Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies - Strategy Guide (Page 03)

Below are the cheat codes, hints and help for Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies - Strategy Guide (Page 03).

Recommended Aircraft: Anything with XMAAs, XLAAs, or QAAMs (preferably QAAMs).

You start out with 9 allies (Mobius Squadron) here. Fly north and you'll
encounter Yellow Squadron. There are 15 of these guys in Su-37s, but they
aren't as difficult to shoot down as the Yellow Squadron aircraft in previous
missions. For extra points, you can destroy as many of these as you can, but
they aren't your main objective. I almost always fight them, though.

When you approach Megalith, you'll see that there are 3 tunnels in front of the
facility. You can't fly into the middle one just yet, but the tunnels to the
left and right lead to the generators on the left and right. You have to fly
low (20-100 feet, roughly) to enter the tunnels. For the generator on the left,
fire as soon as you have a lock. If you wait, your missile will probably miss.
Don't fly toward the generator, either. Just fly straight. For the generator on
the right, fire at it and then fly through where it once was to exit. (Note:
Make sure you have the correct generator targeted when you fly in. If you
don't, then change targets until you do have the correct generator.)

For the middle generator, you have to fly in through the side of Megalith. I
recommend flying in from the west, though it really doesn't matter. Fly low
into the passageway, and destroy the generator. When the third generator is
destroyed, you'll have some extra targets (missiles) to fire at for big points.
Fly on through the passageway and hit the two targets. If you miss the first
one, don't worry. Make sure you hit the second one, though, and pull up. Turn
around and fly back along the passage (not in it, but above it, so you get a
better shot at the missiles) and hit each of the missiles as you pass. You have
to do this fairly quickly, because they launch within a minute, and you can't
hit them once they've launched.

After you've destroyed all of the other missiles, fly around to the front of
Megalith again. You'll see that the tunnel in the middle has opened. Fly in
just like you did the others. When you get to the missile, destroy it. Your
exit doesn't open up until you actually get into the room that the missile is
housed in. You'll see the ceiling open up when you get there. MAKE SURE YOU'VE
DESTROYED THE MISSILE BEFORE EXITING. Fly on through and the mission will be
over.

Enjoy the ending, you've certainly earned it. ;)

My score/rank: 5040/S

Money earned: 258000

===

Random Useless Info

Results of the Walkthrough Game

I scored S ranks on every mission with the exception of Stonehenge Offensive. I
still can't believe I didn't get it. I even got it on my first try on Ace
difficulty...

For the first time ever, I killed all 15 Yellows by myself on Megalith.

Number of times I scraped the ground and survived: Once.

Number of times I crashed: Five.

Number of times I got shot down: Zero.

Total Flight Time: 3:07:38

I flew the following:

F/A-18C 3 times.
EF-2000 3 times.
F-5E twice.
F-16C twice.
A-10A twice.
F-15E twice.
Su-37 twice.
F-4 once.
F-14 once.

Air targets destroyed: 356

Ground targets destroyed: 621

---

Here are the results (score and rank) of my very first play through on normal:

1: 780/A
2: 2310/S
3: 1280/A
4: 1420/S
5: 2340/C (ouch)
6: 3240/C (double ouch)
7: 1035/A
8: 2330/A
9: 3060/C (I sucked at hitting ground targets.)
10: 3130/C (Need any more proof than these 4 C ranks?)
11: 600/S
12: 2690/A (How strange. I got the very same score on my first try as I did on
the walkthrough game...)
13: 2940/S
14: 2020/S
15: 3410/B (At least it isn't a C rank.)
16: 5560/A
17: 3590/A
18: 4170/A

My high scores on Ace Difficulty (all of these are S ranks):

1: 1080
2: 2610
3: 1760
4: 1540
5: 5350
6: 7350
7: 2265
8: 3790
9: 4720
10: 6650
11: 840
12: 2990
13: 3880
14: 2260
15: 5010
16: 6430
17: 5100
18: 5100

Trial Mission high scores/ranks:

1: 5050/A
2: 1740/S
3: 1000/S
4: 1:01:43/S
5: 0:19:36/S

---

You can have a look at your plane (or the weaponry for your plane) on the
select aircraft screen by pressing the Square button.

Similarly, you can remove all of the flight stats during the replay that shows
the flight paths of everyone by pressing Square.

Fly straight north on Invincible Fleet. Watch the ground carefully. You'll
eventually spot a Namco logo.

F.E.A.F stands for Free Erusea Air Force. It's on the Ace paint schemes for
nearly every plane. It's probably on the paint schemes for regular Erusean
planes too, but it's hard to get a good look at those when you're in combat.

The dead man at the end of Mission 17 is the Erusian Supreme Commander.

Evidence of the Ulysses asteroids are nearly everywhere from North Point to
Farbanti. This is why part Farbanti is underwater. I'm guessing that they built
Stonehenge after their capital was nearly demolished by the asteroid.

On the last movie for the game, the narrator explains why he writes the letter
to you. At the very end, for only a few seconds, you can see a harmonica and a
picture of his family. I assume the woman is the barkeep's daughter.

I think that the cutscene in the beginning is the base of a flagpole, showing
the pulley and ropes on which the ISAF flag is being raised.

Number of times I collided with a chopper and survived: Once.

More to come here.

===

Hints and Tips

-Make use of the L2 and R2 buttons to yaw. If you need to drop a bomb and you
can't quite get the aim right, try these instead of the analog stick. It's
better to Yaw instead of actually trying to maneuver inside of the Megalith
tunnels as well.

-Also make use of the autopilot feature if you're having trouble in the
Megalith tunnels. You have to press Up on the D Pad. When you're on autopilot,
you can't move, so if you need to yaw left of right to correct yourself, let go
of the Up button.

-You can pull tighter turns if you're flying slowly.

-A really quick way of pointing yourself toward the ground is stalling. If you
can't get a fighter off your back, nail the brakes and pull straight up until
you stall. When you point down, let go of the brake and pull out of the stall,
hopefully behind the fighter.

-A good way to take out SAMs with missiles is to fly straight above them with
the throttle wide open. Even if they fire a shot before you destroy it, by the
time the missile has gained altitude, you'll have already passed by it.

If anyone has any they'd like to add, send them to me.

===

Secrets

Expert and Ace difficulty levels: I think all you have to do is beat the game
on hard to unlock expert, and then beat the game on expert to unlock Ace.

Unlock Free Mission and Trial Mission modes: Beat the game once.

Unlock Music Player and Scene Viewer: Beat the game once.

Unlock Alternate Paint Schemes: Each aircraft has two alternate paint schemes
to buy. For the first alternate, I think all you have to do is score S ranks
for each mission. For the second alternate, you have to shoot down the ace of
the plane you want the second alternate of. The Aces are identified as orange
targets on the radar, and can't be detected unless you get close to them. They
are identified by the plane they are in and the pilot's name (e.g. F-5E Wang).
For example, if you shoot down the Ace "F-5E Wang", you'll get the 2nd
alternate paint scheme of the F-5.

Unlock Yellow Squadron paint scheme: Shoot down all of the Aces and you'll
unlock the second Su-37 paint scheme.

Ace Locations: I'll do this later. If you're looking for a certain Ace, check
Halo00to14 or SDumblauskas' FAQs.

Unlock the X-02: Score all S ranks on normal to unlock the X-02. To unlock the
alternates, score all S ranks on the higher difficulty levels. I think you have
to have beaten the game twice, also.

See the SR-71: The SR-71 makes two appearances in this game. In Shattered
Skies, it will be the very first thing you target in the mission (before you
can even control your plane), and it flies very fast at about 40000 feet. You
can follow it on your map pretty easily since it's the really fast moving dot.

In Whiskey Corridor, fly to the western side of the map, just north of the
return line, and it will appear at about 20000 feet.

See the XB-70: The XB-70 is a relatively obscure supersonic bomber that was
never put into production. In the Breaking Arrows mission, you can see it
flying from east to west at high altitudes at the northern end of the map.

Additional VS mode maps: Beat the game once to get three new VS maps. One is a
competition to see who can shoot down more Yellow Squadron aircraft, and the
other two are one-on-one maps.

(Was there anything I left out?)

===

To do list

Outline for second play through
Fill in the aircraft descriptions with my own
Organize this better
Ace locations
Confirm secrets

===

Credits/Thanks to:

Jeff "CJayC" Veasey for making such a cool website that gave me the idea to
write this FAQ in the first place.

grandmort, just for having a really cool Ace Combat 04 site.

The AC04 Development team for making this game.

My roommate, for letting me use his computer to write this FAQ, as well as for
letting me play his copy of Ace Combat 4 on his Playstation 2 on his TV.

Frozensky (that would be me) for writing this FAQ.

The GameFAQs Ace Combat 4 message board community. These guys provided massive
amounts of help and info (whether they meant to or not ;).

Check out Halo00to14's and SDumblauskas' FAQs on this game as well, for more
strategies and info about this game.

===

End of FAQ