A series that I always wished to get into, after my initial 25h playthrough, the last time I tried to play DD1 was right after a date was announced for DD2, and when I inevitably dropped the prequel again, needless to say, I was not holding my breath for the sequel.
Still, I came across the advertising on socials and could see the huge hype the community had for it, and when the Character Creator Demo was released, I obviously had to try and make my beloved characters.
Regardless of my history with the series, this sparked my interest, but what really put the nail in the coffin was the gameranx Before You Buy video, where he compared exploring in DD2 to Elden Ring.

The Dogma

The story revolves around the main character, the Arisen, chosen directly by the Dragon who steals its heart binding the two together.
The Arisen has then the objective to become inhumanly powerful to challenge the Dragon, win its heart back, and save the world, with the help of human-looking immortal otherworldly beings known as pawns, that respond exclusively to the Arisen.
As long as the dragon lives, the Arisen cannot die.
The main pawn of the Arisen can be created freely, while the other two can be hired to have a group of four. The Arisen is not a one-man army and requires the support of a well-made team of pawns to succeed.
In the setting of DD2, Arisens are now by default the king of the city of Venworth, yet our journey begins as slaves, after having lost our memory.
That being said, the story of the game is not the primary focus and has low roleplayability when it comes to choice-making. The subplots especially in the second half, leave a lot to desire. The "bigger picture" of the world does the heavy lifting, being the more interesting part.

A world worth exploring

What DD2 does amazingly, is feel like a breathing world with a plethora of NPCs that can give quests, often responding to our actions.
The Vermundian Forest and the Batthali Desert are the 2 biomes available with cities and occasional new structures or areas in some specific parts of the map.
Besides fighting, questing, and the 240 collectibles around the map, caves/dungeons are one of the few activities available in the open world. These can be as small as a few rooms, to medium-sized, but usually share the same style and design.

The enemies' variety, although fun to fight against, is almost identical to DD1, making it blatant that, ignoring re-skinned variants, there are roughly 20 enemy types in total, including bosses. This lack of variety is extended to loot, with some chests rewarding equipment, but many offering consumables.
All this is somewhat aggravated by the constant barrage of enemies the player has to fight, to the point of making one of the alternatives to foot travel, hard to use.
The first time I took one of the carts that go by the main roads I wanted to sit and enjoy the whole trip, instead of taking a nap. We were attacked 5 times back to back and the cart was destroyed for taking too much damage.
Moreover, these carts although not supposed to travel by night in the lore, some travels are so long that if awoken, it'll be night. A simple fix for an immersion-breaking mistake.

Like in the aforementioned example, the beautiful and dynamic world of DD2 does not communicate to the player its lore with its design, enemy placement, or loot. There is often no special reason behind why a certain group of enemies is there, or why that greatsword was in that cave, instead, the world is simply where everything happens.

One of the design points that is both controversial and well-known in the series, is that fast travel is not easily accessible, by design. The creator believes that fast travel is a crutch for a bad world design and that it's a reflection of a boring world.
I could not disagree more.
While yes, fast travel can be a crutch to a less interesting world design, providing that commodity does not make the world less interesting by default.
Forcing the player to walk everywhere and constantly fight enemies didn't incentivize me to explore every corner, just like Elden Ring's fast travel did not deter me from it.
Where in Elden Ring I found myself going from A to B, having as the incentive the much more varied world, loot, enemies, etc. in between, in DD2, it's how dynamic the experience of going toward B that motivated me, because what happens during the travel often counts more than the destination.

Interactivity beast

This game shines in its combat system and the interactivity that it offers. Vocations, or classes, can be changed on a whim at no cost and completely change the fighting approach complimented by amazing animations.
Vocations have their own weapon, with a starting moveset just as complex as any From Software game. These level up only when using them, and unlock both core abilities, active abilities - basically 4 additional weapon skills, and passive abilities - that can be used on any vocation.

I started the game as a fighter using a sword and shield and later moved to the warrior with a two-handed greatsword. By the time I unlocked the magic warrior with a twin spear, my mind was set to only level up the vocations that I was interested in. When I noticed that my main pawn as an archer had unlocked a passive to deal more damage to weak points, I changed my mind and decided to level all of them.
One of the core abilities of a fighter is to absorb fall damage by landing on the shield. Right after changing back to this vocation a griffin attacked near the town's exit, and during the fight tried to fly away while I was on its back. I proceeded to attack it until we both fell from the sky, but the griffin being bigger fell faster, so with my death impending, I remembered I could land on my shield to hopefully dampen my fall, which was funnily right on its head, dealing a lot of damage.
Another highlight was how at some point I was exploring a part of the map and noticed that where I wanted to go was inaccessible to me because of a high cliff. From the near high ground, I then noticed a cyclop was sleeping not too far from the edge of the cliff. Since I was playing archer, I hit it at a distance to lure it closer, and once weakened it, pushed it against the wall of the cliff, climbed on its back, and used its height as a way to reach the top of this cliff.

All these interactions happened not because they were scripted but simply because different systems in the game worked together. If you think you can do it, you likely can, and that's the real magic of this game.

Micro optimization

A lot of rightful noise was made at the game's release because of microtransactions and PC performances, and don't get me wrong, I denounce both.
Not to be devil's advocate, but when it comes to microtransactions, while it's disgusting they included them, it is of the lesser ugly of sorts, with items that are easily accessible and available in-game. Even rift crystals used to hire pawns are readily available, and useless since hiring current-level pawns is free.
Just like for other recent Capcom releases, it's mostly a scam to less savvy players.
Stunning as it might be, the PC port runs poorly and even with my hardware, I had to fall back on DLSS Frame Generation to have a stable frame time inside the city and avoid VRR flicker. The game's graphic options do little to nothing for performance gains, with a major visual impact.

"2"

For a sequel, the title builds on the already solid gameplay base of DD1 and adds some, resulting in a magical gaming experience that I won't forget and motivates me to play the prequel and to keep playing. Although flawed, the game stands as a unique experience; one that I strongly suggest.

9.8/10

The final expansion of FF:XVI, this DLC brings the player to the north of Valisthea in search of the lost Leviathan dominant.
The DLC is set in a completely new map that brings out the worst of PS5, with a density of vegetation and detail so high the drops in framerate were never more noticeable, but, that said, was stunning to look at and never suffered during fights as it was common for FF:XVI already.
Two new ability trees are added and both have class actions and abilities that I both mastered and made part of my final loadout because of how fun they are. The level cap has also been removed and raised to 100, but in my time I barely made 2 levels, not sure how long it would take to grind to 100.
Compared to the previous DLC this adds a lot more lore and information about the world and overall felt like a worthy experience for both the asking price and the time investment.
Lastly, the game adds an endgame "roguelike" activity of 20 levels, with gauntlets of enemies and bosses, rewarding the player on each level with currency for the mode, and often items that can be used in normal play including a few new weapons, although they are mainly reskins of the same one for each element from what I've seen.
Allegedly there is a secret boss when completing all the levels on Final Fantasy difficulty, but as much as I might love this game, I don't love it as much as to put myself through that.
Overall I had a lot of fun on the DLC and it brought back interest in the game, but I must say especially for the final story boss fight the DPS check was quite punitive and very demanding, but still not a deal breaker.
Strongly suggested, although part of me wished even more I had waited for the PC version of the game just to enjoy this at a better performance.

I'm now a long-time fan of From Software's work, but a newcomer to the Armored Core series. Nonetheless, when I finally saw the 6th installment being announced after just as many years of rumors as Bloodborne's remasters, I could not wait to jump into it. Knowing that I am not generally a fan of any big mechs media and especially videogames - besides Evangelion - I still embarked on it regardless solely because of From Software's pedigree.

Not an old engine, just slow adoption.

Armored Core VI, just like Sekiro and Elden Ring runs on the in-house engine of From Software, not Pyre as many still think to this date. An engine that wasn't failing the test of time yet, unlike Bethesda's Creation Engine; with Elden Ring, though, debates and doubts did spark. The biggest offender was the forced lock at 60fps on an engine modders have been unlocking days after release, consistently. This is a hindrance only to the longevity and futureproofing of the title, especially when hardware becomes more powerful and inevitably newer heavier games become lighter and more performant.
At the time, the promise and consequent addition of ray tracing to the game had kindled hope in me that it was not a problem with the engine at all, but Armored Core took those cinders and made them burn, removing that doubt completely.
The game has 120fps lock and ray-tracing - the latter just in the garage - at lunch.
Sadly, the anti-aliasing remains not necessarily the strongest option on the market and I strongly hope soon they'll start implementing FSR and DLAA in their titles, but, it's not unserviceable.
The options I was perplexed about and removed immediately were the Depth of Field and Motion Blur combo, which added this weird blurry effect at the edges of the camera and on distant objects. Still, it is possible to turn it off, so no complaints there.
Graphically the game is stunning, performance are great, solid, and stable which is what such a fast-paced game needs.
I was happy to finally see a photo mode that could make the inner photographer in me rejoice in being able to take stunning, planned, HUD-less screenshots in these games, and that made me even more hopeful that with Shadow of the Erdtree we might also hopefully - please, please, please - get it in Elden Ring alongside the 120fps lock option!

Raven's wings of freedom.

The game's story follows your character, 621, call name Raven. You're a fourth-generation augmented human - of which currently there are ten generations in total to my understanding - capable of controlling the giant mechs known as Armored Core.
The augmentation is performed using Coral; think of it as a very flammable fuel capable of reproducing itself that can apparently be used as a drug, gas, and it can also control wave properties, digital and electronic equipment, etc. but deadly during extended contact with humans.
Coral is very important to the various corporations who fight for it, but at the same time need to control it to avoid a rendition of the Fires of Ibis. The Fires of Ibis was a previous cataclysm where the coral, again, very flammable, took fire starting from Rubicon 3 and killed countless people and burned away the majority of life in this solar system, as well as destroying technology and infrastructure, wiping out all of the system's civilization. A fire so hot it would burn the very stars.
Back to 621, we work under Handler Walker, who'll guide us through the basics and provide us with missions for us to complete as a freelancer.
Honestly, the mobility of the mech, the inertia, the weight of your actions, and the amazing scale of the world around you are enough of a reason for you to purchase this game alone because they did a wonderful job!
Missions are not too long, often being just the right length around 20-30m, if not shorter, besides some selected story missions. Each mission will then have a payment reward, from which costs are reduced, and with the rewarded credits, you can buy more parts to change your mech up.
It's possible to pause the game at any time, and on death, there's the option to restart from checkpoints that are automatically made during missions. It is even possible to change which parts your mech has equipped - but not buy new ones - without ever leaving the mission and losing your progress.
The game, like Nier: Automata, features multiple endings achievable through multiple playthroughs and different choices in New Game +, which - another big shocker - does not increase difficulty. So playing the game over and over is a playground for you to use more and more stuff and builds to face your threats.
This is on top of mission replayability to get better scores in them, secret caches with new parts around the maps, enemies hidden with logs, lore documents, etc. There is a lot to do!
When it comes to Arenas, there are PVP rooms available where you can fight other players - up to 6v6 I think - and there is also an offline virtual ranked Arena where you can fight ACs of other pilots you meet in the game, which will unlock some more weapons, and customization options. Speaking of which.

Exploration is customization.

One thing that I did wrong in this game was entering with the idea exploration was key, or so I thought. Exploration is key, but whereas in a Souls/RPG you'll be exploring your surroundings, the world, and what you find in it, here, you need to explore different builds, from the get-go. This took me so out of my element, especially with the steep learning curve, that I am thankful I had purchased the game and made a commitment to it because it gave me the strive to keep hitting my head against the wall until making new builds and trying new approaches became the default. It brought back memories of my early days playing Dark Souls 1, teaching me to focus on the lessons learned from challenges rather than dwelling on setbacks. Each failed try against a boss here it's just another opportunity to learn it better or try something else.
While later mech and weapons parts might be stronger, the game overall is very balanced around making every option viable to the player and any option performs just as well. Difficulty, while the game might become more complex going forward, won't stop you from using the shotgun you bought at the start of the game. Other options you'll be given will be different, instead of better. You can't improve these parts and for everything they offer more than the one you currently use, it takes away somewhere else.
Customization doesn't stop at being able to change parts or simply color them but goes in depth from sheene, to wear, to being able to make your own custom decals and such. I've seen people making YouTube tutorials on how to make a paint job feel more realistic, i.e. adding small white dots on bolts, or wear lines of the primary color on top of accent lines to add to the wear the fact that the top layer has pealed off but not the main paint job. With more than 40 slots available for customization for each mech part, this is seriously the Disney Land of mech fanatics. This is the level of attention to detail I put into Skyrim through modding, but it's a default. Amazing!
Last but not least, builds including looks can be shared with everyone, who, with a build code and the right parts can import it with a few clicks!

Conclusion.

Overall, although it's not my next Elden Ring, I enjoyed my time on the title sometimes making me wish I would have been playing this on some evenings over Baldur's Gate 3. It was fun, like with Sekiro, to see another facet of From Software, and familiar mechanic concepts applied in new innovative ways and I think I will be looking out for what's next for this series, hopefully in less than 10 years!

7.9/10