Across the last couple decades of the gaming industry amidst the constantly shifting tides of companies rising and falling and technology advancing while trends go in and out of fashion, few development studios have managed to maintain as consistent an output of quality as FromSoftware, a Japanese company known primarily for the Dark Souls franchise, an action game series that has gone on to influence gaming as a medium for decades but before they made Dark Souls, they made Armored Core. The Armored Core franchise debuted in 1997 on the original PlayStation and had been continuously releasing new instalments in the series until a long hiatus in 2013. However, I personally had never heard of the series until the announcement of its return at the end of 2022, resulting in the 2023 release of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, a game which, after seeing some videos of gameplay, I quickly became interested in and eventually bought out of curiosity. To summarise, this is my first foray into the Armored Core franchise and all impressions are ultimately coming from a newcomer, but suffice it to say: this is one of my favourite video games of all time.

Taking place far in the future where mankind has set its sights on the planet Rubicon 3 in pursuit of a powerful energy source known as coral, you play as C4-621 "Raven", a mercenary illegally smuggled onto the planet by your enigmatic handler to do mercenary work for various corporations with the goal of earning enough money to undo a surgery that has left the unseen protagonist scarred and deformed, both physically and mentally. As Raven, you will take control of an "Armored Core" unit (or "AC" for short), a large robot armed with a variety of interchangeable weapons and parts you can customise throughout the game with the intent of carrying out various tasks assigned to you by corporations who wish to seize the profitable "coral" for themselves. Sabotage, plundering and even assassinations, there is no low you won't be expected to go to in this dystopian world.

Your AC unit is customisable in almost every way conceivable, from the parts making up its body to a maximum limit of four weapons on its body, one for each arm and one for each shoulder. As the game progresses and you earn more money from jobs, you will be able to purchase more parts, weapons and even generators and engines that can fundamentally change how the overall unit feels, from the movement to its ideal fighting style and the game leaves it up to you to figure out what kind of play-style best suits how you want to play. Furthermore, there's also a wide range of cosmetic options such as expansively customisable icons you can place on the unit and full freedom of painting and naming it, with the game even allowing you to save your creations and switch between them with ease with whatever each mission calls for.

Every single part you place in your Armored Core save for the cosmetic paint and decal options impacts the unit's utilities in some way, all of which displayed through an expandable table of statistics shown with each part you place, whether it be the energy consumption a weapon or engine will take to use or how the size of a part will affect the weight and speed of the unit, with many benefits and detriments to consider and all the more reason to create multiple units and test them out or hone them specifically for your next mission. This is made easier by the fact that whenever you die, you have the option to replace your AC unit with any other saved creation before spawning back to checkpoint should you feel another unit will do the job more effectively. Heavier, bigger units deal more damage when charging into opponents and can carry more big weapons while smaller, lighter units can move faster and overwhelm opponents through rapid attacks. Specific parts can also have unique effects, like use special reverse-jointed legs that jump higher or tread wheels to roam around the stage like a large tank.

This freedom in designing your play-style is what gives the game its core identity and is recommended for your survival, as the game continues FromSoftware's tried-and-true tradition of being incredibly challenging. Throughout the game you will face powerful, mechanical opponents ranging from large enemy spacecrafts to other AC units that will push your limits in terms of how much of a beating you can take and while you can stubbornly attempt a "one size fits all" approach and charge your one unit into every fight, having a strong range of units for taking out certain enemies can provide a lot more mileage, a greater upper hand and generally make the experience a lot more riveting as the new play-styles have you think how to approach the situation according to the new parts you've fitted and both the opportunities and limits they pose for your overall unit.

As you progress in the missions, the greater story of the game will slowly unravel as you eventually make contact with a native of the planet named Ayre, a non-corporeal being who can telepathically communicate with you after an incident leaves you dangerously exposed to the planet's coral. With Ayre constantly following you along your journey and growing closer to you as time goes on and the many other eccentric characters on all sides often turn out to have much more to them than their exaggerated archetypical traits would have you believe highlights that the deeper secrets of both the corporations and the planet itself beg to be explored. What makes this game's story, or rather how you interact with it particularly interesting however, is the fact you cannot experience the entire story in one play-through, with the game instead sending you back to the start after you achieve the first ending and expecting you to play through the entire thing again. Though this at first seems confusing, early enough into the second play-through, you'll begin to notice new story threads that weren't present before and new choices open to you, in which following these will result in new possibilities to learn more about the world and supporting cast. A true understanding of the story can only be achieved through three full redos of the entire campaign, something the gameplay compliments considerably well as the new missions that enter the mix each time increase in difficulty and more parts become available for you to find new ways to experiment with your units.

While the basic plot beats across the three laps the game expects you to take around it are exposited through mandatory dialogue heard during and between missions through calls, the growing range in missions and the exceptionally large settings they take place in beg to be explored and that is where the true depth of the story comes into play. If you take steps off the beaten path, you will quickly encounter text documents and records detailing otherwise hidden lore written by characters, sometimes even found near the wrecks of AC units, while other times you could encounter entirely hidden enemies which the game rewards you for defeating by providing "data logs" which are then exchanged for even more parts and items of note. This exploration is then further rewarded by secret parts hidden in large containers around several areas, featuring some of the most unique and powerful weapons in the entire game, meaning that even players less keen on learning the story have a good reason to explore every nook and cranny of each mission.

Aiding furthermore in encouraging the player to do more than the bare minimum is the game's atmosphere, depicting a dark and ominous mechanical environment where all human characters are never actually seen onscreen, with any allies or enemies instead piloting AC units, ships or vehicles across these large landscapes of dilapidated buildings, abandoned cities and sprawling corporate bases that make even your large unit feel insignificant compared to their sheer scale. There is a cold and remorseless tone maintained throughout the entire experience that only further exemplifies the cruelty of the corporations as they push further and further through Rubicon in pursuit of satiating their greed and being the last ones standing and with a choice of three separate endings, you will ultimately determine the fate of every character in the game. Some choices will place you at odds with former allies and force you to put an end to them, others will have you taking down that one character you've hated since the start and all of it feels intense and resonant your understanding of each character grows throughout the journey.

Even beyond the campaign missions, there is also an arena mode pitting you against simulated versions of many of the story's key characters and an online multiple player versus player mode in which you can battle other players with a squad or in a simple one-versus-one duel to truly push what your skills and AC unit are capable of, meaning that even long past completing the story a whopping three times, there are still new challenges for you to rise to, with even a ranking system that will place you against more experienced players once you start racking up wins of your own. With this, the ability to replay any mission you like as many times as you want and the three different iterations of the story for you to enjoy, Armored Core 6 is a game that proves it understands value for money with the sheer abundance of high-quality content it provides in a comprehensive and rich package.

From its intriguing story and world building to its deceptively intricate gameplay and customisation, Armored Core 6 is a title that provides the player with so much more than it is expected to while delivering on nearly every front conceivable. It is a title that overall serves as yet another feather in FromSoftware's cap and a must-play title for anyone with a love of dark sci-fi or a good challenge.

Final Fantasy XVI is an ambitious and bombastic title, taking players on a large-scale, cinematic adventure with a rich combat system and engaging story premise while pushing the series tone and scope to levels to a level not before seen in the series. In a world of political intrigue and powerful magic, Clive Rosfield, the shield of the heir to the throne of Rosaria, seeks revenge on a dominant for the tragedy that changed the course of his life forever. What follows this story outline is a spectacle-focused action title that attempts to balance a slick and fast-paced combat system with a large divided series of open world areas, whether that be for better or for worse.

To briefly explain the core gameplay in Final Fantasy XVI, Clive, the game's protagonist can wield a growing assortment of magical abilities taken from powerful Eikons, god-like monsters who certain people in the world (known as dominants) can call upon in battle. Some of the dominants in the game are Clive's allies and others are his nation's political enemies, but one thing that's consistent with all of them is their affinity for elemental magic. Through either being given abilities or outright taking them throughout the story, Clive is able to combine his seasoned sword fighting skills with these powers to unleash devastating and long-winded combos, with the player's understanding of how to properly blend close-range and long-distance attacks being essential to survival in the game.

The game's combat system was designed by Ryota Suzuki, a veteran action-game developer known for his work on the combat systems in later titles of the Devil May Cry series, some of the most richly crafted and deepest fast-paced action games ever made, and he brings his experience to this title through the quick and efficient means you can swap through three pre-selected rows of special abilities, as well as basic permanent combo strings you can achieve with your sword and basic magic alone. These rows can be changed between combat and can each hold three special attacks, one of which for whatever base Eikon you designate the row to and two you can freely choose between from either that Eikon's abilities or any other you "mastered", which you can do by spending experience points earned through defeating enemies. This customisable approach to the way you fight allows for solid player expression and good cause to experiment with all the powers you're provided with throughout the story.

On the topic of story, this instalment in the Final Fantasy series takes a much darker route than the usually somewhat whimsical tone of previous entries, closer resembling a season of Game of Thrones with its focus on international conflict, gritty violence and slow-burn character exploration. There's a lot of depth given to the world building and motivations of each nation as the player is placed right into the heart of a large political chessboard where many leaders and influential figures all have their motives in mind and the story is constantly shifting with the balance of power because of that, making for an incredibly enthralling series of events on top of an already strong starting central revenge plotline. With all the nations and characters quickly thrown in the player's face, it's easy to get overwhelmed and it seems the developers at Square Enix knew this because during any point in gameplay, you can pause to view the "Active Time Lore" menu, an encyclopaedia of characters, locations and terminology used throughout the game to refresh yourself or fasten your understanding of the goings-on around you. The more you progress in the game, the more options emerge in this menu with any major story event specifically bringing up a menu when paused highlighting only the relevant items, making for a very quick and easy means of staying up to date on the story.

The Active Time Lore menu is just one of the many ways the game achieves accessibility for a wider player-base, as the player also has the option to select a variety of objects seamlessly incorporated into the game that each streamline a certain aspect, such as combat and healing, for players that find themselves overwhelmed by the scope of the game's intricate combat. There is also no punishment for using these abilities nor any requirement for commitment, as you can easily switch back and forth between them at any time, something I applaud the game developers for even if I personally didn't use it. As games grow in size, budget and scale, accessibility for more players shouldn't be a tall ask for large AAA titles and any step forward for making games playable for a larger audience is one that should be taken where possible, so I hope the Final Fantasy series continues this in future entries.

To delve deeper into the gameplay, the game follows a linear main story quest that'll bring you to a myriad of large explorable locations as you progress, each containing various optional side stories as well as enemies to fight to gain some additional experience from. Most of the content available to you in these open areas can be easily ignored by simply running to the next waypoint on the map telling you where to go to continue the main plot, but the game rewards the completion of side quests with experience, items and equipment with varying degrees of usefulness. Unfortunately, between the sparse and small crowds of enemies scattered through the world and a largely uninteresting selection of side quests, doing most of these feel like a chore that doesn't particularly make the reward at the end worth it compared to the repetition of the actual tasks, especially when the powerful combat system at hand makes such short work of almost anything these quests throw at you. A vast majority of these quests also fail at adequately adding anything interesting to the experience, often just feeling like going in circles rather than learning more about a character or the world around you, save for rare exceptions. The quick and chaotic style of combat that better fits taking down waves of enemies in the more linear story missions ends up being at odds with most of the side content due to just how basic and underdeveloped most of it is and its just really not a fun experience for any players curious enough to want to invest more time into this world.

As for these main story events, it's through the more linear action sequences that sees the player combing through single-path stages with waves of enemies in each new section where the game shines, as a mix of the intriguing storyline and the expanding combat options push the player forward through treacherous bosses and armies of enemy monsters or human soldiers. What makes these big event stages elevate even higher are the game's signature boss fights whenever you face a major antagonist, one of the aforementioned "Dominants" who are capable of transforming into colossal Eikons. With a powerful Eikon of your own, Clive can transform into Ifrit, a monster with fire abilities in large-scale fights that, in exchange for temporarily simplifying the combat, are undoubtedly the game's biggest spectacles, pitting you against all manner of incredible opponents enhanced by the game's phenomenal soundtrack composed by Masayoshi Soken. These battles are far and away the most memorable aspect of the game and likely the element that this title will be remembered for from years to come, with each one for the better part of the story feeling like an active attempt from the developers to top the last in how over-the-top they can take them.

Unfortunately, while the story mostly presents an incredibly tight and engrossing narrative with exceptional bosses and combat in the first two thirds, the game starts to crumble in the third act as the plot takes a radical direction that dramatically simplifies the stakes and damages the intrigue for something that can only be described as overdone and cliche for both the Final Fantasy series and the greater JRPG genre, as much of the dark identity the game has established to this point is broken away for narrative beats that are fun to look at in the best of times and insultingly cheesy and dull at worst, culminating in a high-spectacle but ultimately less-engaging confrontation against a final antagonist considerably less threatening or memorable than their predecessors. This isn't helped by the game's ending, which while I will refrain from detailing specific details, ultimately leaves more questions than answers in a way that less so inspires thought and more just weakens any investment I had further.

Final Fantasy XVI is a game that, as I said at the start of this review, presents many ambitious ideas and themes both in its story and gameplay that showed a lot of promise and at times, truly delivers something great with it, but ultimately a conflict of interest between game mechanics and a decline of inspiration in the story leads to an instalment in this series that, while I would still call a mostly enjoyable addition to the series, is ultimately lesser than the sum of its parts.

About a month ago from the time of writing this review, I dug out my family's old PlayStation 2, reflecting upon its acclaimed library and the incredible legacy it holds in the gaming sphere to this day, being blessed by what I'd argue is one of the most impressive overall game line-ups of any console in history. Amidst all the titles I was excited to dig out, few grabbed my immediate interest quite like 2005's God of War, the influential and renowned hack-and-slash title developed by Sony's Santa Monica Studio. I had a degree of familiarity with the series through the Norse mythology inspired saga of the franchise that started in 2018, but had always wished to go back to where the journey of one of PlayStation's most recognisable icons, Kratos, began to see if the franchise's debut holds up compared to its latest instalments.

From the moment you select the "New" game option on the title screen, you're greeted with a dramatic opening cutscene, bolstered by dramatic, mythology-like narration, depicting our main character about to throw himself from "the highest mountain in all of Greece". However, the game's opening hook quickly has a pin put in it as the opening mission cuts us back to three weeks earlier, where the adventure properly commences and you're immediately thrown into an intense confrontation at sea with hordes of undead soldiers and a large hydra. Immediately, the player is given the opportunity to learn the basics of combat, centred around Kratos' signature weapon: the "Blades of Chaos", two blades attached to chains wrapped around his arms that he swings to attack enemies. These unique weapons provide the player with immense range as entire legions of enemies are caught up in the wild and furious blows Kratos can unleash, more of said attacks being unlocked and added to your moveset constantly, from aerial launch moves to send your opponents airborne to shoulder charges for quick manoeuvres and keeping the pressure on specific targets. This creates a consistently growing feeling of your character becoming much stronger as you both level up and grow to understand your abilities better that leaves you feeling like you are the strongest in the room in every room you enter as long as you use your tools right.

This doesn't mean it's a walk in the park, however, as the variety of beasts, undead soldiers and other mythological perils have all sorts of different means of attacks, whether it be archers firing on you from a distance, harpies descending from above or minotaurs attempting to overwhelm you through sheer might. Only by using everything your blades and the additional godly powers you obtain throughout the game have to offer will you get the best out of your action experience, with each tool in your arsenal providing specific utility such as throwing Zeus' thunderbolts to take out distant enemies or the circling attack of Poseidon's Rage to fight your way out of being surrounded. Besides the combat, the game's difficulty also comes from a series of strict platforming gauntlets, where you'll venture across dangerous tightrope-esque segments traversing the higher areas of large temples or climbing all sorts of ropes and surfaces while fighting off enemies, as well as the puzzles, which will have require you navigate and unlock paths through various rooms via pushing heavy items around to hold down buttons or pulling various levers to reveal your next destination.

The combination of fierce combat encounters and tight puzzles provide enough variety for what is about a 10 hour adventure, something made even more worth your while through the game's story. While the hook of said story is simplistic, the bulk of the time is spent focusing more on the personal stakes, as we slowly learn Kratos' tragic backstory while he aims to stop Ares from destroying the city of Athens in exchange for gaining favour with the gods of Olympus so they can erase the visions of the past that haunt him. While time has certainly begun to test the age of the visuals, the core narrative works effectively in how it slowly peels back the layers of our central protagonist's great tragedy while constantly raising the scope of the adventure. As you traverse the rich environments of the game, you'll often arrive at large bridges or cliffs overlooking immense battles or sprawling scenery, accompanied by an incredibly robust orchestral score that is every bit as bombastic and sweeping as the scene calls for. Every location, every story beat and every battle is given just the right amount of heart-pounding intensity through the soundtrack's blaring horns and booming choir, making the whole package feel truly cinematic and grandiose.

Amidst all the dramatic mythological flourishes, however, there are also some crude sequences of extreme violence such as the absurdly over-the-top finishing blows you deliver to enemies or moments where you will solve puzzles in truly twisted ways I wouldn't dare spoil. It's clear these scenes are not meant to be taken seriously and more so just to emphasise the title's aesthetic flare and give the player a bit more meaning and entertainment value to their actions. Despite the ridiculous nature of these scenes, they never overstay their welcome and do a great job in playing into the game's identity and making the adventure even more memorable. God of War is, in many ways, a masterclass of catching your eye and keeping you engaged through the variety of its locations, the scope of its set pieces, the extensive soundtrack and its simplistic but captivating narrative.

That doesn't mean the entire experience is perfect, as some of the platforming gauntlets involving slow, meticulous tightrope and climbing segments can sometimes overstay their welcome and prove a lot more frustrating than is necessary. Furthermore, some of the quick time events that can aid in (or are sometimes required for) taking down enemies disappear off the screen after what feels like half a second, giving you barely enough time to even process a prompt was there. This gets especially frustrating in the bosses where you can be stuck redoing an entire sequence of quick prompts just because it suddenly switched to one button press directly after having you rapidly mash another. Some of the combat segments also call in way too many waves of enemies than what feels natural and at times had me wondering if there was some kind of puzzle going on that would make the hordes stop rather than just slicing through seemingly endless waves of an often very limited range of enemy types per room, not helped by the fact some enemies really like to block most everything you throw at them until you just stick around and wait to parry one of their own attacks. Furthermore, the upgrading system is based on these red orbs you collect from enemies after defeating them that you can then fuel into your weapons in the pause menu, a certain number required to raise the level of your weapons, but this becomes a tedious process solely by how slow it can become to power up your personal armoury in the later stages of the game as you're stuck holding down one button slowly watching the number of orbs count down until you're done with no fast way to instantly level up the item of your choice. While these problems did cause some frustration on my playthrough, they are representative only of very small parts of the game and are all pretty tolerable for what it ultimately a 10 hour journey to begin with.

For the very few places where God of War stumbles, it absolutely soars in others, combining a striking aesthetic combination of visuals, story and music with an accessible but expressive combat system that'll leave most players satisfied. It's overall an impressive feat of game design that makes it very easy to see what made this title such a household name in its generation and one I'd be able to argue even mostly holds up today as a short but effective thrill ride. Normally I'm rather hesitant to give high review scores to the first title in a series to leave room for any potential improvements the sequels might provide, but it would be a disservice to this title not to recognise its triumphs in most of what it sets out to achieve, ultimately offering the player an addictive and atmospheric hack-and-slash tour de force.