Born out of a years long hiatus, while having to carry decades of heritage on his shoulders. Yet, it still manages to stand on his own legs.

Armored Core VI is unwilling to please everyone, but only who wishes to dig in its trial-and-error, experimentation and overwhelmingly fast gameplay. If you played any other game in the franchise, you'll know the drill. If you didn't, no pressure. This is by far the best entry point out of all the numbered titles.

Don't get me wrong, though. At first, I was worried. So much information on screen. The streamlining of the customization. And yet... All those concerns started to fade away at the first bosses and arena encounters.

There's no time to think about patterns, move-sets and such. The plan has to be made in the garage. In the mission, you are a relentless, implacable rancor-fueled man-machine of death and destruction. Drown the target with disgustingly massive amounts of firepower, attack using all of your resources with no restraints whatsoever. Execution is everything.

And then... When you'll overcome your next challenge, you'll start to feel "that". Swap out some components. Try a new approach. Slowly, carefully treading into the realm of removing your target from existence faster and better. Efficiency and effectiveness, constantly improving...

...And in that moment, all the fascination of this series finally reveals itself. The "thing" which makes this experience unique.

Unparalleled player agency.

Mission variety's on par with the series' top performers. Best environment art of the whole franchise. A lot of parts for a numbered entry, although with some restrains in the legs and arms departments. The boss encounters are by far the best of Armored Core VI's offering, and even if there's one entry which its "fun factor" could be debatable, his set-piece is still wonderful to go through. Arena's on the easy side, but its integration with the story is a nice touch, reminding somehow of Master of Arena. The narrative, just as the gameplay, keeps pushing faster and faster, with some beats, themes and characters reminiscent of Ace Combat along the expected references to older Armored Core games.

Multiplayer plays really good, even though it feels like an afterthought in terms of options and systems.

Shoji Kawamori's back in the mechanical design department, but you won't see any of it until you progress through the game. Do you wish to see the best the industry has to offer? Get at it.

Kota Hoshino's back in the soundtrack department, mixing compositions reminiscent of old entries along with a new dark, synth-wave, industrial tone, somehow close to DOOM (2016). The only match for a gritty, melancholic, hopeless landscape which, in hindsight, feels really close to the apocalypses of Last Raven and For Answer. All of that, alongside a crisp, state-of-the-art sound design and voice cast.

By the way, you won't be done with one play-through. Keep at it.

Technically-wise, the best release From Software ever put out, perfectly fitting the most sincerely written love letter to the mecha genre.

Armored Core has always been good. This is only the reminder.

Far from perfect, but nevertheless a stylish blend of the garage life of a car-tinkering petrol-head alongside race-day feeling events. The handling is not the best in the market but does his job well enough to underline the differences of drive-trains, track conditions and performance upgrades.

The track list is poor in quantity but with a varied enough selection ensuring some replay-ability, alongside reverse variants of such tracks. Car selection, on the other hand, is really good and quite big, considering how almost all of those can be customized to the player's liking.

Going back and forth in between the garage and the track can get tedious at times but the game loop is really strong. Obtaining new performance upgrades, cars and items to decorate your garage is pure player expression, alongside a game already rewarding player agency by its structure.

The atmosphere and the art direction of the game are by far its best selling point: speed lines and brake lines reminding of stuff such as Initial-D, and the cel shading alongside comic book-like outlines really make the looks of the game withstand even two decades of hardware and software improvements.

The US release features new cars, new tracks and some welcome quality of life updates in the UI department, but the handling model basically kills all the charm you'd otherwise find in the Japanese and European releases. These latter are by far the best way to experience Auto Modellista.

Recommended.

An enormous step forward for the series, which stubbornly and rightly so refuses to move away from his arcade roots.

Midnight Club 3 is an improvement on most if not all aspects of the previous entries of the series, adding in the already exhilarating mix an addition which will find its way in the 6th generation era of racing games: car customization.

This is not only a way to slowly guide the player towards faster (and it gets crazy fast) racing but also a chance to add in more player expression: the offering is not quite crazy as Need for Speed Underground 2 or Pro Street, but Midnight Club 3 fixes this by giving fine-tuned options for every car types. Just as this concept will find his way in Need for Speed Carbon, the car classes and types featured are a way to specialize your play-style into a more hit-and-run, aggressive or precise approach. You won't need to try every single thing out in order to reach the credits, but it's highly advised, as variety truly is the spice of this game.

The car collection is not only huge but also quite unique: a never-seen-before focus on saloons and muscle cars, a lot of high-end super-cars, most of the Japanese cars you'd be fond of, and bikes. If you're into rarely seen cars in video-games, this is the stuff you should try out. The environments are ever-so detailed, taking again crazy approaches with some vertical, almost flying sections. San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit all feature an almost "7th generation" color scheme and blur, but their designs are varied enough in order to not become stale.

Thing which could happen given how huge this game is. Tons of rivals, tournaments and race series. The rivals are not quite characterized as they do in Midnight Club 2, the unordered races are quite rare, and the police presence can sometimes be one-sided...

But all those things are pardoned once you try the handling model.

This handles like a dream. The arcade, float-y, and "pick-up and play" approach still remains the same: the wackiness and often unbearable frustration of the physics, the traffic and some races still remains.

And that's what makes this series special: an adrenaline-pumping speed freak, which can either end very well or very bad. There's no in between. Once again, knowing the city is everything. More so than ever, knowing your car, its "ins-and-outs", and the ability you're provided with that car type.

DUB Edition Remix features an additional location, Tokyo, bundled in a Challenge mode where you can bring your cars from the Career, race them here and bring your prizes back. Not quite striking as the other locations but a welcome addition for sure. Obvious as it may sound, the featured songs are a perfect companion to the game's already thick atmosphere: the selection is big, striking and once again varied.

It can't be explained how the most frustrating aspects of this series are, in the same time, the most exhilarating and engaging ones. Embrace the chaos, and find your way in.

Recommended.