It’s always the same thing. Russia bad, Middle-East bad, China bad. USA saves the world.
I like playing Ace Combat because the nations and geopolitics are made-up so it doesn’t feel like you are sitting down and watching U.S. military propaganda for 10 straight hours.
True but the US manufactured planes at the same ingame currency price point are always just a little better for some reason.
I can only see that being true for 5, and maybe 6. The former because every plane is locked to one SP Weapon, and the later because of the lack of overall plane choice.
In 4 the best plane for any given mission is the Su-47, because it's SP weapon choices are the UGBL and the QAAM, both the best A2G and A2A weapons in the game.
In 5 because of how each plane is locked to one SP weapon (and the xp bar on the planes), you're really only picking planes based on that more than anything else. So anything with the XMAA (QAAM got giga nerfed from 4 to 5, and XLAA planes have worse ammo capacity), LASM, and UGBL are the only planes that are worthwhile.
In Zero imho the best general purpose plane is the Su-37 because of it's 16 XLAA count, and has access to the FAEB. You can also easily get it in your first playthrough.
Point being that in Ace Combat you just don't use certain planes for their stats, you use them for the sp weapon they have access to.