Armored Core fully formed.

...As in, I really, really do not need to play the next ten or so of these games, because they're all really, REALLY similar.

Anyway, if I were buying my PS2 on launch day and could only afford one launch title, I do not think that I would be disappointed at all with this.

looks, sounds and feels nicer than first gen. the arena is especially much better this time around - both in terms of raven personalities and the fights themselves. missions are pretty standard and overall unmemorable though. holding higher hopes for another age on that front

klein's a cool antagonist with some interesting implications, but not a whole lot happens with him. final boss was a fucking joke. gave me intense stinger flashbacks

shout outs to hustler two and count one tho. they're real af

Pretty bad transition to 6th gen. The mechs feel weightless and less tactile than the PSX trilogy's, the visual design's kind of washed-out and bland, and it's about twice as long as it needs to be. There's a big difficulty spike from those games, but because it mostly amounts to more engagement with the series' awful aiming mechanics it didn't really deepen this one. Arena load-times made this particularly agonizing.

Was delighted to find that Francis York Morgan's in the game, doing his snidest, evilest voice as one of your employers. The antagonist's sadly forgettable but there is one inexplicable moment at the end where your codec wife expresses her agreement with his plan to institute an ambiguous form of totalitarian control over the human race.

So, the second generation of Armored Core. A more fluid experience than its predecessors with a solid story that tends to miss its mark in terms of mission objectives.

I feel as if I'm going to have less and less to say about AC sequels, but there has been a substantial jump from the PS1 here. The visuals are wonderful, at its best this game reminds me of F-Zero GX which is high praise from me. Having said this, locales often feel uninspired. Generic laboratory hallways and low visibility night areas take up a lot of the runtime and when the game does veer into more peculiar destinations, there's sometimes a catch. The snow and desert levels are particularly barren, with storms that make it difficult for you to see much. It feels unfair to say that the original AC did areas like this to intentionally build an atmosphere of desolation, but the vibes just weren't hitting the same way in this game. The soundtrack also blended into the background for me, listening back it's good but for whatever reason, it didn't have much staying power.

I was big on the customisation this time around. While I dabbled with different weapons during the prior games, I spent a majority of my time in the menus here. The arena works as a perfect testing ground for new builds and I actually ended up working my way up to rank 1. It took a while for me to find a build I was happy with; many of the best weapons just didn't have the ammunition to carry through the game's longest missions. But when I did settle on something for the final quarter or so, I was stoked!

The missions are the lowest part, though. There's very little in terms of truly unique objectives and on the whole, they feel too long. Many of these missions will drain of your most precious resources, health and stamina. While your AC controls better than ever, there's a vast number of enemies that dart around the screen, being totally impossible to pinpoint. The most annoying aspect of this is when they jump above you, as this is where your coverage is generally the most lacking. I still enjoyed the flow of gameplay for the most part, but the objectives here left a lot to be desired.

All in all, I do prefer this game to those that came before it. It's a big step up in general "feel", but the campaign needs some ironing out in order to truly shine.

Fyi newcomers, don't get your hopes up with analogue stick aiming in AC2. Nope, the analogue stick doesn't do anything. Genius!

Practically more AC1, but worse apart from the graphics. Somehow even clunkier, thanks to the awful hit boxes and annoying lockbox snapping into enemies constantly. Very little improvements, slower pacing, awful quality control, bland ass missions, and even COPY PASTED worse version of missions from AC1. All of that combined makes the experience not really worthwhile.

I'd straight up skip this one, unless you REALLY want more of AC1 or maybe focus solely on the Arena. The implication of who the main antagonist is, and some encounters and characterizations of the Arena mode are the only good things about this sequel.

★★ – Bad, but playable ❌

It's decent... I mean, after the three gen 1 AC games which I liked a LOT, this game delivers a lot on some aspects and completely face plants on others. The good parts are; good graphics, smooth gameplay and good missions but the first two of these compliments aren't really that big of a compliment because it's an obvious biproduct of going from ps1 to ps2. Mission difficulty was wildly inconsistent, being ball bustingly hard on some and piss easy on others. Also the arena mode had the same problem with simply just some unfair enemies. The story was good though and I enjoyed being immersed in Fromsoftwares rendition of a mars colony.

The 1st Armored Core title on the ps2, is a very early installment ps2 as well so keep this in mind for this review. Let’s start off with the setting of the game, Mars, a big red rock planet with heavy weather. This leads to many of the missions and areas in the game being indoors, meaning many areas are laboratories or factories. While it can feel like a bummer to some people as the many open areas are found in the ps1 games. Here it checks out since the missions that DO have you outside, the weather is often rough like being at Mar’s poles, having to search and operate in a snowstorm. I find the areas overall good and fit with the setting, while there’s nothing to write home about for a gen 6 game.

Now let’s talk about the feature everyone loves dearly, the arena! I would sink in hours on end in the arena, going from rank 50 to 1 nearly all at the beginning of the game as there were no restrictions from stopping me. I feel rather conflicted about this game’s arena. On one hand, with the arena areas to choose from, I found myself swapping between them more often than I did with any AC title I’ve played as each has its own pros and cons. I love going to Falna Craters to give a large, almost flat arena to battle a fellow AC for example.

Now on the other hand… the AI in this game is dumb, I mean REALLY dumb. While yes, the difficulty curve for the arena is excellent in its own right. The AI placed in the areas given just doesn’t mix well. As you may know, areas are limited and if you leave the area borders, you fail. This same logic applies to the enemies, so you can beat ALL of the arenas by not shooting a single thing at an opponent. Can totally cheese by ringing out the opponents. The easiest to do this is by playing Abandon Highway. I say to give this a try as it’s hilarious, but the idea of being able to ring out even rank 1 AC by doing this is mind-boggling. This applies to the missions too, I personally have gotten an enemy AC trapped on my head in a corner and we’ll have an awkward moment together. While this is a clear flaw in game design, it being a solo experience makes the flaw not as bad if this problem existed in modern gaming.

Gameplay? It’s literally the same as the ps1 games but with better graphics. Don’t fix what isn’t broken I guess.

Music! The music in this title is good, full techno vibe for this title and great remakes of the 1’s ost. My favorite menu/garage theme without a doubt!

The story in this title is great and far better told than the previous entries. This time, the antagonists feel like a genuine threat and like you’re the only hope for the people on Mars, that feeling of being at a disadvantage the whole way through. Each mission has actual relevance to the story, unlike past and later titles where the plot only happens near the last half. Pleasant story and worth checking out for it alone.

Overall, this being my 1st AC game I tried it out years ago and gave up on it as it was too hard. Now back with 4 AC games under my belt and knowledge now going back into this game. This game is really really fun and what more can you ask from a video game?

Steady improvements seen here compared to 1st Gen. It introduced critical mechanics like Overboosting, a new type of specialized leg type in Hovers, and Heat management. The Arena is much more fun to get through this time around, and every complaint I had with the FoV and Draw Distance in 1st Gen seems to have banished.

I didn't like how the game speed seems to have been reduced from 1st Gen (maybe that's why Overboosting is a thing now?). The speed has been more standardized across leg types which is something I liked, since light builds reign supreme in Gen 1 and using tank threads in those games is suicide. I also didn't really like Hover Legs, they felt like shittier quad legs you'd only use in water missions.

The presentation didn't take that big of a leap aside from steady 60 fps all around, it looks more like a Dreamcast game if anything. At least the music in this game is just as stellar as it was on PS1.

The story was whatever. Apparently Klein is the MoA protagonist who ended up following Nine Ball's ideals but I don't feel anything for the guy. I did like how you met a lot of the arena contestants in missions, makes them feel more connected to the plot.

Overall, a worthy successor. The series is starting to form its own identity instead of throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks.

It seems everyone's playing that shiny new Armored Core VI. I would be too, but my computer isn't all that great and can't really run it. You know what my PC can run though?

A PS2 Emulator.

So here we are. It may be called Armored Core 2, but it's really the fourth game in the series. With the '2' though, one may expect a little more than we got from Project Phantasma and Master of Arena. Did we get more?

Well, before we find out, I feel the need to disclose something. Anyone who has played the earlier Armored Core games know about Human+. Basically, getting deep in debt results in the player getting a permanent upgrade with the tradeoff that they restart the game. You can repeat this process several times to get more upgrades. It's a neat part of the game, and I decided to purposefully get all of the upgrades on purpose by grinding debt for an hour, simply to see what it's like. This probably made the game a decent amount easier for me than many others. The game wasn't really that hard, and while there are other reasons for that I'll get into later, it's almost certain that Human+ is part of what made the game easy.

With that out of the way, what's new to this game? The game definitely sticks close to the PS1 games, but there's a decent amount of new stuff and improvements. First, let's talk about the player's new moves and options. For me, the overboost is one of the best new improvements. Not only does it provide a quick movement option that makes duels really fun while also being another reason to carefully manage energy, but it also means that backtracking takes less time. You also activate it by pressing R3, which means you don't have to take your thumb off of the camera stick to activate it.

...Except the right stick isn't used for the camera. The left stick isn't used for movement either. The control scheme is the same as it was on the PS1. Look, I'm not against unconventional controls, but there's no logic behind the control scheme. Yeah, you can map the camera to the face buttons, but that doesn't compare to a stick. Ok, It was a PS2 launch title, I guess I can accept it. They better fix it with the next game though.

There are new part types here. For example, we have the radiator. Now, if you get hit a bunch by enemies, you begin to overheat, which drains your health. The radiator counteracts that. This is a fine mechanic, but it doesn't really add much. Not much is actually done with the radiator that a defense stat and defense optional part couldn't also accomplish from a design standpoint. This is unfortunate, because it became clear in the PS1 games each part type was unique and served a purpose, even ones you may not expect like the FCS.

There's also hover legs, which are very quick. They also hover on water, which helps for a few missions. The last big loadout additions are extensions and inside parts. These are anti-missile systems, light movement options, mines, anti-lockon systems, and other miscellaneous actions. These were neat, but I didn't use them that much because I was trying to keep my AC light. Still, there's some neat stuff here. For some reason, you have to access inside parts by pressing your 'change right weapon' button. Just a small thing, but I wish they had enough space to just have a button for it. Hmm, maybe if the camera control could be controlled with a stick or something...

So really, it's mostly the same old kind of stuff. This is fun, but I think there could've been a bit more done to improve on the customization.

Anyway, how are you going to afford these new parts? There's so much, and you don't have much disposable income when starting out. You could go do a mission, but you'll go in debt if you fail, so it might be a good idea to tackle the arena. In retrospect, while Master of Arena making the arena a focus was a good idea to differentiate it from the other PS1 games, Armored Core 2 cements the fact that it works best as a diversion that's mostly disconnected from the main game. Initially fought in the arena just to get more money without the risk of missions, but eventually I just got really engaged with it and got to Rank 1. The pacing of these missions is surprisingly good because many upcoming and defeated Ravens will taunt and encourage you respectively in mail, letting you know when a boss is coming up. Dare I say, the arena is better than the main missions here. It was really challenging and I had to consider all of my parts and the map I chose to fight on. It also led to me being super rich by the end of the game, so I could afford pretty much every part I wanted.

So what about the story missions? They're good. The level design is generally less confusing than that of the PS1 games, the missions feel varied, they're a good length, etc... Levels are overall more consistent, but I can't help but feel they're still basically the same kind of stuff as those of the PS1 games, especially since some of the missions are just remakes of missions from those games. Isn't it a bit early to be doing that guys? The game takes place on Mars, but they don't take advantage of that very often. Make a low-gravity or space mission, maybe have a big sandstorm or something, I dunno. There's a lot of missed potential.

Then there's the story. Once again, it's mostly the same kind of stuff. There is a bit more characterization when it comes to some side characters and the main villain, but it's the same main framework as previous games, except now all a lot of the more covert stuff isn't present. When I saw that the first mission in the original Armored Core tasked the player with attacking protesters, it conveyed the world of the game well. Many missions felt like they create mini-storylines too. However, that's not nearly as pronounced in this game. Apparently the Ravens are slaves or something, but this wasn't really explained well in any capacity. I was really hoping for a bit more here.

So overall, while Armored Core 2 is a pretty good game, it's just a little too similar to its predecessors for me to call it great. If you liked the PS1 games, you will probably like this, and vice versa. 7/10. I'm tackling these in order, so Another Age is next. See you then.

This game makes me feel miserable.

The first official sequel to the first Armored Core game and it's pretty much the same as how it always was with the exception of having nicer graphics. So what's so awful if it's supposed to be the same as its predecessor and especially when I liked the original, alright so what made me enjoy the original was that its a pretty neat mech game from the PS1 era so seeing the same thing pulled out 3 years later and also with the yearly released spinoffs of the PS1 games which all were standalone expansions of the original game therefore also being the same thing.
But you know what's bad? When you copy your predecessor but fail to be as good as it used to be, this game has horrible missions which are either frustrating or just too hard, the quality control in this game is inexistent, and I keep seeing people defend the arena game mode and I respect them enjoying it but all I'm seeing is that I'm battling against dogshit ai that just jumps around and the only difficulty comes from them spamming op bullets at me, there is no strategy it's just a competition of who bought the best upgrade and whose gonna last the longest alive.

This game did not age well and I'm already terrified to check out the sequels. Should you play it? Not really, I'm pretty sure there are better entries that come after, or so I've heard, and sincerely hope.