All the way back in 2016, we learned that
a new Armored Core game was in the works. So back then I thought.."man..I really should
go and play all the old Armored Core games. I need to understand why people love this
series. How many games could there even be? 5? 6?"
But then I realised the truth. There are 15 unique Armored Core games. And that's not
even counting the 3 PSP remakes, or the multiple discs some of these games have. Not to mention
the arena modes. The branching mission paths. Hard mode, NG+, optional objectives, the lore
that makes even my head spin - These are complex, challenging, and extremely
intricate games. And while they never really hit mainstream appeal, it was Armored Core
and its dedicated fans that kept From Software afloat for many, many years. And then, sadly,
it was those same fans who had to watch their favourite franchise take a back seat when Souls became From Software's breadwinner instead. So I wanted to experience these games the same way the old fans did. Not with emulators,
but with old hardware, and all of the authenticity and all of the frustration that comes with that. So many
Ebay purchases and over $2000 US dollars later, I had them. Three used consoles, two retro
capture devices, and 18 absurdly expensive old video games. I was ready.
So I went back. To the first Armored Core, released all the way back in 1997 ...
... And I was thrown straight into the deep end. "You must battle against the opponent AC and survive. If you survive, you will be considered
a Raven. That's all. Good luck". This is how Armored Core begins. With you
in a fight for your life, taking fire as you frantically run around the arena and
attempt to puzzle out the controls. There's literally no guide or tips - nothing..just
From Software saying "ehh, they'll figure it out".
One by one, I stumble through the controls and try to commit them to memory. X is boost, Square to shoot, Triangle to change weapon.. but when it comes to aiming: something feels wrong.
Because these enemies can fly, right? which means I need a way to aim up or down at them. And
since moving forwards and backwards are already bound here..that means..yeah. So looking
UP and DOWN is bound to the LEFT and RIGHT back triggers. And that sucks.
Ima be honest - even after beating all of these Armored Core games, I'm sitting here
now, writing this script, and I honestly still could not tell you from memory which back
trigger moves the camera up or down. If there was ever a time I needed to look up at something,
there was a 50% chance I would look down at the floor instead. But somehow, I push through, and I do eventually
learn how to get good. These games will simply not allow you to progress if you don't. It's
classic From Software: even all those years ago. They throw you in the deep end, and expect the best from you. Will
you sink? Or swim? This is the Raven's Nest. Here, you can assemble
your mech - but you have no new parts. So you go to the shop, where you have no money.
So you end up at the mission board, where you become a wage slave to the two biggest
corporations - "Chrome" and "Murakumo", who are in a desperate battle with eachother for
supremacy. But your first mission is from the city guard,
who are very angry..because some workers are protesting in a nearby factory. And since
it's not a good look for the city guard to use lethal force on..you know: innocent civilians:
they give you 14,000 credits to do it instead. The workers' crude cranes and worker MTs are
no match for your armored war machine, and you walk away with 14,000 credits - Except..wait,
you have to pay for the bullets you used on those evil protesters, and you'll also need
to repair the damage you took during the mission as well.
But don't worry! There are always more striking workers who need to be taught a lesson, and
there's always someone else's dirty work to profit from. I was making pretty good money
- that is, until the third mission, where I was tasked with rescuing a truck filled
with chemical weaponry. I proceeded to promptly blow up the truck - and I assumed I would
get to just try again..but no: instead, the mission completed, and gave me my reward:
Minus 1.4k for ammunition, minus 4.4k for repairs and minus 200 credits in compensation
for that poor civilian's car I crushed in the heat of battle. So...I hadn't just failed
the mission: I had actually lost money attempting it. I knew I was going to be morally bankrupt
going into this game, but turns out you can be financially bankrupt as well, if you play
poorly enough. Looking back at my footage now, I realise
I was scared to spend credits, probably because new parts and their stats were so overwhelming.
Eventually though, I would realise that..you can't go too wrong spending credits in these
games. If it's expensive, chances are it's an upgrade: and even if you regret buying
it..well you can always sell those parts back to the shop for the same price you bought
them at, and just buy something else instead. This is a game that won't stop you making
mistakes. BUT it won't always punish you for those mistakes either.
So I had no idea what I wanted to buy from the shop, but I had heard whispers about two
legendary weapons that existed in this game, and I knew I NEEDED to try them. I needed
to figure out why they were so popular. It's called the "Karasawa", an energy rifle that you actually can't get in the shop. Instead, it was one of the many hidden parts in this game. These were parts that you actually had to hunt down,
and pick up during missions. I had read somewhere that the Karasawa was hidden behind some explosive barrels in an
early mission - and it was easy enough to find.
This thing was insane. It DRAMATICALLY increased my firepower, and most enemies would die in
just a few shots! But it wasn't without its downsides: for one, the Karasawa was extremely
heavy - so I realised I needed to buy heavy legs in order to accommodate it. The Karasawa
also has limited ammo, so I equipped some light missiles as backup. It's really interesting
how just changing one part can fundamentally change your build: new parts will introduce
new problems that need to be solved, but by solving these your knowledge about parts
and stats will just naturally increase. And I think that's really cool.
I also realised that the Karasawa was an energy weapon, so it costs energy to fire. That meant
I needed to take a closer look at my generator, and I needed to decide whether I needed a
generator with high energy regen, or a generator with high capacity. High regen would make
me better in prolonged fights, but high capacity would allow me to fire a ton more shots and
overwhelm enemies in the short term. Again, it's really amazing that Armored Core allows
you to change something as fundamental as energy regeneration.
The final thing I learned from the Karasawa, was that its energy ammo was actually free. And in
the early game when you're strapped for cash: that's an amazing thing. And so I was learning
so many lessons that would serve me well in all of the Armored Core games to follow. Now, these parts were powerful - but it's
not like they made the game easy. Looking up and down was still a pain, some
missions had VERY unclear objectives, and there were so many missions where I'd spend ages
navigating mazes of corridors with agonisingly slow turn speeds..only to die, or run out of ammo, right
at the end. So most of the time, I was just craving single
combat against enemy ACs. Those were my favourite fights. And if the fight had some questionable voice
acting to laugh at, well: even better. "you..you're a raven? I don't know anything about those
things here. *explodes*" There was also a frustrating moment at the end where I
died to the final boss, and then I got a unique cutscene. But this wasn't just a unique
cutscene..it was a..game over screen. So for the first time in HOURS of play, I discovered
this, and it booted me back to my last save, which
I had made SO LONG ago. So it was just so much fun having to redo all these missions again and try to remember what I had changed in my build..that was..great. /s And you might say say "well you should have just saved!" but this was PS1 era, you know? Saving took time. Menus were slow. So I didn't bother to save until I had this experience.
But I pushed through. This last level I was stuck on was tricky, because it required me
to clear rooms and rooms of enemies really efficiently, so I had to make sure to manage my health and ammo so
that I had the resources required for the final boss. It was fun overcoming it.
Except this was NOT the final boss. And I wasn't done. Not by a long shot.
The true final mission takes place at the Raven's Nest headquarters, where a mysterious
band has broken in, and left behind a set of floating mines. Now, the Raven's Nest itself
wants you to come in and dismantle them. The first part of the mission is simple enough.
I had to take out one small room of five easy enemies, making sure I used my blade to conserve
ammo. Because the next room was considerably more difficult, as it was so packed full of enemies
that my playstation lagged uncontrollably. This room was tricky, but easier with some
practice. And..I had plenty of opportunities to practice. Because while your ammunition and health is
restored after completing this second room, if you fail after this point, you'll get game over and have
to go back all the way back to your last save. So for part 2 of the mission, you find yourself
in this vast, square hallway. Lucky for you, there's
a way up. Unlucky for you, the devs forgot what game they were making halfway through
and decided to start making a platformer instead. But this isn't doodle jump, this is
armored core. Remember: looking up and down in this game is excruciating..and this hallway
is vertical! So you have to look up to where you're going, and then you have to look DOWN
to make sure you have your landing secured. Every time. Because all of these platforms are moving.
They're moving in different directions as well. And all at different speeds! Some will even run into eachother
and slide you off, which is great! And then there's the turrets attached to the top and bottom of many platforms,
which will give you knockback and stagger and damage while you attempt your ascent. They don't do
much damage, and they don't take many hits to defeat..but oh man - you're going to really miss
that HP and ammo when you finally get to the top. Because the worst is yet to come. This
is just a frustrating, time-consuming interlude for you to enjoy every - single - time you
have to re-do this mission. And unless you're god or using save states on an emulator, you
WILL have to re-do this mission...and that's because of what..or who comes next. Name of AC: Nine-ball If you had ever looked at the "ranking" menu in the raven's nest, you would have seen a list of all the enemy
ACs in the game, and Nineball is the top ranked AC, piloted by someone named "Hustler one".
And he's top rank for a reason. Just watch this attempt of me fighting him.
But not to worry - after Getting Over It 20 minutes later, I was back for round two. Which went like this:
and on, and on, and on it went, until I simply gave up. Nineball is overpowered. Literally
- he actually has something unlocked called "Human Plus", which is an overpowered state
you can unlock if you go 50,000 credits in debt. Which is cool, but I didn't do that! So Nineball can fly
better than me, he's faster than me, he has better weaponry than me, he approaches
from above with the high ground, and he forces you to fight by aiming up and down because of the nature of the vertical arena that you're in. Plus, you've
already been weakened mentally and physically by playing Jump King for the last 10 minutes every time you attempt this. So.. I decided not to fight at all. I decided
to run for my fucking life, past this absolute terror, to see if I could just get past him
and complete the mission that way. On my first escape run, I choked, and I missed
the tiny hole you're supposed to fly into. And then on my second try......I made it.
But somehow, Nineball managed to get in after me. Back then I guess I had
one thought in my mind here - and that was to flee. Down the corridor in terror, away
from this black and red AC that had been killing me all day.
The AI core that you destroy at the end is somehow a part of Nine-ball's consciousness, and you
destroy it. Mission complete. Thank god I don't have to fight that guy again. Next up was Armored Core: Project Phantasma
- which was released only a few months after the first Armored Core! They were able to
do this because..while Project Phantasma can still be played as its own standalone game,
it's perhaps more accurate to call this an "expansion". The game essentially plays the
same as the first one, except with new missions, new parts, and some rebalancing to old parts.
You can even transfer your save from the first game OVER to this one if you want to continue
with your previous AC, and all its parts, which is really cool.
And this is basically how all the Armored Core games work. The easiest way to understand how they're all connected is when they're arranged like this. Each row represents a "generation" of
Armored Core games, where your save can continue within the generation. There's gen 1 for the PS1,
gen 2, 3, and 3.5 for the PS2, and then gen 4 and 5 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Gen 1-3.5 play quite
similarly, but the series would eventually change radically in generation 4, and then
again in generation 5, as you'll see later on. Anyway: I wanted to try a new build in Project Phantasma. And I'd since learned that the most defining
part of your build, are your legs. It's kind of like the RPG equivalent of choosing a class. They determine
how fast you move, how fast you turn, the nature of your movement, and perhaps most
importantly: how much weight you can carry. First I tried some tread legs. Tread legs
allow you to carry extremely heavy loads, and even allow you to fire heavy back weapons
WHILE moving or flying, which no other leg part can do. However, this comes at the cost
of your movement and flying ability aaand..one mission was enough to decide that this was not
for me. Like..imagine completing every mission in the game going this slowly.
What I ended up settling on, were quad legs. Quad legs are like tread legs in the sense
that they allow you to fire heavy back weapons while moving - though you can't fly while
you do so. But unlike tread legs, quad legs exist on a bit of a spectrum, where you can
equip heavy load bearing quads, but also fast, lightweight quads as well. I opted for the latter. Now lightweight ACs are kinda hard to put
together, because there's a lower weight limit, which prevents you from choosing stronger,
weightier parts. So putting this build together would require a lot of trial and error..and
I realised that there's no better place for this build process, than in a place called the arena.
In the arena you fight exclusively against enemy ACs in
one-on-one combat, ranking up and earning credits as you go. And while enemy ACs are
some of the toughest enemies you can face..there are no ammo costs here, so you can only really
benefit from these fights. But best of all it teaches you about different enemy builds, and it shows you what works and what doesn't work and it shows you the limit of your own build. It's the perfect space to refine and adjust your
AC into a machine capable of taking on some of the hardest fights in the game, and that's
exactly what my build quickly became: A fast, lightweight quad with machine gun arms, and
ammo canisters on its back. A build designed to do one thing really well, and that was to run circles around opponents, staying out
of their FCS lock box, and keeping them in my own.
It's hard to explain just how satisfying it is to refine your build in these games, and
to see it all come together perfectly at the end. You solve weight problems, energy problems,
ammo problems..you compromise on some parts, stand your ground on others..and if you're
lucky, you'll end up with a build that is entirely your own. You know
how to play it. You know what it's weaknesses are. You know its strengths. You know exactly
what challenges went into creating it, and it's yours.
So when I went back into missions and I realised machine gun ammo costs were going to put me
DEEP into debt, it was easy for me to tweak my build into a more cost efficient one for
most missions, because I understood how to undo certain parts of my build. But for the final mission, I wheeled out my lightweight,
expensive AC killer, and went to town. The final fight was against Stinger, who's..a
bit of a joke, honestly - at least compared to Nineball in the previous
game. His strategy was to shoot out so many rainbow bullets that my FPS would drop to
unplayable levels..and it almost worked - because I actually ran out of ammo in this fight,
and assumed that I'd lost. So at this point I actually gave up and went close to him so
that he could kill me faster and get it over with, but then this happened: His own missiles
dealt the final piece of damage to himself! Pretty fitting way for this guy to go out.
My AC gloriously flies into the roof, and that's the end of Project Phantasma.
I felt like I was getting pretty good at the series..but From Software were watching - just
waiting to tear me back down again. Because the next game was "Armored Core: Master of
Arena", and I legitimately felt dread when I put in the disk, loaded up the first mission..and
watched this cutscene. Nineball was back. And this time, it was personal..on
a few levels! Because..I wanted revenge on Nineball for him shaming me in the first game
in front of all my YouTube viewers, and apparently my character wanted revenge as well. Lana is your contact at the Raven's Nest,
and mail from her reads "When we first met on the network, you mentioned becoming a Raven
because there was someone you wanted to kill. AC Name: Nineball. Pilot: Hustler One. Top
ranked AC in the Arena. That is all we know." She comments that anyone who attempts to face
Nine-Ball in battle will surely be destroyed, but that if we're really serious about this,
then she can arrange it so that we will one day fight him.
So Lana immediately passes us a mission from PROGTECH, who manufacture AC parts. They want
us to put down some rampaging robots in their factory, and in return they'll give us some
free parts, and sponsor us in the Arena. What follows is this glorious mix of mission
and arena gameplay. Sometimes your mission board will be completely empty, and all you
can access is the arena, which you'll need to progress in in order to unlock missions
again. And then sometimes it's the reverse, where the arena is locked off because there's
an urgent mission you need to complete for your sponsor. And it's this balance...the
way that arena and mission gameplay is interwoven, that makes Master of Arena easily rank in
my top 3 Armored Core games. Because..the pacing here is just phenomenal. In the other
games, missions would sometimes feel like a grind; and doing the arena often felt like
an optional side-quest. But in this game missions had me feeling like I was strengthening
my relationship with my sponsor - and when I progressed in the Arena, I knew it was in
pursuit of a goal: to rise through the ranks, so that I could one day have the right to
challenge Nine-Ball, who is formidable in the story of this game, just as he's formidable
in a gameplay sense as well. So I continued to chip away at the missions,
and in the arena, I was a demon - I was this red AC wielding the Karasawa and the moonlight sword and some really fast legs. These legs were so fast that I didn't really need my boosters, which meant that I had more
energy for shooting my Karasawa while grounded. With this build, I flew through the arena
- and if I was ever having trouble with an opponent, it would be because they were flying. But if they were flying, I'd take them to the garage - an
arena level which limited their flight capabilities, and kept them on the ground with me so that I didn't have to press the accursed R2 and L2 triggers.
I was feeling pretty confident..and then the final fight against nineball arrived. I thought this fight went pretty well! Got him on the first try... Except that wasn't the end. Phase two has you fighting..TWO nineballs.
And that's exactly as difficult as it sounds. The reason there's two, is because it's been
revealed that the Nineballs are able to be mass produced, and they actually aren't piloted by
a human - instead, they're controlled by a highly advanced combat AI that thinks it can
rebuild the world by manufacturing conflict, as long as they're the strongest Raven. Which
is why it has to take you out. Which it does. Repeatedly. Quickly I realised that it's extremely important that you do well in the first fight against
the single Nineball, because your health and ammo that remains is what you'll need to take
on the two at once. And after a ton of time consuming resets,
I realised there was an upper level to the dual nineball fight, which could be used to
potentially separate the two and help you fight one at a time.
And finally..I was victorious. There's a certain kind of absurd, giddy dread that I've only ever experienced playing From
Soft games. That feeling that even though you've pushed yourself to the limit, the challenge
actually isn't over yet. This third phase is extremely
tough. And it also takes a while to learn it, because you have to defeat one nineball, then the
two nineballs before you even get a chance to practice this fight. And those were hard enough so you don't get that many chances to practice.
But eventually I learned that Nineball Seraph always begins the fight by running at you
with his blade, which sends energy waves and requires a well timed boost-jump for you to
evade it. After that, he'll transform into this little rocketship and zoom around the arena,
shooting missiles and trying to get behind you before transforming back into an attack phase
and just closing the distance with his blade and pulse rifle once again.
Over, and over, I tried to fight and defeat him. And over, and over, I lost.
But I had heard rumours of something. A controller technique, that might just be able to help
me. Something called the "Legendary armored core grip". Some said it was a meme. Others
said that by holding your controller backwards, you could get full access to every button
at once, which would allow for perfect control of your AC. So I gave it a try. After countless attempts at phase one and about 16 victories in phase 2, I managed to overcome phase 3. With a little bit of skill, and a lot of luck. And I was just joking about using the Armored Core grip. Or was I...? Anyway, nineball was dead. Thank god I don't have to fight that guy again.
Next up: Armored Core 2. I was excited for this, because this was a ps2 game, and I had
been eyeing that PS2 controller off to my side for a while now - knowing it had what
I wanted: dual analogue sticks. I couldn't wait to be able to aim properly..so I grabbed
the controller, moved the sticks and..they didn't work. What? For some unfathomable reason,
From Software had decided to stick with the back triggers for camera control in this game.
Which I just don't understand. The solution was right there! It's insane to me that this wasn't
a design priority for them. Maybe there's a good reason for this but I don't know.
Anyway - let's talk story: So Armored Core 2 takes place 67 years after the events of Master
of Arena, when a cataclysmic event called the "Great Destruction" forced mankind underground.
Eventually however, mankind discovered the pre-war "Mars Immigration Project", and started
to set up colonies on the red planet - where wars over resources would inevitably break
out once more. It's a compelling story. But I wanted my story to begin in a unique
way. So this time, I didn't start with a single mission. Instead, I committed for some reason to
playing exclusively in the Arena, until I had defeated every single opponent, and become the top
ranked raven. This ended up becoming an extremely memorable
experience for me. While the Arena doesn't incur repair and ammo costs, it doesn't exactly
give you many credits at the start either, so there was a limit to which parts I could
afford when attempting to outsmart my enemies. So for me, it was very important to read these
character descriptions before each fight..and I loved how much story and insight each one
revealed. Some characters were in the arena to pay off gambling debts...some were here
to show off their new parts for sale..and I distinctly remember #45 - who was a girl
piloting a mech in order to earn money to feed her starving family. Feels bad. But most importantly,
some descriptions revealed the enemy AI's preferred strategies and weaknesses. For example,
THIS guy was famously bad at energy management, and then there was another who would panic
if you pressured them. And some enemies were just pure comedy. At one
point, I met Bullet Dragon: a man who was in the arena because he loved the sound of
machine guns, and only fought so that he could afford more ammo. I couldn't outpace him with
my own machine gun, so I outlasted him and he flat out just decided to leave the arena
when he started to run out of machine gun ammo. And then there was Super Sonic,
who was a character who spent ALL his money on the fastest parts. Like..he was here to
build for speed, and nothing else. And then - poor guy - he went so fast that he accidentally flew
out of bounds in the arena, and I won. 10/10. It's in Armored Core 2's arena that I experimented
with basically every weapon type in the shop. there were so many ways to express
your creativity with the builds in this game, and constantly trying to exploit new enemy weaknesses taught
me so much about the pros and cons of various weaponry.
But the best lesson of all I learned from #19. AC name: mass. Pilot name: bulk. Guess what his build is? Yeah so his build was designed to just stay alive, while their opponents ran out of ammo. Which
I did. Many times. So in trying to overcome him, I found it: My new best friend - the
EWG-MGSAW: a machine gun with 1000 rounds of ammo, which allowed me to focus on one
strategy: unrelenting offense. With this gun, I flew towards top rank.
But on the way, I met Count One. Pilot name: No. 1111. Rank..11. "He's obsessed with the
number I and has put a great deal of effort into his current position. He'd rather be
ranked 11th than 1st, as it has twice as many 1's. I realised even his weapon arms looked
like double 1's. You gotta respect that commitment. But in retrospect, his weapon arms would end
up being the key. Because my machine gun circling strategy ended up being useless against the
top ranked AC, Ares: who had the firepower and turning ability to completely counter
my strategy. So I built for power to overwhelm him instead. I took number 11's lead, and
used weapon arms, and absolutely destroyed Ares, to become #1. One one was enough for
me. Now I could actually start playing the game.
And when I finally started the missions, it didn't matter that my machine gun ammo was
extremely expensive. I was an arena MILLIONAIRE.. And when I finally got to the last mission
and there was a sequence where I needed to fight enemies that couldn't be locked onto,
the arena had already taught me what to do. Instead of brute forcing the final fight with
sheer stubbornness this time, I actually used my shop knowledge to come up with a better
strategy. Equipped with rockets and grenade cannon arms that benefit from being manually
aimed, I made the final sequence WAY easier for myself.
The final boss's name is Leos Klein, and interestingly, it's implied that he was the player character
from Master of Arena. I love these little callbacks. There's a depth to the storytelling
here..though I'll admit: 99% of it is going over my head, as I'm so focused on the gameplay.
But even though I'm not paying much attention to the story - yet anyway..even I can tell
when it's missing. And nowhere did story feel more absent, than in Armored Core 2: Another
Age. The big selling point in this expansion seems to be the sheer amount of missions. I feel like most of these games had an average of between
20-30 missions before you hit an ending, but in Another Age, there are 100 missions in
the game. And whereas in some other games you can skip certain missions, or have them
go away if you fail - all 100 missions in Another Age are mandatory. Now, ima be honest:
every Armored Core game has its fair share of badly designed missions. Missions where
you get lost in endless corridors with unclear objectives. Missions where you accidentally
go out of bounds, or are forced to do platforming for some reason.. And Another Age had tons of missions I hated.
But the worst in my opinion were missions that your AC could be fundamentally incompatible
with. For example, there was a mission here that required me to ascend a long corridor..and..I
just couldn't with so many of my builds. Don't get me wrong, I love reworking my AC to solve
combat puzzles, but having my build be fundamentally incompatible with some mandatory missions
was frustrating, to say the least. I guess this is why Armored Core 6 might be adding
jump pads, huh? But then there's a bright side to having mandatory
missions, in that it at least forces you to get good. For example, perhaps the most memorable
mission for me in Another Age was this one, where you have to fight not one, not two - but
THREE enemy ravens. All at the same time. And it's exactly as hard as it sounds.
One of the enemies is a heavy tank build that can harass you if you leave it alive. Another
is extremely mobile, and is equipped with powerful weaponry that can take you down VERY
fast. And the third AC luckily isn't much of a threat at all - though they still serve
as a distraction, and require you to spend precious ammo taking them down.
So once you have stock of your opponents, you have to come up with a strategy, and make
sure your AC design accommodates that strategy. And then you have to make sure you have the
skill to put strategy into practice. After a few attempts, I realised I had the
best success when I took out the tank AC first with machine gun fire, since they came at
me first, and aren't fast enough to dodge any of my projectiles. But fighting the other two was the
real challenge: because together they were difficult to split apart, and would grind me down
over time. So I needed a secondary weapon that could take one of them out quickly with
overwhelming power. I chose missiles as my secondary weapon, and I also equipped a "relation
missile" extension part. Once this extension was activated, it
basically shot out more missiles as a bonus whenever I shot out my normal missiles, which essentially doubled my missile output for a short time, which was enough to deal severe
damage to one AC and finally even the odds. But then the final piece of the puzzle was
taking out the third AC. And since they were weak, this was simply an ammo issue. I had
a few attempts where I absolutely destroyed the first two, but simply did not have enough
ammo to finish the job. So frustrating. But eventually I made a build with two sets of
very ammo efficient missiles, and I grit my teeth as I took out the final AC on a sliver
of health, one missile at a time. I genuinely felt like I achieved something
here. It was very rewarding to have to discover the pieces of the puzzle on the battlefield,
solve that puzzle in the garage, and then put my solution to the test with my reflexes.
In my opinion, this is Armored Core at its best. And by the way, there's a part of Armored
Core 6's trailer that shows the player fighting three enemy ACs at once too. So..yeah. You
should prepare for that. But then it was back to the mission grind.
And credit where credit is due, the WAY you navigate all the missions in this game is
cool, because there are multiple missions for each region, and there's a good sense
of familiarity and progression in the world, as a result of that. And finally I made it to the end. I'll be honest, I don't even know who that guy is. More than in any other Armored Core game, I actually
felt like an independent Raven in this one, just grinding away at mission after mission
on behalf of faceless corporations for credits alone.
So after spending so much time on this game, I was actually kind of appreciative at this
message Fromsoftware gives you at the end. "Thanks Raven. You've accomplished a great
feat. Your achievement is recognized by us. And then they give you a well-deserved reward.
MORE MISSIONS! Great... But to be fair, these missions were the best
of all. You face off against who I can only assume is Stinger from Project Phantasma,
with his being all glitchy and corrupted. I kind of like the flavour of these ancient ACs
just persisting throughout the ages, to eventually be fought as these corrupted remnants of another
age, later on. And of coruse, the real final fight is against
Nineball Seraph again. Because of course it is. And here, he fights the exact same way
as he does in Master of Arena..though the controls and visuals are a bit better here,
which is a relief. As then, he's extremely tough - but here, I discover a strategy that
will serve me well in future games. If you're ever facing an AC that tries to get behind
you - just back up against a wall. If fought in this manner, Nineball will chase you around
the edge of the arena, slashing at you with energy waves and shooting projectiles - which
you can dodge with another strategy I learned - which is to bunny hop boost tightly, left
and right. But even with all this, this fight was still hard as hell, and at this point
I'm amazed just how much From Software like toying with people's nineball PTSD by putting
him in so many games. But..I eventually won: and surely I won't have to fight that guy
again. And that's the second generation of Armored
Core games: complete. In retrospect, this might be the hardest generation of Armored
Core, if you take all of the missions together. Anyway, next is Armored Core 3. A whole new generation!
Wouldn't it be great if they finally added dual analogue controls?
Yeah, nah..they still haven't made the right analogue stick useful which is..interesting - but at least there's a pretty good story this time. Armored Core 3 takes place during
the period of history where mankind was forced underground because of the Great Destruction.
Here, subterannean life is governed by "The Controller", an AI which..quite predictably
goes wild. The sequel, Silent Line, deals with the aftermath
of you destroying the controller. Mankind returns to the surface, and corporations begin
to fight over what lies beyond the "Silent Line". But mysterious technologies are already
up here on the surface, repelling their intrusions. These are compelling stories. This third generation
of games is very compelling in general actually. Controls and movement get tighter with every
gen, the way the shop and garage is integrated is really nice, menus are fast to navigate,
and I could be wrong: but I felt like weight limits were more generous in these games,
as I had less trouble fitting everything I wanted onto my AC.
That said, I'm not sure I have too much else to say about Armored Core 3 or its sequel,
Silent Line, that I haven't said already. As usual, there were good missions, and frustrating
missions - and the final fights were great fun - but I was never truly challenged by
anything in this game, which means I can't really point to any one thing that made these
games particularly memorable for me. Overall though, I think Armored Core 3 and Silent
Line are an excellent starting point for beginners, precisely because I don't think they're too
difficult, and because From Software had just added a ton of great QOL changes to the series
by this point. A cool new addition in this generation were
left arm parts that weren't just blades, or shields. So in this game you can equip your
left arm with bazookas, rifles..tons of really fun weaponry - these weapons fire with a delay, but
being able to fire two weapons at once can dramatically increase your damage input, and
it gives a really fun depth to builds. Only problem is..firing two weapons means you have
to mash two face buttons at once to fire them. And remember you're still boosting with the other face button so that's three face buttons you have to press at once. And that's just a huge stress to your finger inputs on top of everything else, so because the series STILL refused to accommodate the right analogue
stick for aiming, dual firing was still uncomfortable with default controls, and I just opted for
a passive shield on my left arm instead. But FINALLY, the control scheme would be brought
into the modern ps2 era - with generation 3.5 of Armored Core..which consisted of three
games: Nexus, Ninebreaker, and best of all: Last Raven.
With the ability to aim with the right stick added in Nexus, the L2 and R2 bumpers were
finally released from their torment as camera operators, and were able to be used for intuitive
things like boosting and switching weapons, instead. Which meant L1 and R1, instead of
strafing, could be used for firing left and right arm weaponry respectively. Which meant
dual wielding wasn't just viable, it was incredible. Dual firing added a new offensive depth to
the customisation that I was SO ready for. So I dived into the first mission equipped
with a new generator, and some fast boosters..and..immediately began to overheat.
Temperature management had always been a thing in the previous games. But back then, I only
really overheated when I was hit by too much enemy weaponry all at once, and it only did
a damage over time effect if I got too hot. In Armored Core Nexus: that all went out the
window. NOW I noticed my boosters contributing a LOT more to my heat meter, and if I overheated
in THIS game then my radiator would activate and suck up immense amounts of my own energy
in order to cool down my AC. And that is a LOT more impactful than just taking damage
over time. So all of a sudden, heat management had become a huge new consideration when considering
weaponry, generator, boosters and radiators. It's almost as if From Software realised their
game had just become easier with the new controls, and thought "we can't have that", and added
this insane overheat mechanic in revenge. Regardless: eventually I had my head around
this new heat system, so I started to experiment with new dual wielding setups. I tried double
chainguns..double sniper rifles.. handguns.. laser rifles.. - but what I really fell in
love with was wielding two different weapons, rather than wielding two of the same. I ended
up settling on a bazooka and rifle combo. These two had similar range, but the rifle
was good for smaller, faster, or flying enemies, and the bazooka was great for the larger,
slower, or grounded enemies. That said, I ended Nexus with double bazookas..in
a fight against..a very familiar piece of ancient technology. But at this point, they'd
wheeled poor old nineball out so many times, that he's just not the same any more. Rest
in peace old friend. I guess it does make some sense that Nineball
would be here in this game though, as as far as I can tell, the story of Nexus is about
corporations fighting to control ancient technologies they don't understand. And it all backfires
at the end: Swarms of unmanned suicide drones spew out of a factory, and out onto the earth,
where they blanket the world in another sort of great destruction. It's awful, but it's
also one of the most memorable endings these games have ever had, just because of the phenomenal
way it's presented: You stand on the rooftop in the pouring rain, actually able to control
your character as this indomitable barrage of suicide drones ram into the earth's surface,
with you making your doomed last stand. There's no hope of you taking them all out, so you
simply fight on as the screen fades to black, and Nexus comes to an end.
So I enjoyed Nexus. But I..cannot say the same for the next expansion, which is Armored
Core: Ninebreaker. Get this: this game has no missions. It doesn't
even have a shop. At its core is is a training mode filled with 150 training exercises that
test you on things like movement, evasion, accuracy..stuff like that. Fun. That's..not really
Armored Core to me so I didn't really bother. So when I played, I figured the real point
of the game was the uniquely designed arena mode, which requires you to earn points and
climb that way, rather than just beating the next AC in your path.
But I made a terrible mistake with this game. I imported my save from nexus, which removed
almost all of the default parts from the garage, and replaced them with what I had in Nexus instead. And I didn't have many parts unlocked in Nexus, so I was essentially forced to do the entire arena..with
one build: A heavy bipedal with two bazookas. Luckily my build was strong enough to take
out 90% of my opponents, but there were some that were borderline impossible with my build.
To get to top rank by defeating the last guy, I had to wait until he challenged me on a
map where I could stand at the arenas edge so he couldn't fly behind me, and I JUST took
him out, after countless attempts. Maybe I'll do the training missions to prepare for Armored Core 6..and maybe they'd be great if you're a beginner to the series, but I wanted to move on because I was SO excited for the next game. I had heard a lot about it. Because it was the last Armored Core game that had this
old-gen style, and I had heard it was perhaps the hardest game From Software had ever created.
Next was Armored Core: Last Raven..and it did not disappoint.
When we left off in Nexus, unmanned suicide weapons had ravaged the world. The corporations
lost everything. But instead of trying to rebuild individually, they joined forces to
form a new corporation named "alliance". But a rebel group known as "Vertex" vowed to overthrow
them. And war quickly escalated into chaos. Now Vertex has issued a declaration: their
final attack will launch in 24 hours. So it is that Last Raven starts with a clear story,
and a foreboding timer that counts down after every mission, building the tension.
Last Raven also perfects the mission structure, in my opinion, offering a set of missions
that, if done in the right order, push you towards different missions and endings. I
really liked being able to take a more active role in the story based on which path I chose.
And since so many of my best memories with Armored Core so far had been born from my
challenges, in this playthrough I opted to go down a story path that I had heard was
the hardest of them all. It's called the "Zinaida" path, named after your rival, who challenges
you in a ton of missions. So I knew it would GET hard. I was prepared for that. What I
wasn't prepared for, was for the first mission to literally be harder than anything I'd faced in the previous two games. Like..to put this into context..I had just
imported my build from Nine Breaker and this AC design with its dual bazookas had taken me through the
entirety of that game. It had taken me through the entirety of Nexus as well.
And yet I was struggling with the first mission with this build.
Eventually I took a step back, and realised I had to perfect my AC further if I was going
to take on these missions. So I took a few step backs actually, all the way back to the
first disc of Nexus, where I farmed credits for a few hours so that I could buy every
part in the shop. Then I went into the second disc of nexus, which had some optional parts
that I had missed..and in these missions I found an insanely powerful "Ananda" radiator to stop me from overheating,
and something called a "Linear Rifle", which was kind of like a halfway point between a
bazooka and a rifle. It had good stun capabilities, which helped my offhand weapon to hit more
reliably, and it would be at my side for the entirety of Last Raven.
I also discovered a type of missile called "Micro Missiles", which send a barrage of
smaller missiles out, making them great for overwhelming any enemies with anti-missile
systems built into their core, or extensions. With this setup, I was eventually able to
kite Bolt around the arena, staying just out of range of his cannons, while unloading everything
I had. Every circuit around the battlefield I would take time to hide and recover some energy behind
these buildings, and then I would start the circuit again. It was close, but I had completed the
first mission. Or at least, I thought I had. I didn't know what was going on.
I thought I had broken some crucial part of my AC here, and that the audio was glitching
out as a result. Because Last Raven DID add a new feature where you can break certain
body parts on your build during battle. So for a minute there, I thought this experience was VERY immersive. I was like - wow, my head part is broken and the audio is glitched, that's amazing. But my disk was actually scratched. That will teach me to buy off of ebay. My mission flat
out refused to end, so I reset my PS2, managed to beat the mission again, and the same glitch
happened - but this time, at least, it let me finish the mission this time. Surely this won't be
an issue later, right? As was tradition whenever I knew I needed to get
stronger, I took on the arena, and to my surprise, I flew through almost all of it with no issue.
I even eventually added some heavy bipedal legs that I chose for their excellent boost
speed despite how heavy they were, which helped to offset the issues with my slow movement
- since I was just bunny hopping most of the time anyway. I would activate my EO core and
get these little floating turrets, then I'd unload all my micro missiles and my relation
missiles..then I'd purge all my missiles and drop them to lighten my load and increase
my speed a bit, before transitioning to linear rifle and bazooka and kiting my enemy around for
the win. Few stood a chance against this build, and so my enemies actually weren't too memorable as a result
- although - one of the funniest builds I faced in this arena was some guy with the hover extension part
who had built an infinite flight build. His build was pretty useless, and very easy to shoot at in the sky..but it was interesting. And
I didn't know that was possible. But then everything became incredibly difficult, when I met
the guy at the top of the Arena: Daemon. And I think this guy might take the
title for being the best pilot I'd yet faced in these games. Just look at his technique! He's
a god. By combining a close range machine gun with
some sort of bazooka, Daemon is able to essentially stunlock you to death in no time at all. And
because he's so adept at flying at close range, it's an absolute nightmare trying to keep
him in your sights - even with the new analogue controls. I died to him over, and over, and
over - and felt true despair. Because this wasn't like previous games - I couldn't choose
the arena in Last Raven. I couldn't just put him in the garage and call it a day. No - this arena
was perfectly suited to his aerial strengths. I tried a few new things against Daemon. I
tried equipping an overboost core to help me get some distance, but my energy would
run out, and he would close in. I even tried a vertical FCS part for the first time, which gave me this tall lock box that was a bit better suited to Daemon's movement trajectory..but nope.
Not enough. I was about to give up and come back
later...but then I had an idea. I thought back to that hover AC
that I had laughed at a few hours ago..and wondered - what if he was the key? What if
I built something like that? If I could get up to the roof, and stay there - then I'd
be able to completely negate Daemon's aerial supremacy. I thought there was at least a
chance this would work, so I went into the garage with all my parts, and got to work.
Luckily, Last Raven includes the ability for you to tune most parts to be better in line
with your specific build requirements - but even so, this infinite flight build turned
out to be an extremely tricky one to make, but it taught me a lot. First, I needed the
build to be able to get me high into the air. So I chose reverse bipedal legs for their
superior jumping. Then I needed a generator with enough capacity, and boosters with enough
power to get me to the roof. Then I needed my build to be energy efficient enough to
keep my hover extension active, so I could STAY hovering. This meant I needed to choose
parts with low energy drain, as every part takes away from your generator's maximum output.
Eventually, I had a build that was so energy efficient it could float in the air AND recover
energy slowly as well. But THEN the final problem was to cram weaponry onto this thing..without
it weighing or draining me down. I needed weapons that were light, ammo efficient, and
with a lot of range. I eventually settled on micro missiles, and a sniper rifle. And
then, after so much trial and failure - I had it. I called this AC "Vulture", after
the way it sort of circles around its foes out of range..and it eventually took me to
victory against Daemon, with literally zero ammo to spare. I guess you could argue I cheesed
this fight, but it didn't feel like it. Armored Core's gameplay begins in the garage,
and I felt super proud of this win..because it felt like I had solved a really complex
puzzle. But for now, I put Vulture away..and pulled out my Blast Raven build instead..and
got back to the missions. By the way, that's another cool thing about
Last Raven: you're able to save and load different builds quickly. It's as if you have different
mechs just sitting in your hangar, just waiting to be taken out when it's their time to shine.
Being able to load specific builds is an amazing feature for these games to have,
as it stops you having to tinker with your build in the menus for ages. Instead, you
can build solutions. Name them. Get attached to them, and then be ready to switch up your
gameplay style whenever those builds are perfect for the situation at hand. Armored Core 6 had better have a system like
this, I swear. Even Elden Ring should have a system like this.
Another thing Armored Core 6 should take from Last Raven is its in-game lore repository,
which is just a great way for players to recap the story in-game. You know, this way they
don't have to rely on over-dramatic youtubers for all their lore. Wait maybe don't
put that in the ga- Last Raven's missions were a delight. Actually
the best I'd experienced so far. Almost every one was peppered with familiar enemy ACs that
would show up or betray you, and missions were just these great tests of your combat
efficiency, rather than having you run around the map for obscure objectives. That said,
there was one bad mission which plunged me into pure blackness after a maze of corridors,
making it borderline impossible to escape without a headpiece that had night vision.
Which I didn't have. So that was pretty lame. But throughout all of these missions, I had
been putting up with something very painful. Remember that glitch that showed up in my
first mission, where audio would bug out and the mission wouldn't end? Well that had been happening this whole time. And eventually, it became so bad that I found one mission that just wouldn't
end. Again, and again, and again, and again I completed the mission and it refused
to move on..until I gave up. I couldn't progress. I had to suck it up, put away the PS2..and
use an emulator to finish Last Raven, instead. Okay, so...you might be noticing a difference
in the quality of the visuals. Looking back, I kind of regret not trying emulators
sooner. This was amazing. With the right settings, Last Raven runs at a higher framerate, plays
at a sharper resolution, and I was even able to use save states to help me get back to
where I was in the missions faster. It hurt having to do ALL these missions again, but
I was enjoying the gameplay even more than before.
Listen. I love old hardware. And if I had just used emulators, then I might have
been tempted to use save states to overcome crucial moments of difficulty and tedium.
And If I had run these games at a silky smooth 60fps and high resolutions, the games would
have been a lot easier and looked a lot better than they really are. I wouldn't have experienced them the same way everyone
else did all those years ago. But all that said, I'd still recommend emulating these
games over buying scratched, overpriced discs on Ebay. Ebay has atrocious buyer
support, and they won't let me get a refund for this scratched disc..so yeah, don't do that.
Anyway, eventually I made it to the final mission. A final gauntlet that first requires
you dodge through these long hallways filled with suicide drones. Then eventually, I actually got a checkpoint for the first time - so I didn't have to restart from the start anymore - then I had to take out some lasers on the walls. Then, it was the final fight with Zinaida. Here, she is widely regarded to be the most
difficult fight in the game. I'll let you watch, and figure out why: She fights a lot like Daemon - except I think she's even faster, fighting at more of a midrange
- with energy weapons that overheat you and somehow don't slow down her down at all.
Like all the best enemy ACs, I'm pretty sure she's flat out cheating, because there's no way you can build
an AC that could match her movement and firepower, right? Not to mention, you have to start this fight
at low health because of the suicide drones - unless you make it past the suicide drones
without taking damage. Which is what I did - I spent ages learning the drone
patterns, and managed to somehow get to the checkpoint with full health.
THEN I just had to solve the Zinaida fight somehow. I knew I couldn't outrun her with
my heavy AC, so I came up with a new strategy: I realised that if I moved forwards and backwards
like this, then she would fly into my sights in a predictable manner..just long enough
for me to get off a salvo of missiles each. For the first time, I was actually dealing
consistent damage to her. But would it be enough?
It required precise inputs, perfect aim, and by the end I was gripping my controller so
hard that my hands hurt. But then, at 500 AP..I got it. The final shot.
The sun sets on you, as the Last Raven. Finally, I'd completed every game in the old generation
of games. Next was fourth gen, and it was was here, that the series would change forever.
For a new game director had entered the scene. That's right. Armored Core 4, and Armored Core For Answer are directed by none other
than Hidetaka Miyazaki himself. And in his new, VERY different fourth generation
of Armored Core, Raven pilots are no more. They've been superceded by LYNX, who pilot
NEXTS - new and improved Armored Cores that can move and fly and fight on a whole other
level. I mean..just look at how they fast they are!
The reason this combat is so much more intense is because a) it's now MUCH easier to attain
infinite flight and keep your boosters on all the time, and b) side boosts now have
a dedicated button, rather than being a niche extension part that only moved you in one
direction. What's more, cancelling your boosters and tapping side boost can allow you to perform
a quick-turn maneuver, giving skilled players the means to keep enemies in their sights
during frantic combat. Having these boosts built into the default controls was, in my
opinion, a huge step forward for the franchise - and of all the games, these are the ones
that I've replayed the most, having 6 full playthroughs under my belt, to date.
And while Armored Core 4 is great, and I really enjoyed putting together this energy weapon
build that dual wields pulse guns, only to throw them away when they're out of ammo to
reveal a backup set of two more pulse guns - most of my playthroughs are in actually
in 4's sequel, which is Armored Core: For Answer. Because I feel like it's here, in
this game, that the true potential of this generation was fully realised. Not just in
gameplay..but in storytelling, and tone as well.
So for the first time, I want to REALLY shout out the music in this game.
To be fair, the music in Armored Core has always been great. You've been hearing it
all throughout this video, after all. And a lot of credit for that seems to have to
go to a man named Kota Hoshino, who composed on almost all of these soundtracks. He even
runs a band called "FreQuency" whose music releases overlap almost entirely with the
Armored Core franchise and its distinct sound. And that's so cool. That Armored Core has
its own in-house band that plays for it! It also seems like Kota Hoshino has been working
with From Software ever since, so I hope his band creates some music for Armored Core 6.
Because the music was always good, but something specifically changed with Generation 4's music
- especially with For Answer, where many songs played that added this melancholy, nostalgic,
almost haunting sound to them. And it added such a good vibe to the franchise. I mean just listen to this! These sort of reflective tracks play in a lot of key missions. And I feel like they want you to ask the question: why? Why are we fighting? Are we really doomed to have all of this destruction
play out over and over again? And the answer is inevitably...yes. Despite
their promise, humanity is doomed. And in fact, Armored Core: For Answer has one of
the darkest, most disturbing endings that From Software has ever directed. And I want to show it to you.
Thing is, you can only get this unique ending if you complete the game THREE times. So that's
why I decided to replay For Answer so many times..and I'm so glad I did. Because these
NG+ missions are some of the best in the franchise, and replaying the game so many times helped
me to play closer to that insanely high skill ceiling that the fourth generation lays claim
to. S ranking certain missions rewarded me with new parts, and replaying so many times
also also gave me a TON of FRS points to invest, which are basically stat points that allow
you to level up and further tune the performance of your AC. By the end, I was overboosting,
side boosting and fighting with a speed and precision that I'm honestly quite proud of,
looking back. The reason my overboost looks so cool here
is because I'm using a core from the legendary White Glint, which gives it a unique animation.
White Glint is For Answer's cover character - a legendary character in this generation.
So, because I was taking parts from this mech, I jokingly called my NEXT "Black Flint"..and
actually ended up becoming pretty attached to this build, over the course of three playthroughs:
Black flint is equipped with dual machine gun arms, which fires both chambers with R1.
And despite these weapons being extremely powerful on their own, you're still allowed
to fire a back weapon at the same time - so I ended up equipping the "Yamaga" - a grenade
launcher that fires from the back here. And it's REALLY fun firing the machine guns constantly,
while always looking out for the perfect moment to fire a grenade. If my aim was good enough,
I could destroy enemies so quickly that their dialogue couldn't even finish in time.
Not to mention, the other parts I chose allowed for not only infinite flight, but basically
infinite side boosting as well, making me extremely difficult to hit. And then there's
my shoulder attachments, where I opted for the "Euphoria", which increased my Primal
Armor. But what is Primal Armor? Well, THIS is your
primal armour. It's a regenerating resource that primarily reduces the damage you take
- but it's also a resource you can dip into for overboosting, like this..or using assault
armor, like this. And It's important you understand this, because all signs indicate that Armored
Core 6 will have some successor to Primal Armor - since you can see it repelling attacks
here in the trailer..and you can see a similar assault armor explosion here, and here, as
well. Primal Armor is a technology based on "Kojima
Particles", which are extremely pollutive - to the point where primal armor is strictly
banned in inhabited areas, as the mere after-effect of a NEXT fighting in this space could contaminate
the area for generations to come. Now, a lot of our fights do take place near
high rise apartment buildings - but not to worry, they've almost always been long enveloped
by the ocean, or a desert wasteland. Sapped of colour, and life - after all, very little
of mankind now remains on the Earth's poisonous surface.
Instead, long ago, most of humankind fled to the cradles, which are these massive airship
colonies, each holding at least 20 million members of humankind, who escaped the pollution
below, and can live in the clean air above. But according to the revolutionary group called
ORCA, maintaining the Cradles is actually causing horrible pollution on the surface.
And it's ORCA's belief that that pollution will soon start bleeding into the atmosphere
itself, where the cradles fly. So ORCA seeks to commandeer the energy sources
powering the cradles, and use that energy for a different purpose. They wish to power
an array of anti-satellite canons, and turn them towards the sky, in an attempt to take
out an interstellar web of assault cells that are blocking mankind's escape to space. Because ORCA thinks this world is doomed.
In your first playthrough, you have no choice but to side with the League establishment,
who are attempting to prevent ORCA from taking away the Cradles energy source. The final fight
has you defend those energy sources here, in Arteria Cranium, where you fight against
two enemy NEXTS. So on your second playthrough, you'll find new missions to play, and these lead to the
ORCA ending, where you end up on the opposite side - attempting to wrest the power source
of the cradles from the establishment. In this ending, the cradles are forced to
land, subjecting mother and child to the pollution that they had escaped in the skies.
And even as humanity is decimated down here, they will discover a new frontier: outer space. But there's the third ending. One only open
to you if you take on ORCA members in their arena mode, until you meet and defeat an enemy
pilot known only as "Old King". He's a radical ORCA member who takes a...more
direct approach to things. And so, a new mission pops up on your board in this playthrough. This mission is easy. The only challenge to
you here is from your conscience, as Old King revels in the bloodshed. But then your reckoning arrives. In the last mission, you're led into an ambush against
a united force of foes disgusted with your actions. You and Old King have to face off
against FOUR enemy Nexts. And if you're doing this in Hard Mode, there's even a fifth. It's
an extremely challenging fight, even for my build, which I considered quite overpowered
until this point. But somehow I take out three enemy NEXTs..and
then the fourth gets stuck beyond the wall, separated from myself and Old King. Rather
than wait for my ally to get unstuck, I dive into combat on low health...and...just make
it out alive. It was nervewracking, but I felt like I came out of it a better player
- and I think one day I'd love to come back to attempt hard mode, as well. Things are harder in more interesting ways, like adding more mechs to the fights. So For
Answer easily ranks within my top 3 AC games, alongside Last Raven and Master of Arena,
and I'd love to play it again. Now if it wasn't obvious already from the
footage - I emulated most of my For Answer playthroughs. That's because my disc wouldn't
play voice audio, for some reason. And I will say: being able to emulate this game without
any fps lag probably played a huge part in why I came to like this game so much, because
performance on the PS3 version is not on the same level. So many of these missions
are SO epic in scale - like taking out enormous arms forts, which should be incredible experiences
- but they put the old gen hardware to shame, unfortunately. Emulate these games, if you
can. That said, I've heard it's hard to emulate
the next couple of games on the list. And these are the last ones that I want to talk
about in depth here. Finally, we've arrived at the fifth, and for a long time - final
generation of Armored Core. It's time to talk about Armored Core 5, and its sequel, Verdict
Day. Where 4th gen's music was toned for a beautiful
melancholy, in 5th gen your garage sessions are instead accompanied by a thumping militaristic
beat that glorifies war - a theme that is absolutely reinforced by the gameplay and
story, as well. Because Armored Core 5 marks another huge
generational shift - except this time it's in the direction of making Armored Core more
of a mech war simulator, rather than the mechanised power fantasy that it was in the fourth generation.
...and while this new style would absolutely grow on me - especially in 5's sequel: Verdict
Day..I'm gonna to be honest and say I did not really enjoy my time with Armored Core
5. To be fair, this game was largely designed as a multiplayer experience - but there IS
still a singleplayer, and I don't think it's great. I found fps performance to be lacking,
I thought the visual clutter on the screen was atrocious, I didn't feel like I could
really outplay my enemies - and the missions were long and lackluster, with character dialogue
that kinda made me cringe. The most fun I had in this game was because
of my build: because for the first time really, I chose a really heavy tank build, loaded
with autocannons and heavy rifles. I figured if ever there was a time for a slow build,
it was in this generation, where I disliked the movement style. So doing less movement
suited me..and I will say: I loved the new feature that allowed me to charge into enemies
with my tank legs for massive damage. This is kind of like the move you can see the tank
build do in the Armored Core 6 trailer. So I had fun with my build - even if I didn't
like the game too much. But in the final mission of Armored Core V
- I saw a brief glimpse of how good the combat could be. In this fight, you have time to
pre-empt and dodge attacks, and learning the boss's moveset and attack patterns was quite
rewarding and..honestly something I hadn't really experienced much of before in Armored
Core. And luckily, 5's sequel: Verdict Day, clearly
learned a lot of lessons from 5. So instead of complaining about 5, I'd much rather talk
about what I enjoyed in Verdict Day, and properly explain the gameplay via my experiences with
that game, instead. Just like For Answer's soundtrack, Verdict
Day's songs are absolutely iconic. I mean..just listen to this beat
But it's not just the action tracks, the calmer garage and menu tracks are so memorable to
me now as well. So I'll let those play, while I take you through the garage of the fifth
generation. In fifth gen, you begin with basically one
part in every category, making it easy to try new weapons and equipment to try and figure
out what build you like. The catch? All of those parts are junk. Like, literally, they're
classified as "junk" parts, and are weaker than everything else that you can get in the
shop. But this is smart design, because it means that at the start of the game, you can't
really go wrong with anything you buy in the shop...because no matter what you do, it's
probably going to be an upgrade from what you have. It's a clever way to onboard new
players in my opinion, and it gives you a very clear sense of progression - especially at the start of the game, when that's very important, and I wonder if they'll do something like this in Armored Core 6?
We do see a character scavenging parts from the battlefield at the start, after all.
The first mission to give me trouble in Verdict Day actually shaped my entire build for the rest of my playthrough - because I couldn't kill these guys
guys, and the only solution that I could make work was sniping them. And I was really happy to go with a sniper build because sniping was another archetype I hadn't really
committed to properly, until now. I think it works well in this game because a) it's
very easy to get horizontal distance from your opponents...and b), the gameplay is just
generally more tactical in generation 5, with great rewards for careful positioning, which only got better given I could snipe enemies from really far away. So
let me explain the combat. In this generation, your boosters can be toggled
on or off, allowing you to either glide or walk. And if you're gliding on the ground,
then you're able to activate Glide Boost, which is essentially an overboost that moves
you around at an extreme speed, at the expense of more energy. Then finally there's quick
boost, which is kind of like the side boost from Armored Core 4..but..worse.
And then I guess you could also include jumping in this discussion..because jumping is ALSO
extremely important in this generation, as jumping up buildings is your primary means
of gaining height over your opponents, and jumping perpendicular from them is one of
the fastest ways to move horizontally. Looking back at it, honestly it's absurd that
there are four separate buttons just for moving around the map in this game. Armored Core
has always been a series that stresses the amount of controller inputs, but the fifth
generation really takes it too far, in my opinion.
Not to mention, another essential part of combat is "Scan mode", which you can toggle
on and off with R3. In this mode, you can't fire your weapons - but your energy output
skyrockets, allowing builds to recover energy quickly in scan mode, and to be way more evasive
for a long period of time. I would use this whenever I needed to get distance from my
enemies, then I'd go back into combat mode for sniping.
Of course, the other use for scan mode is..you know: scanning, which is also very important.
That's because there are three damage types in the fifth generation: Kinetic, Thermal,
and Chemical. And in retrospect, it's essential that you scan enemies: especially bosses,
and it's essential you choose weaponry that can overwhelm their unique defenses. Otherwise
you'll see the words "innefective" whenever you hit them, and your weapons will just tickle
them instead. Now I was lazy and rarely felt like scanning, so there were a lot of enemies
I just tickled to death instead: I'll admit..I don't love the scan system. Because while I LOVE when Armored Core forces you to reconsider
your strategy and experiment with things, but there's not much creativity involved when
you're forced to just choose a part enemies are weak to. So I didn't enjoy this damage
system much. What I DID like in this game was the addition
of UNACS, which are these AI companions you can choose to bring with you to every mission.
There's some fun strategy involved in choosing a complementary ally - for example I often
chose a UNAC that would tank and take aggro from me while I sniped in the distance - and
it made this game WAY more enjoyable. In the previous game I just felt like a bullet sponge
that couldn't evade properly, but here the UNACS actually enabled a lot of strategy, which is great. But even UNACS can only do so much against the final boss, Who was perhaps unsurprisingly the most memorable part of Verdict Day for me. Because I spent a LOT of time trying to figure this guy out.
He's essentially piloting a NEXT from Armored Core 4 - and it's terrifying to go against.
It makes you realise just how powerful those things were back then. Its strength is its
primal armor, which is almost impossible to break through - until it goes in for assault
armor, that leaves it vulnerable for a short moment. I eventually figured out that if I
dashed in and took a bit of damage here, I could end phase one in an instant. Because
I was using dual pile drivers - a short melee weapon that essentially rams a warhead deep
into the body of your opponent for insane damage. It's very similar to what you see
here in the AC6 trailer, actually. Then phase 2 begins, and you have to play
out of your mind to succeed - activate scan mode overboost to evade those missiles. Deal
damage whenever he stands still at the correct range. Try to keep the sun behind you because
for the love of god that sun is obnoxious. This fight is LONG, and you'll take a lot
of unavoidable damage, so you'd better play perfectly in order to deal enough damage in
time..and take him out. Overall, I enjoyed Verdict day just as much as any other Armored Core game. With it, they
really perfected a lot of design decisions, and it goes to show how the sequels are sometimes
the best of each generation, rather than just being more of the same.
But I'm not done yet. Because last frontier was this. Formula Front: Extreme Battle, on
the PSP. I never had a PSP when I was younger, so I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity
to buy one. There are four Armored Core games on the PSP,
but three of these - AC 3, Silent Line, and Last Raven - these are remakes.
The unique PSP title is this one: Formula Front, Extreme Battle - where you're given
every single part from the get-go, and are simply tasked with climbing the ranks in the
arena. The catch here, is that you can technically beat this entire game without actually playing
- as there's a whole system of AI coding where you calibrate your AC to fight for you. It
sounds good in theory, but these AI menus take forever to navigate, and often your AC
won't listen to your preset commands, and will just happily shoot missiles into a wall
instead. So I ended up playing manually, and I will say: the enemy ACs in this arena are
designed extremely well. Their builds are so unique that I ended up being forced to
make four drastically different builds in order to progress, and counter them. It was fun. One funny thing is the whole aesthetic of
this game. While every other game is this dystopian commentary on the terror of war
and the dispassion of business, the music and intros in Formula Front make you feel
like you've entered a race in gran turismo, with an audience of adoring fans watching
in anticipation as the announcer shouts "GO" with glee. It's..weird. If this is what peacetime
looks like in the Armored Core universe, then I'll take the dystopian corporate nightmare,
please. So in conclusion..I like Armored Core. And
some of these games..I even loved - again my top 3, in the end, were Master of Arena,
Last Raven, and For Answer. And I'm very thankful that I have you all,
and this channel, as it motivated me to push through and understand this franchise. Because
of that, I discovered a genre of game that I otherwise might have never discovered. And
I think it's a shame that so many others haven't tried these games. So I hope this video might
help to convince a few people to give them a try, and to push through any hardships they'll
face. So that you can get some mechanized memories of your own, so to speak.
So again: if you wanted to play anything from this series..either see if you can get a fair
price for them second hand, or emulate. And if you do emulate: be prepared for some technical
fiddling with settings, but it should all be pretty possible with guides online. And if you are interested, well, then which games should you play? Well..that's actually
not an easy question to answer. If you only have time to play one Armored
Core game, then I'd recommend starting in the fourth generation, with Armored Core:
For Answer. It's probably the easiest single game to get to grips with, and it has fantastic
depth if you decide to do multiple playthroughs. If you have time to play a couple of games,
then I'd recommend you play Armored Core 3, and Silent Line. These felt quite accessible
to me. But if you REALLY want dual analogue controls and a challenge, then I'd recommend
both discs of Armored Core Nexus, and then Last Raven instead.
But of course, this is all just my opinion. Play any from this video that sound interesting
to you. You can't go too wrong if you're dedicated enough. Okay, maybe don't play Ninebreaker.
But that's about it. But thank you for listening to this extremely
long video..I hope it gets you as excited for AC6 as I am..and I'll see you next time.
What I found most fascinating about this video is that he came up with clever, non-glitch strategies for fighting two of the hardest bosses in AC. I never considered using the hover extension against Daemon and never tried the forwards-backwards movement against Zinaida, I just went straight to trying to match their speed and backwards circle-strafing like many others. That sort of freedom to develop unique solutions to challenges is what I think makes this series so rewarding.
"Some will even run into each other and slide you off, which is....Great!"
I am sensing pain.
Madlad here (maybe) beating NB Seraph with the legendary controller grip.
Good of him to go back and play all of the AC games. I remember he got a lot of flak for his initial video about AC. I remember some content creators like really trashed his takes, but it seems like he did his due diligence and played every AC game? So funnily enough it seems like he now has more experience in more AC games than others.
Anyone know how to make Black Flint
I wasn't a fan of his original AC coverage but I think he went above and beyond what most people would do and spend 2k on old consoles and used (not to mention scratched) discs. Not to mention he played the mess known as formula front and ninebreaker.
I know a good number of people are still going to find reasons to hate him and those people are simply gatekeeping. Now is the best opportunity for armored core to get the recognition it deserves, don't go ruining the experience for newcomers and make the rest of us look bad.
I salute Vaati for going the distance and completing them all. Great analysis on each.
I started 7 months ago to play all the ACs and so far I'm up to For answer. My favorites I can say are the first one, project phantasma (for the story) AC2, AC3, silent line, last raven and For Answer
And at first I didn't think about it at all, but I enjoyed playing them so much.
Should I put Big Boss Salute here? But how?