Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies , released in PAL territories as Ace Combat: Distant Thunder, is a semi-realistic flight simulation developed by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first in the Ace Combat series to be released for the PlayStation 2. During the course of the game, the player has the opportunity to purchase 21 different planes, from models that actually exist to prototypes or relatively new aircraft that were in development and their weaponry. Every plane has two alternate paint schemes, gained by achieving a superior, or S, ranking on a stage in normal... difficulty mode, by shooting down the ace pilots on each stage, or by completing the challenge modes. The difficulty mode determines the number of enemies per stage, their AI skill and damage threshold, and how much damage the player's aircraft can sustain in total. On the hardest difficulty level, a single enemy missile can down the player's aircraft, whereas on the easiest level it would take several missile hits. The player must purchase all aircraft and extra weapons they want to use, but only once.
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