Doesn't match the "spectacle" that other Fromsoft games have, but it swings very hard and manages to stand well on its own. Combat is incredibly fun and some of the best in the genre; just don't get starry-eyed over seeing this game has parries and forget that sometimes you should just dodge an attack instead. The "magic" system equivalent is pretty lame and limited, but the weapon variety helps make up for this. There are some pretty interesting sticks and swords to swing around with their own special mechanics. Very much looking forward to more from these devs.

Went through the 3rd and 4th gen Armored Core games in anticipation for this, and 6 is my new favorite. Movement feels amazing, the characters have a surprising amount of personality and memorable quirks, the "spectacle" aspect is A1, the boss fights are cool and pretty challenging your first time through the game, and the game just... sounds good. Single-player alone has lots of replay value, though I'd say the game feels too easy after the first playthrough thanks to having better parts, OS Tuning upgrades, and just having a better grasp of the game. Any challenge at that point will largely come from intentionally running sub-par builds. Even S-ranking missions is just as easy as rushing to the objective, ignoring every enemy that you aren't forced to destroy, only making sure that you don't die to boss.

The biggest complain I have is that the online experience is absolute garbage. PvP itself is fun, but there's no matchmaking, 1v1 lobbies only allow one match to play at a time while everyone else spectates, while the spectator view itself is pretty bad and even prevents you from leaving the lobby OR the game, and there are no ping/connection indicators for this not-so-great netcode. Even sharing builds and decals with other players is jank, as instead of there being an in-game gallery showing what people are uploading, you have to find their Share Code on Twitter/Youtube/Discord/etc. Every online feature for this game is such a disappointment, it's below the bare minimum but at least it "functions."

The game is great, though, one of my favorites from this year and my new favorite in the Armored Core series. Very much hoping for a Hard Mode similar to the 4th gen games. Or a Bloody Palace-esque mode so we can get really silly.

A pretty pleasant surprise of a game, with very obvious inspirations from Vanillaware. The environments looks great, with gorgeous or horrifying backdrops across the scenes, backed up by a good variety of enemies with pretty interesting lore if you take the time to look in the Monsterpedia. The story is pretty alright, nothing spectacular, but far from boring with some interesting backstories being fed to you as you go throughout the dungeons.

The combat is probably what I enjoyed the least about the game; enemies get juggled very easily while combo creativity isn't really there. Boss fights felt pretty forgettable, while any difficult encounters only felt challenging just because there was a bloat of enemies on the screen instead of any real interesting interactions going on. I also played on Very Hard for my first playthrough, so enemy health was very bloated and I'd sometimes just get one-shot or stunned to death from some attack with little telegraph to it or spell that had its sigil obscured by some other enemy or on-screen effect. So I'd recommend you pick a difficulty below that for your first playthrough.

Pretty good game, though.

Easily one of the best high-speed platformers I've ever played and a notable step above the second game. Cool looking levels with a lot of variety in both look and how they play, tight controls that make moving around feel great, going fast just feels good, and the story was actually pretty interesting which was my biggest surprise. Only real complaint is that boss fights feel pretty samey /if/ you're good at parrying, but the amount of freedom in the combat system still kept things fun especially when it came to juggling enemies. This game is well beyond the "it's just like Sonic" status. LakeFeperd continues to really nail it.