federal Republic, and for the abrogation of the Erusea-FCU cease fire treaty.

ISAF and FCU Intelligence has tracked Free Erusea’s base to an old abandoned naval air station in White Valley Bay once occupied by the Usean Rebel Forces during the first Continental War. As the remainder of ISAF’s forces and Mobius Squadron deal with Free Erusea’s uprisings elsewhere across Usea, Mobius 1 is called out of retirement to engage in a special campaign to neutralize Free Erusea’s air force: Operation Katina.


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Guest Commentator: I am joined for this 1 hour long video by CJacobs and ddinkins. You may remember dinkins as one of the people I tortured with the Air Combat failure stream a while ago. Well, now he’s back along with CJacobs to return the favour by shitting up the Operation Katina video.





OPERATION KATINA

So, first and foremost, what is Operation Katina?

Well, Operation Katina is our first taste of Ace Combat 5. Katina is Ace Combat 5’s Arcade Mode. It was bundled with AC5 on the same disc as a separate game mode apart from its Single Player and Multiplayer (Ace Combat 5 apparently didn't have multiplayer, so that shows you how long it's been since I've actually played AC5 or how much I care about multiplayer modes in general, h/t: Kadorhal) modes. Katina takes the modern-style Ace Combat gameplay back its arcade roots with a purestrain arcade mode similar to Air Combat 22’s, only because it’s built on a good engine this time, it doesn’t fucking suck.

Until Assault Horizon Legacy’s Survival bonus missions, Operation Katina was the only time that a mainline Ace Combat implemented an actual arcade bonus mode as part of its on disc offerings. Really, the nearest thing I would compare Operation Katina to is actually a piece of DLC. Katina is DLC for Ace Combat 04 from before the time when DLC even existed. It was placed on Ace Combat 5’s disc as a free extra to keep people playing the game after they’d finished with the storyline, and it was dressed up with Ace Combat 04’s trappings to appeal to fans of the previous game and get them on board with the bold new direction Project ACES was taking the franchise in with The Unsung War. It was also PA’s way of confirming that Ace Combat 04 (and by extension, Ace Combat 2) were indeed canon in this brave new Strangereal which debuted in Ace Combat 5. Electrosphere, hilariously, is still up in the air as to whether or not it’s actually canon, even 18 years after the fact and with Ace Combat 7 due out in what has to be less a year from now.

So, you can sort of see now my dilemma in “where do I cover Operation Katina?” with its oddball placement on an entirely different game from the one it was based upon. I’ve erred on the side of it doing now at the end of Shattered Skies just because of its obvious relevance to 04. That way we sidestep any possible confusion borne from doing Katina at the end of The Unsung War and having people go “why are going back to Ace Combat 04? I thought we were done with that one?”


Also of note is the name of the arcade mode, Katina. Those of you familiar with the StarFox franchise might remember Katina as one of the planets in the Lylat system that made its debut in StarFox 64, which came out roughly parallel to Ace Combat 2 (which itself had a hat tip to StarFox in it with its Fox Force Four quartet of Named Aces). Operation Katina was named after the Katina level from StarFox 64, which served as the inspiration for Operation Katina’s more arcade-y, rapid fire gameplay compared to the general Ace Combat style of gameplay.

As for actual bleed over between Project ACES and Nintento with regard to StarFox, it’s worth noting that StarFox Assault for the GameCube was in development at the same time as Ace Combat 5 and released within 4 months of Ace Combat 5, and was co-developed by both Nintendo and Namco (and Project ACES staff in particular). And guess what’s one of the levels in StarFox Assault? Katina.

The next time Nintendo and Project ACES would cross paths would be six years later for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy for the Nintendo 3DS, which featured a slate of special Nintendo-skinned planes, including a StarFox skin for the ADF-01 FALKEN which thoroughly disappointed ChaosArgate (Stonehenge impressed him though!).



GAMEPLAY/PRESENTATION

I’m not going to lie, the Katina video is, structurally, a goddamn mess, though that was a necessary evil born of compiling all its missions into a single sitting rather than doing a separate video for every individual mission, or four separate videos for each branching path, or 16 separate tiny videos for each stage in Katina.

Doing it this way allows me to cut out a lot of repetition, otherwise you would be subjected to seeing the first two areas four times, and then areas 3 through 5 of both the A and B paths another two times resulting in a total of 28 segments to capture all four runs. I’ve cut that down to 13, just under half that number by weeding out the repeated stages.

So Operation Katina has 4 possible paths that you can go down one at a time. The choice of which path is up to you and can be made at each branching point. There are a wide variety missions in each path, though all four will ultimately take you to the same final mission and final boss. The only difference between them is the difficulty level. Path 1 is the easiest path, with each path getting progressively harder until you hit Path 4, the most difficult.

Clearing Operation Katina once unlocks the Mobius 1 paint skin for the F-22A Raptor in the single player game of Ace Combat 5. Clearing all four paths of Operation Katina (something that takes a minimum of four runs) unlocks the ability to pick your choice of plane to fly each Katina mission in. Though that just basically amounts to an ad hoc challenge mode, as the Raptor is already the best plane (outside of 5’s slate of superplanes) that you could possibly take into Katina. Everything else is a downgrade and will just make things harder for you.

To my knowledge, I’m the first person on SA to tackle Operation Katina in any meaningful way. Of the three other LPs of Ace Combat 5 that I’m aware of, two of them never even touched Katina before they petered out, meanwhile a few brief but incomplete snippets of Katina are all that’s left of Concordat’s LP of 5 that just sort of dropped off the face of the forums.

Also, hi, Concordat, if you’re reading this (because you don’t have PMs); what the fuck happened to your Ace Combat 5 LP? :confused:



FREE ERUSEA

The concept of the Free Erusea resistance movement had existed since before the actual Erusean surrender with the Treaty of Farbanti at the end of the Shattered Skies War. ISAF and FCU Intelligence intercepted numerous communications that detailed the group’s founding, planning, and preparation, and several aircraft and tanks bearing the emblem of the special operations division that Free Erusea would spring out of were spotted on the battlefield or in recovered wreckage during the war.

When no such resistance movement emerged in the initial weeks and months after the war’s end, ISAF believed the group had merely collapsed due to disorder, or never existed in the first place and was part of a smoke screen disinformation campaign on the Eruseans’ part to dissuade a potential ISAF occupation of Farbanti and other Erusean territories. They had cited the failure of the old Belkan Werwolf resistance force, which never materialized despite former Chancellor Waldmarr Rald’s threats against the occupying Oseans (A World With No Boundaries’ unsanctioned terrorist actions notwithstanding).

Free Erusea finally came “online” in early 2006, months after the end of the war, at the order of several former high ranking members of the Federal Erusean Air Force’s military command. The command and communication apparatus that ISAF had written off as a smokescreen went to work with surprising swiftness in activating its assets and moving materials to strategic positions. Within the first week of its initial activation order, Free Erusea-allied personnel had seized control over dozens of aircraft, ground assault vehicles, and several warships including an aircraft carrier. The organization’s power structure was confirmed to be comprised of members of the FEAF, FEN, Federal Erusean Army, Special Forces, and even certain civilian backers, including personnel from the Erusean Air and Space Administration (EASA).

Both ISAF, the FCU, Independent States, and the interim Erusean government have all proclaimed Free Erusea to be a terrorist organization and not an entity acting on behalf of the Erusean government, people, or military. In total, Free Erusea-allied personnel comprise barely 10% of the remaining Erusean armed forces, the vast majority of whom back the new provisional Erusean government.

Free Erusea itself is an ultra-nationalist rebellion, with the stated goal of removing ISAF and the FCU’s corrupting influence from Erusea and restoring it to military rule. They have declared war on both the military alliance and on the nation that makes up the majority of its membership, conducting a campaign of terrorist and paramilitary strikes on ISAF facilities across Usea with the goal of forcing all ISAF personnel to leave the Federal Republic of Erusea.

While the interim Erusean civilian government supports ISAF’s Operation Katina to degrade and destroy Free Erusea, ISAF has requested the Erusean military not to attempt to assist in any Operation Katina actions, a move that has unnecessarily rattled many in Erusea.



EASA

Formally the Erusean Air and Space Administration, the EASA was, prior to the Shattered Skies war, one of the preeminent national aerospace firms on the planet second to the Osean Air and Space Administration (OASA). Following the rise in tensions after the first Continental War of 1998 and Erusean Refugee Crisis of the early 00s, the Erusean military government began to reign in the EASA to be a more nationalistic and opaque organization focused on working for the Erusean state and military over a public scientific good.

The EASA’s offices at Riass Space Center were shuttered, and it pulled out of the International Astronomers Union and the Usean cooperative of space agencies stationed in the Comona Islands. Its focus was shifted away from space travel and exploration and more toward terrestrial aerospace developments, effectively becoming an ad hoc military contractor.

Their crowning achievement in aerospace development thus far has been the X-02 Wyvern next generation superplane, under development since at least 1995, and developed in tandem with the Neucom Incorporated defense contractor. The EASA has also begun working on a new generation of AI aided and piloted fighter planes, having spent the last five years reverse engineering the leftover Project ZOE development materials that survived the purge after North Osea Gründer Industries shuttered the project and attempted to destroy all evidence of their involvement in the Continental War.


As we’ve seen in the two LPs so far of Electrosphere, the EASA is one of the firms that Neucom/Neuwork subsumes eventually to become what it is in Electrosphere’s weird and wonderful non-canon timeline.

Prior to Ace Combat 04, the EASA was simply known as the Euro-Asian Space Administration, and was a firm that represented all of Usea (also known back then as the United States of Euro-Asia). Shattered Skies retconned it into an Erusean state space firm.



WHITE VALLEY BAY

Previously an old Federation of Central Usea Allied Forces base, White Valley Bay Station was one of several military facilities in Northern Usea to come under occupation by the Usean Rebel Forces during the Continental War of 1998. While the Allies eventually ran the Rebels out of White Valley, the installation was shuttered as a part of the military restructuring that took place after the signing of the ISAF Treaty.

When Free Erusea began its operations on Usea, White Valley Bay Station was one of the first facilities they secured and became their provisional headquarters. The facility acted as both a remote naval and air station serving White Valley and Snider’s Top in the North. The facility was built over the bay and featuring an over-water landing and takeoff air strip and a naval docking port in addition to its land-based facilities. White Valley Bay Station also served as port to flagship of the Free Erusean naval power, the F.E.N.S. Frigga, flagship of the Aesir fleet, which was stolen from her dock in Anchorhead along with several other Eurian Navy warships by naval officers allied with the Free Erusea conspiracy and secreted away to White Valley Bay, making it the second time she had been commandeered by rebel forces in under a decade.



KATINA

Most people who are familiar with it know Katina as “That Independence Day level from StarFox 64,” and for what it’s worth, that’s the most succinct way to describe it, because it literally is Nintendo paying homage to the mother of all disaster porn blockbusters with a beat-for-beat retreat of ID4’s climax.

As noted earlier, the connection to StarFox in Operation Katina is unmistakable, that name itself gives it away. The Katina mission is the most flat-out arcade-y of the missions in StarFox 64, and the rapid-fire “shoot as many enemies as you can” style of gameplay clearly influenced Operation Katina’s unique take on the Ace Combat staple gameplay.

In universe, the planet Katina is one of the planets in the Lylat System, the setting of the StarFox franchise. Katina is an arid desert world with minimal water on its surface; the Lylat analog to Mars compared to Corneria/Earth. It is a frontline base for the Cornerian military. The only settlement on the planet is a Cornerian Air Force base commanded by Bill Grey, Fox McCloud’s old friend from the Cornerian academy and yet another Independence Day reference (he was named after Gen. William Grey, the head of the Joint Chiefs under President Whitmore in the film, and the commander of the counterstrike mission in the film’s finale).





X-02 WYVERN

The crown jewel of Erusean aerospace engineering and the closest local rival to the FCU-produced XFA-27 Scarface. The X-02 Wyvern is a supersonic, variable wing geometry air superiority super fighter, and sits on the cutting edge of modern aerospace design.

The Wyvern’s design was helmed by the Erusean Air and Space Administration, and was originally overseen by the FCU with the intention of one day rolling out the Wyvern into the Usean Allied Forces, however the political strains caused by the Continental War and the impact of Ulysses 1994XF04 led to the Erusean government cutting its ties with the FCU on the Wyvern’s development and pulling the project back behind its own borders, leaving the FCU with only a handful of half-finished blueprints, a few aerial spy photos taken of EASA facilities thought to be involved in the Wyvern’s production, and absolutely no clear picture as to the X-02’s true capabilities.

Development on the Wyvern officially wrapped up in early 2004 in the midst of the Shattered Skies War. The Erusean government demanded the EASA run a hasty battery of tests on the X-02 before it would consider incorporating it into the FEAF’s arsenal or even entering general production with it. As the Wyvern exceeded expectations in its first round of tests, calls for a squadron of X-02s to replace Aquila Squadron as the guard force for the Stonehenge Turret Network arose in the Erusean military command, but were shot down by the Supreme Commander’s order.

By the time of ISAF’s final advance on Farbanti, only four X-02 Wyverns had finished production (with an additional two planes nearly completed), and were quickly shepherded out of Farbanti to avoid their falling into ISAF’s hands. A seventh partially completed X-02 was left behind and eventually recovered by ISAF and turned over to Mobius Squadron following a retrofit from the ISAF Air Force’s mechanical division.

The testing data recovered by ISAF from Farbanti and its own round of testing with their captured Wyvern showed the X-02’s air-to-air capabilities to exceed even the F-22A, possibly even the XFA-27. It has also been confirmed by FCU Intelligence that plans for the X-02 have already leaked to the black market and that air manufacturing firms in Yuktobania are in the process of making their own X-02s with a projected rollout date estimated in the early 2010s.

As for the remaining Erusean X-02s, the conclusion of ISAF’s Operation Katina confirms that the six planes found their way into the hands of the Free Erusea terrorist organization. Free Erusea had modified the X-02s in its custody with remote control hardware repurposed from the Erusean UAV fleet they had also acquired when they raided the FEAF stockpiles before declaring war on ISAF. FCU Intelligence strongly believes that the EASA, or personnel from the EASA yet not working officially on its behalf helped Free Erusea modify the X-02s into UAV platforms as a means of furthering their research into unmanned, AI controlled aircraft.

Further development of a strike fighter variant of the X-02 has been approved in conjunction with the Erusean aerospace firm Neucom Incorporated, with a rollout date slated for 2019-2020.


Behind the scenes, the Wyvern was designed by Isshin Yabuki to be Ace Combat 04’s signature superplane, following in the vein of the XFA-27 from Ace Combat 2. Yabuki wanted to create a plane with a variable wing geometry system and used design elements from the Su-37, Su-47, and YF-23 as inspiration. You can pick out the forward fuselage and air intakes from the Terminator, the forward-swept wings from the Berkut, and the diamond wing and V-shaped tail fins at the back of the plane from the Black Widow II.

Keen eyed viewers will also be able to go back and rewatch the Ace Combat 5 trailer now and see if they can spot the hidden X-02 in it now.

As for gameplay, the Wyvern squadron is the final boss of all four paths of Operation Katina. It was included in Katina as a means of making up for how it was not an actual enemy they player could fight in Shattered Skies, despite its presence in the game as an unlockable plane. At the end of the A and B paths, you face only four X-02s, while at the end of C and D paths of Operation Katina, you take on all six Free Erusean Wyverns.





X-02 Wyvern
Manufacturer: Erusean Air and Space Administration, Neucom Inc.
Role: Next-generation air superiority fighter
Manufactured: 1995–present
Status: Unkown
Primary Operators: Erusea, FCU, Osea, Yuktobania, Ustio, Aurelia
Quick Facts:








As mentioned in the video, since we’re skipping ahead to Ace Combat 5, we also get a small sampling of 5’s soundtrack. Half of the fourth disc of 5’s Original Soundtrack is reserved for music that appears solely in Operation Katina. The other half of Disc 4 is reserved from music heard only in 5’s cutscenes, and of course the final track: Blurry by Puddle of Mudd.


Tracks featured in Operation Katina:

DISC 4

* This remix of Blue Skies doesn’t actually appear in Ace Combat 5 itself, but is included on its soundtrack as a bonus track along with Blurry.




A few more pages from the ACES AT WAR artbook focusing on the X-02 Wyvern.






And more promotional artwork from Ace Combat 04 / 5:

The EASA Wyvern blueprints



An FEAF X-02 Wyvern undergoing startup procedures at an EASA facility in Erusean territory:






And with Free Erusea vanquished, ISAF stands down from combat readiness and the world is once again at peace. Though Usea must once again undergo a healing process, the hope for a lasting peace, a brighter future, and a stable and prosperous Erusea acting as a good neighbor to the FCU and the world at large instead of a bad actor holds stronger than ever now that the Shattered Skies War is has come to a close. The Storyteller Boy will find his own peace of mind in due time. Reaching out to Mobius 1 to recount Yellow 13's side of the war to ISAF's most legendary pilot helps put his and Yellow 4's ghosts to rest, and maybe will help Mobius 1 find closure as well. One can only hope.

When we next return to Strangereal, we once again find ourselves at the tail end of summer in 2010. A young Osean journalist arrives at the far-flung Sand Island AFB, on a tiny atoll on the last vestige of western civilization. He came to the island to write about the next generation of aces in training, the heroes of tomorrow; however, he's about to find himself caught up in something much more explosive, and, dare I say... legendary.

Razgriz surget iterum:
Magnus heros est.