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
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