Armored Core has remarkable entries, but only some of them will generate really, really strong reactions once said. Last Raven is, by no means exaggerating, one of them, and for all the good and bad reasons.

As it goes for For Answer, this is one of the games in the series which features this "impeding doom" scenario, writing, and atmosphere. The latter being thick enough which will sell you on the game in its first beats - just as art direction, soundtrack and quality of life changes will do.

Those latter improvements are welcome, as they are needed in order to advance through the toughest parts of the title. From the original three we get five AC loadouts, the garage UI is completely revamped, the statistics sections too, the tuning is free of charge and not irreversible, and there's a whole new menu for any information regarding rival ACs, missions, world and story. Controls are carried over from Nexus and Nine-Breaker, but the old-school option still remains. So much is given...

...Only for the game to take it back, tenfold.

When people speak about this thing being hard, they are not lying or making it up. Parts can break down during a fight, worsening your AC performance in real time, and even make you unable to use an arm weapon. Those broken parts will have to be bought again in full at the shop, which makes experimenting harder, at least in your first play-through.

If Silent Line has the habit of dropping in ACs like MTs, Last Raven has the habit of dropping in bosses like ACs. If your performance was rewarded with a challenge before, now it's rewarded with a brick wall. Always expect the unexpected.

You won't bring OP-INTENSIFY here, everyone is a human plus, and most of the rival ACs are also over-tuned to the point of basically cheating against the player. All things which will generate frustration beyond everything you have experienced in the series, like "Destroy Floating Mines" or "B-1 Grand Chief".

That's because, even if the game is the biggest in terms of options - only some of them are viable. Those strong parts are, funny enough, the ones you won't be carrying over from Nexus, and instead finding in Last Raven. What you carry over from Nexus and Nine-Breaker is, instead, the EN balancing, lightweights being dead on arrival and weapons' spread making some of them borderline unusable. Adding in the game's habit to reward you with parts when you S-tier a mission, the pain points are now revealed. Yet how come this absolute disaster of a game is that praised?

Well, this thing is just - that - good. Arguably, some of the best the series can offer. And that can easily be explained by the game's high-level structure.

Time is of the essence. You, other ravens, corporations and independent warlords all fight for a piece of the remaining pie in this post-apocalyptic world soon to be engulfed in the apocalypse once again. You almost always have a choice, which will bring you towards one of the many endings this game offers.

Last Raven is more than a statement. Everyone has a bounty on his head. If you get them - the money's yours. Once you get them - they're gone for good, written out of that "blacklist" of sorts. You can still fight them in the VR Arena which, by the way, offers by far the toughest rival AC in the whole series.

The parts and missions offering is the biggest in the series, and the challenge arguably over-delivers in that regard too. With that said - do not be afraid, or at least, do be in a reasonable level. This is one of the some ACs where, even if you nail the garage right, the execution is on a whole other league. Be prepared to retry some encounters over and over.

Difficulty is, again, overall higher than all of the previous entries, but your experience will radically change depending on which path you do end up choosing. The easiest routes are tough, but doable. The toughest ones are on another level. If you want to go through the easiest, or toughest, or all of the routes - your call, but do keep at least your first play-through in the blind.

The most painful entry of the series is also one of the most joyful to play with. The sheer variety of options in all regards, the quality of life changes, and the technical improvements all deliver towards the best of the late 3rd generation and, arguably, some of the best action in the whole series.

Recommended.

sleek and dark even by the standards of a series that operates on those terms. cranks the industrial hellscape vibes to infinity both sonically and aesthetically and i'm here for all of it

route system is badass - the constant feeling of impending doom absolutely menacing. enemy ACs are fun to fight and can be seriously trying (not to mention raven personalities are actually memorable now too)

weapon balancing is also at an all time high. seriously, i feel like just about anything is viable in this game if you've got the skill and know-how to make it work. i never changed up my builds - or saved multiple ones - nearly as much in any other game in the series. i did that constantly here

i have exactly two gripes:

1. there's one ending in particular that's pretty much the objectively most climactic and finalizing of them all. it's by far the most difficult and the most cinematic too. this was my second route... so the following ones felt much more whelming than they probably should have

2. mopping up stray missions for 100% is a bit of a chore. if you could just play any mission out of sequence after getting the main endings - that'd be perfect. i don't really think the superboss is significant or challenging enough to justify an additional five playthroughs (minimum) just to access it.

that's the extent of my negativity. this is a killer fucking game. old gen seriously ended with a bang

I was preparing to defend myself from sounding insane cause I really liked this one even though it was definitely a bit harder than the rest and thought maybe I might be the weirdo but I'm glad to see others liked this one a lot as well lmfao. The branching paths and choices really feel the best in this one and there's so many different endings that it takes a lot of effort but it always feels fresh and fun for me. It's also just one of my favorite AC stories of them all, extremely cool and fun and a good farewell before they changed up movement from 4 on. (Which I do like as well, but it's just a different flavor y'know)

You couldn't ask for much better as a finale for the PS2 Armored Core games, at least from a mechanical perspective anyway. Last Raven takes the heavy rebalancing done from Nexus and rebalances it all yet again, making the overheating system a little more lenient and once again adjusting old and adding new parts to try and retool things one last time. Is it the perfect iteration of AC balance? Honestly no idea, I'll leave that discussion up to the hardcore multiplayer guys.

Beyond the additions though this game features vastly improved enemy AI, easily the most aggressive and dangerous the series has seen so far. Mission design is eager to show this off too as the stages here are among the most challenging From has put together for the series, with numerous multi-AC fights, surprise ambushes and other tricks up their sleeve. If you managed to fumble your way through the previous games by the skin of your teeth then Last Raven will absolutely humble you. It's a game that demands you understand these mechanics on more than just a surface level if you want to survive (either that or look up the cheesiest builds online and pray you get lucky).

Coming from the very breezy Nexus this is a huge jump in what it asks and it took me some time to adjust, but ultimately I found the challenge to be refreshing. It encouraged me to try out a variety of different builds and strategies, to finally master bunny-hopping and boost jumping on more than just a surface level, and to all around just put everything I had learned from playing the series so far to the test. It was a great time. And if From Software knew this would be their final game in this style then it absolutely made sense to push the game mechanics to their limit.

Even when stages don't involve fighting enemy ACs they usually offer some degree of challenge. There's almost no filler here, something that the previous game Nexus, for as much as I liked it, was full of. The game's high level of challenge can also be taxing too, so maybe be smarter than me and don't do an entire playthrough in one sitting if you start to get frustrated.

While Last Raven has the usual assortment of missions which diverge based on which jobs you take (and in some cases even how well you complete them) the way they're presented marks a huge tonal shift. The game takes place in just a single day as Alliance (comprised of the major organizations from the previous few games) and Vertex, an organized terrorist force, prepare to go to war with one another. With each mission you complete the clock ticks down slowly toward the final battle. This constant reminder of the impending end really helps to sell the darker tone that Last Raven goes for.

There's no levity here, something the game makes clear from its intro. There is no retreat of friendly duels with other pilots as most missions see you eliminating your fellow Ravens in brutal fashion. Probably more than half of the total missions here are hit jobs against other pilots. And while the arena is back in form (after the less than stellar version in Nexus) it is now relegated to a VR sim, enforcing that there's now time for leisure or pleasantries as the clock counts down.

The branching path system that originated all the way back in Armored Core 1 finally sees innovation in this game. Last Raven sports several endings depending on which choices you make over the course of the game. These decisions will open or close various paths and do so in a (mostly) natural feeling way, although there are some well-hidden branches. As someone who had been hoping to see this feature expanded upon since the very first game it was great to finally see the series evolve.

The only real weakness of this approach is that not all of these endings are made equal. The first one I got was extremely disappointing from a climactic perspective, with the second making for a far more fitting finale. Like most AC titles this is a very short game so replaying to see different endings doesn't take too long.

While Last Raven is great at selling its tone I do think it comes at a cost. The soundtrack is far weaker than usual, which was really disappointing after the absolutely incredible variety and use of music in Nexus. And while there is mission variety it does ultimately come down to mostly fighting other ACs for most stages. As great as these fights are I think I ultimately prefer a larger variety of stages.

Still, Last Raven marks itself as one of the best entries in the series and an extremely fitting way to send off the "classic" style of Armored Core game before moving on to the next generation. It's a title that builds upon everything that came before it and asks much of you as a player, but rewards just as much in return.

Al principio odiaba este juego y probablemente sea el más difícil de la saga pero cuando fallas una misión en vez de cabreate y dropearlo te sientas con tu robot a ver el hermoso cielo de una noche estrellada y hablas con él sobre el significado de vuestra existencia (que no sólo la tuya, no seas egoísta; sus pensamientos y experiencias de vida tienen tanto peso como las tuyas y deberías aprender de ellas también) obtienes una nueva perspectiva muy curiosa que te hace ver las cosas de otra manera y no se hace tan duro. Recomendadísimo

Fixes any issue I had with Nexus and doubles down on everything I love about 3rd gen AC. Deep build crafting and with multiple different routes to beat the game, there's a wealth of content here. Def make sure to play through multiple times as more of the story and its characters are revealed to you with each route. Lives up to its reputation as being particularly difficult, but there are still plenty of broken weapons and parts if you want to blow through most of the hardest fights in the game. Dig the atmosphere in this one a lot as well, the list of remaining Ravens getting smaller as the story progresses is a nice touch. For now, it's my current favourite Armored Core game.

From it's intro cutscene alone, Last Raven is a game that stands out from the rest of the series up to that point, with its gritty tone and for the first time ever, appearance of human beings outside of the mechs. I went into the game with high expectations, as I heard that Last Raven is as good as it is hard, and this cutscene immediately hooked me up.

Last Raven, in more than one way, feel like both the culmination and a goodbye to the "old gen" AC games. The game adds a part breaking mechanic (each AC part can now be damaged which reduces their efficiency, or straight up destroyed which forces you to buy them again), rebalances stuff from Nexus/Nine Breaker, and the arena’s back, but on the surface, it's just like every single game (minus Formula Front and I guess Nine Breaker) since Armored Core 1 released: the same as the previous game with a few additions. But saying Last Raven is just like the previous games is a huge understatement, because while there's a lot that's different outside of the "base gameplay" that it makes the game stand out above every other ones.

Firstly, the story. After the ending of Nexus, corporations have all merged into Alliance, and the Ravens have split between serving Alliance, trying to be standalone warlords, or joining Vertex, which is basically the remnant of the Raven's Nest that didn't join Alliance. War ensued, and Vertex put an ultimatum: in 24 hours, they'll launch a massive attack.
The game's entire structure revolves around those 24 hours. Each time you clear a mission, time marches forward. No matter who you choose to help, doom seems inevitable, and the game really plays off that atmosphere really well. The garage music evolves as time is running out, you can check the status of the other Ravens and slowly but surely see that everyone is dying, the doomsday scenario of this game is great. Not only that, but who you choose to help matters! The game has multiple routes, depending on who you decide to side with. I only played one of the routes so far but from what i've heard, depending on the route you take, motivations for some characters will be revealed whereas they're a mystery in the other routes, which is really good both for worldbuilding but also replayability.

The progression of the game thanks to the doomsday scenario is also greatly improved. For once, you’re not just playing as a mercenary, you’re playing as a mercenary in a world that’s running out of time. Meaning not only the number of missions on each route is way lower than usual (for most of the game the clock advances by 2 hours for each mission), but they also all feel more interesting than in previous games. Sure, you still have some missions that just require you to kill a dozen MTs and you’re done, but this time the context of the story makes it feel more involved.
But the one big thing that makes the missions stand out is the difficulty. There are easy missions, of course, but every mission that requires you to fight an AC is on a whole different level. Simply put, ACs in this game are straight up cheating. They all have human plus/OP-INTENSIFY, which you can’t have, and their AI is NOT playing games, they’re fighting for their life as much as you are! I think i even read somewhere that their pattern will adapt to what kind of build you have, tho it may just be internet rumors. No matter if it’s real or not tho, the difficulty of those boss fights is real, and you will have to adapt. While it’s still possible to find a build that suits your playstyle for most of the game, Last Raven is by far the one game that will require you to modify your build the most, because some archetypes are a nightmare to use against some bosses. It feels like the game tends to emphasize being fast and flying around, which sucked for me since i tend to be a quad legs user, but you can still just use a good old tank…. In most situations, at least.

I only finished one route for now, but even then, Last Raven is by far the best the series has to offer, at least so far (i still have to play gen 4-6). It’s not easy to recommend to someone who never played one of the old gen AC game due to how brutal it can and will be, but if someone’s already into the series, it’s a must play. While it may sometimes be frustrating and unfair, finally managing to beat whatever boss is giving you trouble has never felt that good, which is just like another series From Software is known to have worked on


UPDATE: after clearing all the routes i'm upping this game from 4.5 to 5 stars. It's GOOD on a single route, it gets even more awesome once you start getting into the hardest routes. I'm still shaking from the Zinaida fight it's so peak

It's incredibly hard for me to talk about this game because on one hand it tries to balance what Nexus did in terms of gameplay...but still it carries over what Nexus did, and what Nexus did is that essentially your AC sucks complete dick now and the power fantasy you may have now is history compared to previous generations. It's light work to think how Last Raven is the hardest game if your missions are Silent Line difficult and you play with Nexus ACs.
This might be an extremely personal take here, but I think your AC being way weaker in Last Raven actually conveys the feeling of dread and despair way better, every single mission it's you fighting for your life because now you don't just "defeat" your enemies, but straight up kill them with "DEAD" written aside. And that puts me on the other hand of why I loved Last Raven so much.

The way the game portrays the feeling of everything coming to an end in a very dark and eerie way is incredibly impactful, the "main characters" are way more fleshed out than any other in the franchise (until now) and every choice you make actively impacts how the story goes, who dies and who doesn't and every single time you take part on a mission the clock is ticking; Last Raven's story takes place in 24 hours, and every single one of them counts. And it's not because the game said so, YOU make them count and the main characters in the game are making them count with their own actions that also change on what choices you made.

Last Raven is a game where there's no compromise, there's no "next time I'm gonna get you!", because there's no tomorrow. Everyone, you included, is on a last stand. And the game conveys that in such a good way that I don't think I'll see another videogame telling this so well very soon. Corporations made tons of mistakes for the sake of power and money, they fucked up so bad but the ones being put on the line for this are soldiers, Ravens and innocents all over the world.

Kino

It's fun how what is for many the hardest game in the series can also be one of the easiest if you equip tank legs and the CR-WBW98LX. That thing is evil itself. Oh, you're a tank? No prob, 5 hits and you're dead. You're a lightweight? The moment you stop flying like a bee you get devastated. Two ACs? I don't care, get fucked. The arena? The only one in the series that doesn't require you to change build because it's completely doable with that cannon. Whoever put THAT THING in the game is an evil genius. The only times it doesn't work is when you need to complete objectives fast for the more complex routes AND against the "true" final boss (at least I couldn't make it work). Basically if tank legs are bad play hover or middleweight or whatever you want, if tank legs are ok for that mission equip the cannon and absolutely ANNIHILATE everything in your way.

Nexus was a mistake

I'm glad you were here with me. Here at the end of all things, Zinaida.

When it became official that I had gone insane and was going to Play Every Armored Core, I knew Last Raven had to be the last one. On top of being thematically the end of an era, it is by reputation the hardest game in the series, or depending on who you ask, the hardest FromSoftware game ever. I made the right choice, because this was an incredible note on which to end my idiotic nerd ass journey.

First things first: I think the difficulty is somewhat overhyped. I could be wrong; they say Nine Breaker, piece of shit that it is, is supposed to legitimately teach you how to play Armored Core properly. Maybe it actually worked. Maybe I'm good at video games now. Either way, Last Raven is definitely hard, but for my money, if you know how to counterbuild there are only a few really extreme spikes. It's not a grueling game. For my money.

More importantly, it's just, fuck. FUCK, this game is good. It further refines Nexus's big mechanical changes and then gives you drastically better material to engage with them. The mission design here is just about peak; there are a limited number of maps and it pulls that Another Age trick of having multiple missions where you're on different sides of what is clearly the same incident, but the map design is great (mostly), the scenarios are rich and varied and keep you guessing, and the pacing is airtight.

Combat itself is also incredible. This is my favorite arena in the series; I beat most fights in one or two tries but they were brutal, exciting tries. The AI behaves differently in Last Raven than in most games, but I don't know if I should say it's smarter or slightly dumber. Enemy Ravens have preferred strategies, are aggressive yet reactive to what you're doing, and generally seem to behave more logically--which can make them more predictable, in a good way. They're not pushovers (infamously, every single one of them has Human Plus/OP-INTENSIFY effects even though the player can't get those in this game), but beating one really feels like you're outsmarting a rival.

In general, the level of polish and depth on display here is as much what makes it natural Grand Finale material as anything. There's such a sense of completeness to Last Raven; every game that came before it was study material, and this is the exam. It's oldgen Armored Core in its most evolved form. There's a sense that something has been perfected, not in the sense that it's totally without flaws but in that it's realized its full potential at being what it is. It gives you kind of an insight into why AC4 was such a huge shift in direction; where the hell else would you go from here?

The story is kind of gonzo (affectionate), if only because of the structure. This is the first game in the series with multiple endings, and the one with the largest number at six (or seven, depending on what you count). The way this works is: a single playthrough is only between ten and fifteen missions long, you're choosing between several mission options at almost every stage, and there's an absurdly intricate and totally invisible pathing system in which previous mission choices dictate future options, eventually locking you into an ending.

Use a guide. You can get your first ending blind if you want (I did), but if your goal is to find everything yourself I do not know how long it's gonna take you. This is all paired with the ridiculous (affectionate) premise that the game, representing about a dozen discrete fully organized combat missions carried out by a single person, takes place over the course of 24 hours--you know, like that TV show. What was it called again?

This wacky progression structure is a double-edged sword, though; I consider it both one of the many good things about the game and probably the worst thing. It's a type of ambitious jank I tend to love and respect, but it must be said that on top of playing through six times for the six endings, according to the guide I'm using it takes at least another four to complete all missions, which is the requirement for unlocking a sort of EX Boss that I very much intend to get to. It's a short game, but ten runs is pushing it, especially considering how many times you have to repeat certain missions to get to the new ones.

In a lot of ways I was surprised by how forgiving Last Raven is, considering the reputation. As in Nexus before it, it's honestly quite difficult to lose money on a mission; even if you barely survive, most payouts are going to be larger than expenses on the order of a full digit or even two. Nexus's tuning mechanic no longer costs you anything, either. The upshot is that if you're importing a save and getting a head start on collecting parts, you will have more money than you could possibly spend at pretty much all times.

This is important context for the parts damage mechanic you may have heard of, in which it's actually possible for parts of your AC to be permanently destroyed so that you have to buy replacements; with how rich you are, this is not a major concern. And frankly it's very rare anyway; you have to be VERY near death, and even then it's far from a guarantee that a particular body part will have taken enough hits. The mechanic is more of a funny curiosity; it's kind of hilarious to get out of a really clutch fight and see the default legs on your AC in the garage.

That said, when the game decides to get really hard it does get really hard. A lot of people wholeheartedly advise you to give yourself an approximation of Human Plus with cheat codes; if every enemy is using it, why not level the playing field, right? I definitely don't blame or judge anyone who decides to do that, but I was having a good enough time that I didn't want to. The final boss of the sixth route, the most notorious fight in the game, almost broke me. Part of what stopped me is that it seemed so impossible at first that I wasn't sure how much H+ would even help.

But it was, unironically, a skill issue; I wasted a lot of time overthinking what build would be best, but I ended up literally just doing it with double rifles. All you need for Zinaida is patient, defensive play, good movement fundamentals, and Execution. Can't relate to people who get tilted at her. I for one love to see a girlboss win.

Armored Core: Last Raven is absolutely one of the best games in the series. I can't recommend it enough, but it's definitely worth playing at least through the rest of gen 3 first. The whole experience is designed to be an Ending, so make it a satisfying one.

Good work, Ravens. Let's head back.

Earlier (as of writing this review), I stepped out to get lunch. The weather was good, I was hungry, and I thought there was no better time. While out on my walk and on my way, I just stopped, paused for a few seconds, and all I thought to myself was “fuck, Last Raven is a good ass game”.

What stood out to me about Last Raven was a thought of “wow, this is it”. When I played Armored Core 1, the game left a deep impression on me. Not because it was some sort of paragon of polish and game design that had me shitting myself at how good it was, but because of the potential it offered with its incredibly rock-steady design ethos. Games prior to LR were solid successors for sure, but their improvements were rather incremental in my opinion, and never in the way I had envisioned a perfect Armored Core game to be. What makes Last Raven so great is that it is THAT game, the platonic ideal of an Armored Core game that gazed up into the heavens and perfected the Armored Core formula.

Everything characteristic of Armored Core is damn near perfect here. The controls are tight and responsive, the sheer variety of customizations makes my head spin, the level design (while repetitive) is fantastic and never overstay their welcome, AC on AC combat is exhilarating, the mission pathing system has its weaknesses but is also BY FAR the most varied and dynamic in the series with how much variety and surprises it holds, and the story is perhaps the best in Armored Core’s oldgen, perhaps in all of Armored Core.

As for Last Raven’s challenge and its reputation as being the hardest Fromsoftware game: I think that, everything considered, Last Raven should be an unfair game. The enemy ACs are equipped with H+, out DPS-ing you and flying away with their high energy reserves, not to mention the several occasions where they come either subsequently or just straight up ganking your ass. I think the reason Last Raven can get away with tomfoolery of this level and something like say, Dark Souls, can’t, is the inherent design philosophy that characterizes the ethos of the Armored Core franchise. Since LR is the perfect Armored Core game, it means all the aspects of challenge we’d typically associate with Armored Core are tuned to the nth degree. Skill is demanded of you, yes, but as are AC building knowledge, resourcefulness, endurance, and situational awareness. I can’t really think of any challenge that I overcame with pure “git gud” grit alone. Each and every difficult mission demanded at least one of these major tenets of ACs design from me, and that’s what made overcoming them an insurmountable joy.

I think where Last Raven most fulfills the unwashed concepts of its predecessors is its mission pathing and the inclusion of multiple endings. This was something that VI left a lot to be desired when I had first played it, and while it was good to know that previous AC games had more complex and dynamic mission structures compared to 6th gen’s more streamlined approach, they never really went beyond with those systems on a narrative, or even mechanical level. For Answer was a net improvement, offering three distinct endings and a dynamic mission structure that requires a total of five playthroughs to get them all, but seeing what Last Raven had done with its structure, 4A is nothing in comparison.

Last Raven not only has six endings, which is only rivaled by Elden Ring in my Fromsoftware experience, but the game took me a whopping 5 or so semi-playthroughs to get everything, and that isn’t even accounting for how easy it is to screw up certain objectives and causing whole ass playthrough resets (which happened to me like twice). Luckily, playthroughs are about 12 missions on average and if you’re really efficient, take about an hour or two of your time to blast through a single one. Still, the variety in mission pathing and endings stand out to me as the most impressive change Last Raven makes to the AC formula, not to mention how surprisingly digestible it is, compared to say, AC3’s mission unlocks which can feel kinda random and unimpactful regardless if which corporations you choose to work for. I wish it was a little less tedious and I wish certain missions didn’t have to be constantly repeated just to unlock ONE mission over the course of one playthrough, though the game is short and the mission replays do encourage you to try different builds and approaches to see how fast you can clear them, which is certainly a good thing, I think.

Last Raven’s most impressive use of this dynamic mission pathing system is not in its gameplay (which honestly does get a bit tedious after a while), but its narrative. Prior to LR, narrative has never been a major focus for Armored Core. Select games like 2, 3, and Nexus definitely had more narrative than others, but their narratives felt more like backdrops if anything, Nexus’ ending was great and Klein was a solid antagonist, but it’s no MGS and that’s not what you should expect from this series. Last Raven, like many of its predecessors, is definitely a “gameplay-first, story-second” kind of game, but I was genuinely taken aback at just how much this narrative wound up resonating with me by the end. Excluding relativity to other AC games, I genuinely do believe Last Raven’s narrative stands on its own two feet as a damn great story that uses the medium to full effect.

Like with VI, which I had said in my review of that game here, even if I don’t love the endings on an individual level, I think each of them excelled at elevating the others by association. The 1st ending isn’t amazing on its own, but context from the 2nd ending enriches it, likewise with 3rd. Last Raven is much the same. Yeah the Vertex endings aren’t great, but knowing what Jack was up to in those endings greatly elevates the first Alliance ending (which is narratively the second best ending in my opinion).

STORY SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

Where the different routes shine most is definitely in how they elevate this game’s three central characters: Jack-O, Evangel, and most importantly: Zinaida. Two (or all, depending on who you ask) of them are returning characters from Nexus, and the continuity this game has from Nexus is always appreciated. In general I do love the continuity present in generation 3. Not all the games are made equal in terms of story or content, but each game, at least in some way, shape, or form, feels like an evolution of the previous one be it narratively or mechanically. The series had never been a character-focused one, and while a handful of characters in previous games like Klein, Stinger, Sumika, and Huster-One are certainly memorable, I wouldn’t call them masterfully written by any approximation. They exist as self-contained personalities/plot devices within their games, but are never more than that. I wouldn’t necessarily apply the "masterfully written" designation to the Last Raven trinity either (don't expect a Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or anything lmao), but I do think they are great characters in their own right that benefit a ton of Last Raven’s structure.


Jack-O probably benefits most from this multi-ending approach since he is the only one of these characters to appear in all of these routes in one way or another. I do regret doing his route first, because as powerful and climactic and his big moment was, I wish I had just an ilk more context on his motivations and what led him here in the first place, something that is explained in most of the other routes. Evangel’s two routes also substantiate him quite a bit. I think he’s easily the weakest character of the three, but getting to see different sides of him and how his motivations change drastically depending on which route you follow was really cool, not to mention he served as the eventual template for V.II and G5 in Fires of Rubicon, two of the series' best characters.

Zinaida’s a bit weird because, if you played the routes in the order I did, she doesn’t really have much presence until the indie routes, typically sending an ominous message about how you suck. Even between the two indie routes, you only really get to fight her in her ending, watching as she gets killed off by a Pulverizer (if only she kept the Micro Missiles, RIP). I think Director Dai Takemura’s additional context on her relation to Genobee is a cool bit of trivia that I think enhances her quite a bit, though where we see Zinaida truly shine is the final fight with her in “Destroy the Internecine”.

I could probably write a whole ass review on this fight alone and how fucking peak it is, but I’ll keep it short. That whole final stretch, from the moment you encounter Zinaida in the Internecine to the final shot of the Last Raven staring out into the sunset is one of my favorite moments in all of gaming. I legit got out of my chair and just thought to myself “this is real gaming”. Is the final fight with her the most complex, intricate, and varied bossfight in terms of moveset? No. Is the visual presentation and music a spectacle to behold? No (the music sucks lmao). Is the fight a completely fair fight? Everything considered, probably not, but that’s a hotly contested debate among many AC fans. Is this fight representative of everything I love, not only about Armored Core as a franchise, but about video games, be it as a medium of storytelling, a form of interactive entertainment, and an expression of art? Abso-fucking-lutely YES. When I think of the kind of unique experiences that games can offer as an artform, this fight is now one of the first things that will always pop up in my mind. One of the greatest fights ever crafted, peak gaming.

“I felt I finally reached what I'd been chasing... Raven... That title truly suits you..."

Last Raven is a monumental work of art and a crowning achievement of the medium. Like a lot of Fromsoftware’s catalog, it’s a bit of a shame that this game is buried under its own difficult reputation, as well as being a sequel to a divisive game in a niche series stuck on the PS2 and PSP. It is a more-than-fitting swansong (ravensong?) to the old generation of Armored Core and a fitting way to end my journey with these games. It’s also the most “not for everyone” game, I cannot emphasize that enough. If you are not as dick deep in these games as I am, or are not an absolute fucking idiot, I would never recommend this game (or series in its entirety) to anyone. It’s brutal, kinda silly, kinda wacky, a bit tedious, but as far as I’m concerned, it fucking slaps.