Similar to Project Phantasm and Master of Arena, AC2:AA is less of a sequel to AC2, but more of an expansion pack. Outside of new missions and some new parts, it's basically the same as its predecessor. But sheesh, it really is an EXPANSION pack. While the Arena didn't make the cut, there's a whopping 100 new missions to take on, which is more than the entire 1st gen combined.

Now you might ask, "but PK, if it's just 100 more missions of the same thing as before, won't it get boooriiing?" Listen, I've just played five of these games in a row in the span of a month, and I'm down to play five more. The mission variety in this game is great. From jumping from ship to ship, to dismantling planes thousands of feet in the sky. We got one-on-one (or, two, or three) enemy AC fights, and we even have fights against enormous MTs. Hell, there are even some returning friends from earlier AC games coming back to tear me a new one, for old time's sake. And at the end of the day, though the series has only been incrementally improving with each entry, the core formula is brilliant. I love building, customizing, optimizing, personalizing, and piloting ACs. I love decimating the enemy, whether that entails methodically combing through a large level, or frantically dueling with an enemy AC. I love getting my ass beaten by the same mission ten times in a row, and going back to the drawing board each time to change up my build. I've enjoyed every entry so far, and AC2:AA is no exception. It ended the 2nd gen with a bang, and it's my favorite game in the series so far.

After three great games on the PS1 and the advent of the PS2, Fromsoft decided it was time to take AC to the next generation. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, however, they opted to refine AC1's ideas and introduce some new ones. There's a lot more mechanics to play around with this time around; you've got to manage your heat levels now to prevent overheating damage, you can now , you can overboost around at high speeds (if you manage your energy), which adds a bit more depth to AC fights, and there's a bunch of new part types. Of course, we're creatures of habit, so I was perfectly content replicating and upgrading my AC from the PS1 games, and calling it "Gravity Mk. II" (which made me feel pretty cool).

That's it. I'm officially sold; these games are sick as hell. Easily my favorite game in the series thus far. It's similar to Project Phantasma; more parts, missions, and Arena fights. This time, however, the majority of the focus is put on the Arena, as it's tied into the story, culminating in the memorable fight with Nine Ball Seraph. Trust me, I'm never going to forget it's blistering speeds, overwhelming fire power, it's 3k+ damage sword waves, and the triple Nine Ball runback each time you die.

You can tell that this is when Kota Hoshino joined, because the OST LEAPT in quality compared to the previous two games (not that they were bad). Nearly every song in the game is a banger, and Nine Ball's theme is one for the ages.

Project Phantasma feels more like an expansion to the original Armored Core as opposed to a full-on sequel, with the major changes being new missions, more parts in the shop, and a new Arena mode. That might sound like a negative, but it's actually really cool, as one of my favorite things about this game is the fact that you can import your AC from the previous game, allowing you to customize and optimize it even further. The game has about half of the total missions that AC1 had, but these missions are noticeably more diverse in objectives and overall have better level design.

As I mentioned earlier, the big addition to the game is the Arena, which allows you to climb the ranks by beating 49 other Ravens. These one-on-one fights are a lot of fun, and they really put your AC building and piloting abilities to the test. The fights get brutal as you climb higher, pitting you against Human Plus enemy ACs; dodging their 3k+ damage sword waves really gets the blood pumping.

Cool game. Building and customizing your own mech is pretty fun. Control scheme is a bit rough, but you'll get somewhat used to it surprisingly quickly, except L2/R2 to look up and down; even at the end of the game I was still fucking it up. Speaking of end of the game, the final mission is as diabolical as people say. Fucked up platforming and TWO Nineballs, that was a trial. The biggest surprise was the OST though. My biggest motivation for getting into this series is piloting mechs with Kota Hoshino bangers in the background, but he doesn't start composing until Nexus and onwards, so I'm glad this game has some real memorable tunes at least.

What do you get when you cross Touhou, Inti Creates, and old japanese message board memes that I've never seen before in my life? Complete fucking nonsense, that's what.

The game plays like a mix of Mega Man Zero 3 and Touhou 17.5 (which came out like a decade after this), and that's the simplest way I can put it. You can shoot, dash (which allows you to "graze" bullets, by the way), and do all sorts of kicks and special skills. Thanks to the crazy amount of mobility and attacks at your disposal, levels focus less on traditional platforming and more on using your repertoire to mow down enemies as fast (and I mean as fast) as possible.

To further encourage this playstyle (or, I suspect it would be more accurate to say that the game was built around it), there is also a sort of "chaining" mechanic that feeds into a greater scoring and ranking system, which, again, is very reminiscent of Mega Man Zero. As I mentioned before, scoring essentially revolves around blazing through levels while constantly hitting enemies hard and fast with all you've got. While actually successfully pulling this off obviously requires extensive knowledge of the game, far more than one playthrough would give, getting even a little taste of a massive combo is nonetheless exhilarating.

But beyond all that, the execution is messy as FUCK. Enemies pop in from out of nowhere and bullets fly everywhere, while you frantically dash around and mash attacks with barely an inkling of what you're doing, as you rush to find the next enemy to extend your chain, despite the fact that you know your ass is getting another D rank anyway. You'll fail attacks and run into enemies like an idiot so many times that the invincibility window will become very dear to you. Attempts to understand what's going on and formulate some sort of strategy will prove futile, and you'll instead opt to operate on pure instinct. Bosses are generally a lot more tame at least, with identifiable and reactable patterns and openings, but even then they can get incomprehensible, like with the duo boss rematches near the end. Much of this constitutes what a lesser being might call "poor game design", but I don't give a shit. This lunacy put me in the zone, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes it GOOD.

The nature of the japanese message board memes only adds to the insanity too. One minute I'm being besieged by five ketchup(?) bottles and some soy sauce, a walking squid, and a Flandre spider, and in the next, I'm fighting for my life against what appears to be Nue combined with a Magneton. Come, large tampura Iku Nagae, we shall do battle. Oh, now I'm fighting a big fat Yuyuko yukkuri in a Space Harrier-clone. It is what it is!

Look, the game is a joke, a great joke, a joke that only a specific type of person could laugh at, and a joke that even fewer could actually get. Basically, what I'm trying to say here is, it's kino.

RefleX is the second game in the Tale of Alltynex trilogy of shmups. It's at this point where the series' DNA is really solidified: familiar enemies, a scoring system centered around a unique mechanic (reflection, this time), an almost melancholy tone set by the grandiose visuals and the organ-filled OST, and a couple of other things, like wings of light and Zodiac Virgo.

As the title suggests, the name of the game this time is a shield that reflects bullets. It's the cornerstone of the game; enemy patterns are far too dense to consistently dodge without it, your main shot is too weak to kill everything on its own, and it's central to the scoring system. Unfortunately, while I do think it's cool, compared to the previous game's (and subsequent game's) unique mechanic, it falls a little flat for me. I prefer more aggression in my shmups, as opposed to this more defensive take.

I'll maintain that a strong presentation is incredibly important for a shmup, and RefleX doesn't disappoint in this department. In fact, this is where Alltynex's trademark insane story beats really begin to shine. The set pieces and enemies you fight successfully convey that feeling of a desperate civil war against a government with scores of state-of-the-art weapons, only for the conflict to be hijacked by an even stronger force. Traversing the familiar ruins of ALLTYNEX OS with your former enemy against the new threat with wings of light, only for them to be taken out instantly and for you to be systematically ripped apart by overwhelming firepower. And just when all hope is lost, you too sprout wings of light, and your ship's capabilities skyrocket as well, allowing you to easily take down the aggressor. And then after a Disc 2 Xenogears-style cutscene describing how the new ship wiped out everything in its path, you're thrown into the final battle against the last remaining Zodiac weapon AND KAMUI ships, as this is also the same battleground where you take down Xaffiquel in the first game.

I don't care; it's hype.

A cool doujin shmup that kicked off the Tale of Alltynex trilogy. The gameplay is very similar to Taito's RayForce, as you can fire at enemies in the background using your rechargeable, screen-wide auto-locking lightning attack. In addition, you can fire the powerful Lightning Katana, which does a ton of damage deletes bullets, and looks fly as hell. As both attacks use the same resource, the scoring system revolves around balancing your use of each weapon and appropriately timing your lock-on's for the highest bonus. The game is pretty easy to clear in pure survival runs, but like any good shmup, higher scores require riskier plays and tighter routing.

KAMUI's presentation is strong as hell too. The spritework is great, and the soundtrack is comprised of energetic, yet somewhat somber tunes match the overall melancholic tone of the setting and story.

Speaking of story, I know people love to discount the plot in shorter games (arcade games especially), but as a fan of insane narratives with a touch of mythology, KAMUI was especially captivating in that respect. As KAMUI is chronologically the final game in the series, compared to the next two games, it acts as more of an almost self-contained epilogue. If you're interested, I recommend checking out the official guide book, which fills in most of the details that couldn't fit into the game.

Over the years, Inti Creates has solidified their place as one of my favorite 2D action platformer developers of all time. From the classic Mega Man Zero series, to the modern Gunvolt series, they have continued to refine and evolve their craft. You simply won't find their brand of high octane, arcadey, mastery-focused gameplay anywhere else.

I played iX1 on a whim a few years ago, and to my surprise, I loved it so much that it not only made me go back and play the other Gunvolt games, but it also ultimately led to me rethinking how I view rank, score, and other mastery-focused systems in other games, including the Zero games and their S-ranks. Copen's aerial based gameplay was just that great; bouncing off walls and enemies at breakneck speeds while maintaining my air combo to score as high as possible was so exhilarating.

So imagine my shock when iX2 was initially announced, and Copen's gameplay was revealed to be reworked. Gone are the days of dashing all around the level from the get-go, as he only has one air dash (outside of Overdrive). Now he has the Razor Wheel, complete with a 3-hit combo and other melee shenanigans. While I still had faith in Inti Creates' ability, I couldn't shake that feeling of apprehension. Yeah, it kinda reminded me of Mega Man Zero, and you could still access Copen's old gameplay with Overdrive, but the huge changes worried me. Fast forward to release; the moment of truth has arrived, so how is it?

It's a lot to digest, that's for sure.

First things first, Copen's new gameplay. As I said before, dashing around and cutting up enemies with the Razor Wheel in Copen's Breakshift really did remind me of Mega Man Zero, though not nearly as fluid as that or iX1/GV2's gameplay. The wheel doesn't do enough damage to kill most things in less than 2 slashes, so you almost have to stop and full combo every enemy, even the smaller ones. It's no biggie, since going from enemy to enemy as fast as you can to maintain your Quick Break combo for kudos is enjoyable enough, and you can even weave in Bullitshift and EX weapons.

However, that "weaving" is actually my biggest issue with the game. There isn't a cohesive marriage of the Breakshift and Bullitshift gameplay, at least not in scoreplay. You use Breakshift (and a little Bullitshift) to hit 1000 kudos as fast as you can to hit Overdrive, and from there you just rack up aerial combos like in iX1 since it's FAR more lucrative kudos-wise. It's still pretty fun, especially in Normal mode where emblems let you hit 1k kudos quickly anyway, but it just screams "missed potential". It was a really cool idea, and I REALLY hope they expand on it in the future.

What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that pretty much everything else about the game feels like a step-up from iX1. Thanks to consideration for the Breakshift system (I assume), iX2 actually has some of the best level design I've seen in a Gunvolt game thus far. Not only do they still facilitate that feeling of flow that we all know and love, but they individually have stronger identities, thanks to improved enemy variety and great level gimmicks. In addition, the presentation has noticeably improved as well. The soundtrack quality has gotten even better, with particularly strong normal level themes (an area where the series historically lacked), alongside some other great tunes like Ypsilon's boss theme. The visuals are also a lot more varied from level to level (especially compared to iX1, where levels would often visually blend together), further aiding that sense of identity I was talking about. This game's EX weapon selection blows previous games out of the water too. Unlike GV2 and iX1 where you'd be using Hailstorm Blade/Orbital Edge 99% of the time, you can find a useful niche for most of them. Rolling Ripper is the go-to aerial enemy killer, Cryo Flash for slowing down time, Whirling Chopper is great for animation-cancelling and gaining vertical height, and Optic Barrier is useful in quite a few boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, they're still as great as ever. Hell, at this point, it's hard to NOT take notice of how consistently good Inti is at designing bosses. There's not much to be said; patterns are fun to learn, and are hard enough to actually require learning. It almost feels like performing a well-choreographed dance, honestly, especially in the context of the scoring.

And then there's the difficulty.

The Gunvolt series' approach to difficulty has always been a point of contention. In stark contrast to the Mega Man Zero games, it opts to start you off with extreme power, and instead give you a plethora of tools to modulate the difficulty. At default, the previous games would make you immune to 99% of damage at the cost of an easily refillable resource, alongside a free auto-revive, a potentially large health pool, infinite lives, and so on and so forth. If you're an average player, and use all of these to the fullest, you're left with a comically easy game. Perfect for people that want to revel in the power fantasy and enjoy the charming, chuuni writing stress-free, but pretty boring for everyone else. However, as I've alluded to throughout the review, the games have consistently made it very clear that the REAL draw is embracing the arcade-style of old, and doing score runs. As in, running through levels as fast as possible, while racking up kudos by pulling off methodical combos; all without getting so much as a scratch. It's a difficult, but very rewarding road. All of the games' mechanics will truly come into play, your personal idol will sing J-Pop bangers for you, and you'll get a shiny S+ rank to show for it, but those are all secondary to the greatest reward of all: the fun.

But what about the people in the middle? What of the folks that don't want to bother with some silly ranking system or some self-imposed challenges and just want to run through the game once like a Mega Man game? Unfortunately, they're out of luck. Even if you disable all of the extra options that makes the games effortless, you're still left with a fairly easy game with seemingly milquetoast level design. This is where many fundamental misconceptions about the series arise, and it serves as a major stumbling block for many people.

In response, Inti Creates appeared to have doubled down. The default mode, Normal, has two major changes; an unlimited source of healing at the push of a button (with the only caveat being that it banks your kudos), along with Gutless as the sole kudos mode. The healing option didn't matter to me honestly. I just treated it like Prevasion and Anthem in previous games and simply never used it, and it actually resulted in a fairly decent difficulty curve in casual play. The forced Gutless mode was far more concerning, but in practice it actually worked out better than I thought, especially since there's an upgrade that boosts your damage in exchange for losing all kudos on hit. But that's not all.

Now when I say Inti Creates doubled down, I mean they DOUBLED down. For the first time in the series since the later releases of GV1, iX2 also has a Hard mode, complete with a multitude of changes. It removes the healing mode, disables all upgrades, capps your max HP, makes you lose all kudos on-hit (like Fearless mode in previous games), greatly buffs boss patterns, removes the emblems, and, most interestingly, introduces a lives system. There is little room (or no room when scoring) for error in boss fights, and mistakes are far more punishing, as losing all your lives will boot you out of the level. They even pulled a ballsy move and locked the true ending behind its completion. As you can imagine, this mode lies on the complete opposite side of the difficulty spectrum, and it's brutal, and it's easily the hardest Gunvolt has ever been. The final boss alone took me 40+ tries and almost 3 hours.

But you know what? This may be a hot take, but it was a WONDERFUL addition. THIS is, more or less, how hard Gunvolt should be. The Breakshift system works a lot better here than in Normal mode too, and Inti-Creates intended vision for it became a bit clearer, although it also makes the messy union between it and Bulletshift more apparent. My only gripe with it is that they didn't alter the level design at all. That's fine for scoreplay, but in casual runs the levels are still far too easy. It'd be better for casual AND scoreplay if the level design was slightly remixed (in the same vein as the special missions in iX1) and some checkpoints were removed, especially considering the lives system and the fact that you have to beat Normal mode first to unlock it. But beyond that, I hope they expand on this mode and include it in future games.

If you look at iX2's individual parts, you'll find that although it expanded on and improved many aspects of the previous games, the most important one--the Breakshift system and the related changes to Copen's gameplay--fell a bit short. Though ambitious, it's nowhere near as cohesive as the focused endeavors of iX1 and GV2. With that being said, however, when I reflect on my experience holistically, I can't deny the fact that I had a ton of fun, which probably speaks to how strong and unique the series' core design philosophy is. I can't wait for GV3, and I hope it doesn't take 4 years to get ported.

I tried playing this a while ago, but I couldn't get a handle of the controls. Then I decided to give Ace Combat 2 a try, and a couple missions (and a Select button press) later and I felt like a real ace pilot. Came back to AC3E with my newfound skills, got every ending, and had a great time. There's a wide variety of planes to fly, in conjunction with a wide variety of missions to take on. The setpieces were so cool too, with the best highlights being Electrosphere, Geopelia, Tunnel Vision, and the Geofront missions. Hell, you even go to space in Zero Gravity! The branching story serves to contextualize the gameplay, and was pretty interesting in its own right too, with all its insane twists and developments. All things considered, AC3E is a great experience.

AC2's soundtrack mogs the FUCK out of AC3E's though. The former's little intro song is hyper than 95% of the latter's OST. Yeah yeah I get it, the lowkey vibing music compliments the tone yadda yadda yadda. Don't care, I like it better when the music dictates the tone with overwhelming force. Hopefully future AC soundtracks are more like 2 and not 3E.