Before I heap praise on Fires of Rubicon, I want to get my broader issue with the direction of FromSoftware out of the way. The King's Field games are distinguished by a slow, deliberate style of play, the best traits of which were carried forward into the first three Souls games. Since Bloodborne, FromSoftware's combat has moved towards the twitchy and fantastical, and while I love all these games dearly on their own terms, I'd also enjoy further exploration of the old style.
I played the original PSX Armored Core trilogy before jumping into Fires of Rubicon and I found it followed that same deliberate style of King's Field but in a mech context. In Armored Core, the player felt less like they were controlling the mech but rather controlling the person controlling the mech; the Armored Cores were slow and cumbersome, clunky and unwieldy, thus manifesting the impression of a mediator between the player and the Armored Core, which is of course the pilot. Though these games were consequently not the most fluid and fun action games around, this element served narrative and thematic functions, and was executed with conviction. Armored Core VI definitely does not feel like this. The near-invisible relationship between player->player-character and player-character->mech is thematically strong, implying that your "augmented human" protagonist only exists to pilot a weapon - thus creating an impression of the dystopic world outside the range of the immediate narrative - but at the same time it subtracts from the series' uniqueness. At least there aren't i-frames, and the hard-lock has enough drawbacks that I didn't use it much outside of some very Souls-ey boss fights.
With that out of the way: this game is incredible. It's cohesive, with gameplay, visuals, sound, and narrative coming together in wonderful harmony. The intertwined history of Rubicon, the corporations, mercenary groups, and individual characters are explored through both the narrative and AC parts' descriptions, painting a richer picture the more you pay attention. That the AC parts are so thoroughly contextualised means that the narrative dimension feeds into the mech customisation and subsequently the action; each element contributes to each other and to the whole picture.
The game couldn't have achieved this without affording itself breathing room by incentivising three playthroughs. Armored Core VI provides just enough decisions, new missions, and new twists on old missions each playthrough to keep things fresh, all while building out its world and characters with greater depth. My opinion of the game only got more positive over time, reaching its peak the third time I saw the credits roll.
I do take umbrage with some of the balancing, both in terms of weapons and combat encounters, but given the scale of variability here I think it's forgivable. Fires of Rubicon is otherwise a marvel of game-feel and combat design, which becomes apparent extremely early. It just feels amazing to control.
Yet another banger from FS. I'll reiterate my desire for the studio to make games with a more deliberate pace again, but I'm hardly going to hold that against AC6. I loved this a lot and honestly I'm just hungry for more. Let's hope for a shorter wait this time.
I played the original PSX Armored Core trilogy before jumping into Fires of Rubicon and I found it followed that same deliberate style of King's Field but in a mech context. In Armored Core, the player felt less like they were controlling the mech but rather controlling the person controlling the mech; the Armored Cores were slow and cumbersome, clunky and unwieldy, thus manifesting the impression of a mediator between the player and the Armored Core, which is of course the pilot. Though these games were consequently not the most fluid and fun action games around, this element served narrative and thematic functions, and was executed with conviction. Armored Core VI definitely does not feel like this. The near-invisible relationship between player->player-character and player-character->mech is thematically strong, implying that your "augmented human" protagonist only exists to pilot a weapon - thus creating an impression of the dystopic world outside the range of the immediate narrative - but at the same time it subtracts from the series' uniqueness. At least there aren't i-frames, and the hard-lock has enough drawbacks that I didn't use it much outside of some very Souls-ey boss fights.
With that out of the way: this game is incredible. It's cohesive, with gameplay, visuals, sound, and narrative coming together in wonderful harmony. The intertwined history of Rubicon, the corporations, mercenary groups, and individual characters are explored through both the narrative and AC parts' descriptions, painting a richer picture the more you pay attention. That the AC parts are so thoroughly contextualised means that the narrative dimension feeds into the mech customisation and subsequently the action; each element contributes to each other and to the whole picture.
The game couldn't have achieved this without affording itself breathing room by incentivising three playthroughs. Armored Core VI provides just enough decisions, new missions, and new twists on old missions each playthrough to keep things fresh, all while building out its world and characters with greater depth. My opinion of the game only got more positive over time, reaching its peak the third time I saw the credits roll.
I do take umbrage with some of the balancing, both in terms of weapons and combat encounters, but given the scale of variability here I think it's forgivable. Fires of Rubicon is otherwise a marvel of game-feel and combat design, which becomes apparent extremely early. It just feels amazing to control.
Yet another banger from FS. I'll reiterate my desire for the studio to make games with a more deliberate pace again, but I'm hardly going to hold that against AC6. I loved this a lot and honestly I'm just hungry for more. Let's hope for a shorter wait this time.