Good solid base to build further upon. There's plenty of small aspects of this game that illustrate just how 'first entry' of a first entry it is, and I found that pretty charming.
The main gameplay loop of taking missions, occasionally being dripfed emails, and upgrading your AC while experimenting with new pieces was awesome and definitely made the game. It's for that reason that I was a bit sad that this felt like it dropped off for much of the later portion of the game, as a big part of the draw to the game for me was effectively lost.
I was still experimenting then, yes, but it never felt like I was getting any better results than before, often even worse ones. At the same time, though, I never really felt like my build was at its peak. I don't mean a meta build or some objective best build or anything -- I just mean one that felt like it hit all of my personal requirements and preferences. Regardless, the modularity of the mech building in the game was a treat. The menus for doing so and for buying parts were a wee bit clunky but nothing to complain about.
The core in-mission gameplay, meanwhile, was very erratic in its quality but I don't really mind. I definitely preferred the missions that didn't have enemy ACs or arena fights as fighting those felt pretty underwhelming and boring compared to actually going through maps and completing specific goals. Thankfully, the majority of the missions were firmly in my preferred camp, and getting to test out new parts in each was a blast to be sure.
I didn't really have a huge problem with the controls, and being able to rebind them within the game was both a welcome surprise and a helpful one. I adjusted mine to feel more like a mix between an FPS and a kart racer and from there things were pretty intuitive. The actual camera speed was hilariously off and the camera itself was far too zoomed in but otherwise things felt pretty natural.
The background narrative (and its occasional foreground appearances) was a lot of fun for what it was. I don't tend to be sucked into dystopian futuristic settings but even so I found the interplay between massive megacorps to be fun to fuck around with, especially as it seemed that your mission choices mattered. I tried to play pretty balanced in that sense just to take both of the main ones down as far as possible before one finally toppled, which was both satisfying and just cool to plan around. The style of story progression through the player's mercenary work in missions was well executed and enjoyable, resembling a much more focused version of another game series I enjoy -- PMD, of all things!
Armored Core has a ton of small things holding it back from being a truly amazing game, but I could easily see this being someone's Perfect Seven as it is. It was an enjoyable time for much of its run and even the weaker parts weren't damning. It just has plenty of room for improvement which I'm all but certain later entries did. As I said, it's a great base and there's nowhere to go but up from it. Probably.
The main gameplay loop of taking missions, occasionally being dripfed emails, and upgrading your AC while experimenting with new pieces was awesome and definitely made the game. It's for that reason that I was a bit sad that this felt like it dropped off for much of the later portion of the game, as a big part of the draw to the game for me was effectively lost.
I was still experimenting then, yes, but it never felt like I was getting any better results than before, often even worse ones. At the same time, though, I never really felt like my build was at its peak. I don't mean a meta build or some objective best build or anything -- I just mean one that felt like it hit all of my personal requirements and preferences. Regardless, the modularity of the mech building in the game was a treat. The menus for doing so and for buying parts were a wee bit clunky but nothing to complain about.
The core in-mission gameplay, meanwhile, was very erratic in its quality but I don't really mind. I definitely preferred the missions that didn't have enemy ACs or arena fights as fighting those felt pretty underwhelming and boring compared to actually going through maps and completing specific goals. Thankfully, the majority of the missions were firmly in my preferred camp, and getting to test out new parts in each was a blast to be sure.
I didn't really have a huge problem with the controls, and being able to rebind them within the game was both a welcome surprise and a helpful one. I adjusted mine to feel more like a mix between an FPS and a kart racer and from there things were pretty intuitive. The actual camera speed was hilariously off and the camera itself was far too zoomed in but otherwise things felt pretty natural.
The background narrative (and its occasional foreground appearances) was a lot of fun for what it was. I don't tend to be sucked into dystopian futuristic settings but even so I found the interplay between massive megacorps to be fun to fuck around with, especially as it seemed that your mission choices mattered. I tried to play pretty balanced in that sense just to take both of the main ones down as far as possible before one finally toppled, which was both satisfying and just cool to plan around. The style of story progression through the player's mercenary work in missions was well executed and enjoyable, resembling a much more focused version of another game series I enjoy -- PMD, of all things!
Armored Core has a ton of small things holding it back from being a truly amazing game, but I could easily see this being someone's Perfect Seven as it is. It was an enjoyable time for much of its run and even the weaker parts weren't damning. It just has plenty of room for improvement which I'm all but certain later entries did. As I said, it's a great base and there's nowhere to go but up from it. Probably.