Yamigishi
i don't think i could have finished this game without being having someone back (and even at times front) seating me because holy shit are those puzzle games convoluted (but once you get what to do, they're actually cleverly simple)
but i believe you'd get a really good experience even without solving a single puzzle in this game because as cool as the story/progression is, the game's biggest strength is just how GORGEOUS it looks. i'm sure almost anyone will agree pre rendered backgrounds in games look awesome, and Riven is definitely up there in term of looking amazing. I can't count the number of times i've just been getting to a new screen only to go "wow this looks so awesome"; getting to a different island triggers a cutscene that looks so dope i only skipped it a few times because i was backtracking a lot, that's how good this game looks. Add to that a really atmospheric soundtrack and you've got a killer of a game where you could just explore around and feel satisfied, the puzzles and story are just the cherry on top
but i believe you'd get a really good experience even without solving a single puzzle in this game because as cool as the story/progression is, the game's biggest strength is just how GORGEOUS it looks. i'm sure almost anyone will agree pre rendered backgrounds in games look awesome, and Riven is definitely up there in term of looking amazing. I can't count the number of times i've just been getting to a new screen only to go "wow this looks so awesome"; getting to a different island triggers a cutscene that looks so dope i only skipped it a few times because i was backtracking a lot, that's how good this game looks. Add to that a really atmospheric soundtrack and you've got a killer of a game where you could just explore around and feel satisfied, the puzzles and story are just the cherry on top
2023
About 3 weeks before Final Fantasy XVI released, Square Enix released a demo for the game, that was basically the story’s introduction, and in my opinion this demo was genuinely awesome, and made me really excited for the game. Sadly, as it turns out, it feels like the game should have stayed a demo, because after a few hours of playing the full game, it becomes incredibly jarring that a lot of the game’s aspects should have never gotten past some kind of playtesting.
The demo really worked because it was short: everything was well paced, the combat system seemed full of promises due to only having one eikon while still managing to be fun, and the story opened up very strongly. All the full game needed to do was to just expand Clive’s toolkit as the game progressed to keep it fresh, and you’d have a really solid game. And that’s what the game failed to do correctly, which led to it being an experience that was way too long and repetitive to be enjoyable.
The pacing of this game is atrocious, and I frankly don’t know how most people don’t seem bothered by it. While getting your second eikon is something that happens pretty fast, each subsequent one takes way too long to get unlocked. Most “action games”, for lack of a better term, take between 10 and 15 hours to complete, while FF16 is around 60 hours if you do the side content (more on that later), but even without it it’s probably around 35-40 hours. And nothing in the game is there to justify its length. The entire time, you’ll follow the same structure: you do a dungeon, get back to the hub, unlock new sidequests, then go “explore” a new part of the overworld, rinse and repeat. The dungeons take up maybe 20% of the runtime (and i’m being very generous), and they’re the only part of the game that’s even remotely good.
The overworld is where you’ll spend the biggest amount of time in the game, and at no point does it manage to justify its existence. It’s just big open spaces filled with nothing. Sure, there are enemies to fight, but it gets old quickly and it’s not rewarding: just like in a certain MMO from the same series, you’ll get 10 times more exp doing quests than fighting mobs, meaning every mob that’s not mandatory to kill is just a waste of time once leveling up starts to require bigger amounts of exp. Fighting enemies is useless, but so is exploration in itself, since the loot mechanics in this game are so laughably surface level I can't stop but wonder why they’re even here in the first place.
Final Fantasy XVI decided to ditch “RPG elements” to have its gameplay focus entirely on the combat itself, which is a choice i don’t have issues with on a fundamental level. Except that for some reason, the game decided to still have loot and crafting, but their implementation is laughable. Every enemy will drop some kind of materials, and other kind of materials are scattered all around the open world, and you use those materials to craft new weapons and equipment. Except all those new equipment do is increase numbers in a linear fashion. So all you have to do is craft whatever’s the strongest equipment at any given time because there’s never any situation where equipment X has slightly more damage but Y has added bonuses that would make you consider using it instead. And you get way too many materials to craft things anyway, like i had triple or even quadruple digits numbers of most of the materials which was useless, and it’s not because i farmed those, it just happens naturally.
The combat in this game is… Clearly lacking depth. Now I’m not an expert in “action games” the title took inspiration from, I just played the first 3 DMC games, bayonetta 1 and i guess nier automata if you want to count it as an action game (i wouldn’t) so maybe, just maybe, i just lack the necessary skills to make the combat more fun, but i doubt it.
Clive’s base toolkit is very limited. If you’ve played the demo you’ve seen it all, his base moves don’t evolve. There’s only one combo, a charge attack, a lunge/downthrust, and magic that you can either charge or weave in between hits of your one and only combo. You can also order torgal to launch enemies, but everything else has you rely on eikons. Want to warp to an enemy after launching him? That’s an eikonic ability. Grab an enemy from afar to pull them towards you? Eikonic ability. Since you can only equip 3 eikons at a time, that means two of the eikon slots have to be used by phoenix and garuda if you want to do longer combos.
Eikons also let you equip 2 abilities to them, and those all have cooldown. So while you can implement some of those attacks in a combo, once it’s done you have to wait before being able to do that combo again. But chances are after a while you won’t even do that, because of how the combat system works and how unbalanced the game is. Normal enemies pose literally no threat 99% so you can just do your basic juggle combo on them while waiting for your cooldowns to be off,which gets very very repetitive really quick, especially with how long the game is.
(Mini)Bosses are where the game’s system is really flawed. They all have a poise bar you can deplete by attacking, and once you break their bar they’re staggered for a while, and attacks will raise a dmg multiplier up to 1.5. Which means every single boss encounter will follow the same cycle: you dodge, use regular attacks and maybe some abilities to go faster, but your goal is to have as many abilities off cooldown for when the boss will be staggered since that’s when you’ll do the most damage. Even worse yet, some abilities are extremely broken when combined and it’s not hard at all to figure out which ones they are, so you’ll likely have them constantly equipped. There is almost no player expression in this game, instead the game plays more like something like Kingdom Hearts and i like kingdom hearts gameplay! But not for a game that long. Again, nothing in this game justifies it being that long.
The kaiju fights are.. Okay? They’re definitely some good spectacle but gameplay wise they’re not much better than the rest of the game, especially considering how long some of those can be. The QTEs are also hilarious, you have a 5 seconds window to press either R1 or square, it’s really funny. I absolutely disagree with the consensus that they’re “some of the best bosses ever”, they’re just cool looking bosses but they’re really not that thrilling to fight, it’s all style over substance (just like the rest of the game)
But what about the story, Final Fantasy is all about the story right? Well i want to keep my review spoilers free so i won’t delve too much into it, but it didn’t get me. The game opens up very strongly, but the more it goes on the more it sidelines all the interesting political stuff to instead become very “anime”. None of the characters really stood out to me, except like Cid he’s cool. Clive’s alright, Jill is a bowl of soup and there’s a couple side characters that are really cool (shoutouts to Dion and Byron, i like those guys) but it feels like none of the characters bare Clive are developed enough, even if you do the sidequests they’re like all missing something to be more than just pretty stereotypical characters, some of those being almost 1:1 copies of Game of thrones character (like yeah i do like Goetz but he’s literally just Hodor from GoT lol)
And what about the music? This game’s got to have good music right? Eeeeeeeeh. Older FF titles (except 15 which has the same issue imo) have really good and memorable music, the music in this game is just there. It’s like a movie score, sure it’s fitting most of the time but is it memorable, apart from a couple key songs? Not really. Worse than that, i’m actually wondering why the fuck they got Soken for it. I do like his work on FF14, but i think everyone will agree his best tracks are either rock and/or electronic music, which are genres completely absent from this game except for like one song. Everything in the game is just either medieval sounding stuff, or orchestra for the big fights. There’s also not a lot of variety in the songs which is insane. Like in A Realm Reborn alone, each city had its major themes that all gave off different vibes, Ul’dah has a bombastic song that screams of its riches, Limsa has a song that gives you the feeling of being called by the sea, Gridania is a calm and inviting place… FF16 has no diversity in its themes like that. Every city has the same songs, none of them give off really emotive vibes, they’re just medieval_town.mp3. The combat theme is always the same, same for the miniboss themes, even every eikon battle has the same song playing for the first phase… The only places where the music stops being repetitive is the dungeons, driving even further home the fact those are the only good piece of content of the game.
All in all, Final Fantasy XVI was a very mediocre experience for me. It’s a game that wanted to be different, but half baked everything. It’s a game that wants to be a dark and mature experience, but rapidly falls into common RPG tropes. It’s a game that wants to be a “spectacle fighting” game, but that doesn’t feature any deep mechanics to make that spectacle feel fun to play. It’s a game that wants to be a full length RPG, but doesn’t ever justify why it should be that long, it feels like it’s just that long either because you expect a Final Fantasy game to be long, or because the dev team behind it is a MMO team and apparently MMO devs are unaware MMO designs do not work in single player experiences. It’s a game full of flaws, and it feels like as soon as you start noticing some of those all the other ones become apparent really quick afterwards, leaving you with a game that has potential, but got so half baked it just ends up being the same thing Cid’s daughter is: Mid.
The demo really worked because it was short: everything was well paced, the combat system seemed full of promises due to only having one eikon while still managing to be fun, and the story opened up very strongly. All the full game needed to do was to just expand Clive’s toolkit as the game progressed to keep it fresh, and you’d have a really solid game. And that’s what the game failed to do correctly, which led to it being an experience that was way too long and repetitive to be enjoyable.
The pacing of this game is atrocious, and I frankly don’t know how most people don’t seem bothered by it. While getting your second eikon is something that happens pretty fast, each subsequent one takes way too long to get unlocked. Most “action games”, for lack of a better term, take between 10 and 15 hours to complete, while FF16 is around 60 hours if you do the side content (more on that later), but even without it it’s probably around 35-40 hours. And nothing in the game is there to justify its length. The entire time, you’ll follow the same structure: you do a dungeon, get back to the hub, unlock new sidequests, then go “explore” a new part of the overworld, rinse and repeat. The dungeons take up maybe 20% of the runtime (and i’m being very generous), and they’re the only part of the game that’s even remotely good.
The overworld is where you’ll spend the biggest amount of time in the game, and at no point does it manage to justify its existence. It’s just big open spaces filled with nothing. Sure, there are enemies to fight, but it gets old quickly and it’s not rewarding: just like in a certain MMO from the same series, you’ll get 10 times more exp doing quests than fighting mobs, meaning every mob that’s not mandatory to kill is just a waste of time once leveling up starts to require bigger amounts of exp. Fighting enemies is useless, but so is exploration in itself, since the loot mechanics in this game are so laughably surface level I can't stop but wonder why they’re even here in the first place.
Final Fantasy XVI decided to ditch “RPG elements” to have its gameplay focus entirely on the combat itself, which is a choice i don’t have issues with on a fundamental level. Except that for some reason, the game decided to still have loot and crafting, but their implementation is laughable. Every enemy will drop some kind of materials, and other kind of materials are scattered all around the open world, and you use those materials to craft new weapons and equipment. Except all those new equipment do is increase numbers in a linear fashion. So all you have to do is craft whatever’s the strongest equipment at any given time because there’s never any situation where equipment X has slightly more damage but Y has added bonuses that would make you consider using it instead. And you get way too many materials to craft things anyway, like i had triple or even quadruple digits numbers of most of the materials which was useless, and it’s not because i farmed those, it just happens naturally.
The combat in this game is… Clearly lacking depth. Now I’m not an expert in “action games” the title took inspiration from, I just played the first 3 DMC games, bayonetta 1 and i guess nier automata if you want to count it as an action game (i wouldn’t) so maybe, just maybe, i just lack the necessary skills to make the combat more fun, but i doubt it.
Clive’s base toolkit is very limited. If you’ve played the demo you’ve seen it all, his base moves don’t evolve. There’s only one combo, a charge attack, a lunge/downthrust, and magic that you can either charge or weave in between hits of your one and only combo. You can also order torgal to launch enemies, but everything else has you rely on eikons. Want to warp to an enemy after launching him? That’s an eikonic ability. Grab an enemy from afar to pull them towards you? Eikonic ability. Since you can only equip 3 eikons at a time, that means two of the eikon slots have to be used by phoenix and garuda if you want to do longer combos.
Eikons also let you equip 2 abilities to them, and those all have cooldown. So while you can implement some of those attacks in a combo, once it’s done you have to wait before being able to do that combo again. But chances are after a while you won’t even do that, because of how the combat system works and how unbalanced the game is. Normal enemies pose literally no threat 99% so you can just do your basic juggle combo on them while waiting for your cooldowns to be off,which gets very very repetitive really quick, especially with how long the game is.
(Mini)Bosses are where the game’s system is really flawed. They all have a poise bar you can deplete by attacking, and once you break their bar they’re staggered for a while, and attacks will raise a dmg multiplier up to 1.5. Which means every single boss encounter will follow the same cycle: you dodge, use regular attacks and maybe some abilities to go faster, but your goal is to have as many abilities off cooldown for when the boss will be staggered since that’s when you’ll do the most damage. Even worse yet, some abilities are extremely broken when combined and it’s not hard at all to figure out which ones they are, so you’ll likely have them constantly equipped. There is almost no player expression in this game, instead the game plays more like something like Kingdom Hearts and i like kingdom hearts gameplay! But not for a game that long. Again, nothing in this game justifies it being that long.
The kaiju fights are.. Okay? They’re definitely some good spectacle but gameplay wise they’re not much better than the rest of the game, especially considering how long some of those can be. The QTEs are also hilarious, you have a 5 seconds window to press either R1 or square, it’s really funny. I absolutely disagree with the consensus that they’re “some of the best bosses ever”, they’re just cool looking bosses but they’re really not that thrilling to fight, it’s all style over substance (just like the rest of the game)
But what about the story, Final Fantasy is all about the story right? Well i want to keep my review spoilers free so i won’t delve too much into it, but it didn’t get me. The game opens up very strongly, but the more it goes on the more it sidelines all the interesting political stuff to instead become very “anime”. None of the characters really stood out to me, except like Cid he’s cool. Clive’s alright, Jill is a bowl of soup and there’s a couple side characters that are really cool (shoutouts to Dion and Byron, i like those guys) but it feels like none of the characters bare Clive are developed enough, even if you do the sidequests they’re like all missing something to be more than just pretty stereotypical characters, some of those being almost 1:1 copies of Game of thrones character (like yeah i do like Goetz but he’s literally just Hodor from GoT lol)
And what about the music? This game’s got to have good music right? Eeeeeeeeh. Older FF titles (except 15 which has the same issue imo) have really good and memorable music, the music in this game is just there. It’s like a movie score, sure it’s fitting most of the time but is it memorable, apart from a couple key songs? Not really. Worse than that, i’m actually wondering why the fuck they got Soken for it. I do like his work on FF14, but i think everyone will agree his best tracks are either rock and/or electronic music, which are genres completely absent from this game except for like one song. Everything in the game is just either medieval sounding stuff, or orchestra for the big fights. There’s also not a lot of variety in the songs which is insane. Like in A Realm Reborn alone, each city had its major themes that all gave off different vibes, Ul’dah has a bombastic song that screams of its riches, Limsa has a song that gives you the feeling of being called by the sea, Gridania is a calm and inviting place… FF16 has no diversity in its themes like that. Every city has the same songs, none of them give off really emotive vibes, they’re just medieval_town.mp3. The combat theme is always the same, same for the miniboss themes, even every eikon battle has the same song playing for the first phase… The only places where the music stops being repetitive is the dungeons, driving even further home the fact those are the only good piece of content of the game.
All in all, Final Fantasy XVI was a very mediocre experience for me. It’s a game that wanted to be different, but half baked everything. It’s a game that wants to be a dark and mature experience, but rapidly falls into common RPG tropes. It’s a game that wants to be a “spectacle fighting” game, but that doesn’t feature any deep mechanics to make that spectacle feel fun to play. It’s a game that wants to be a full length RPG, but doesn’t ever justify why it should be that long, it feels like it’s just that long either because you expect a Final Fantasy game to be long, or because the dev team behind it is a MMO team and apparently MMO devs are unaware MMO designs do not work in single player experiences. It’s a game full of flaws, and it feels like as soon as you start noticing some of those all the other ones become apparent really quick afterwards, leaving you with a game that has potential, but got so half baked it just ends up being the same thing Cid’s daughter is: Mid.
it's more armored core 1 but shorter (especially if you import your save)
i didn't really touch on the arena apart from like a couple fights to try it out, it's a neat concept but the base gameplay isn't fun enough for me to really care about it
that last boss got hand but unlike in Armored Core it doesn't happen in a really long and hard stage so it's way easier overall
i didn't really touch on the arena apart from like a couple fights to try it out, it's a neat concept but the base gameplay isn't fun enough for me to really care about it
that last boss got hand but unlike in Armored Core it doesn't happen in a really long and hard stage so it's way easier overall
The best one of the PS1 trilogy. The arena is finally mandatory (but not in a way that's annoying, which is cool), going from regular missions to 1v1 AC fights is really cool. The last level also was really good which is a big change from the previous games. There's no change to the gameplay (except new parts) so your enjoyment of the game will be tied to how much you enjoyed AC1/Project Phantasma, but if you did like those this one is by far better on every points, in my opinion
2000
it's more armored core. The jump to 60 FPS is awesome, the heat mechanic is whatever (it's annoying most of the time but sometimes you can make enemies overheat in the arena which is cool), and that's about it. more missions, more arena, at least this time you have to start from 0 instead of importing your mech but at its core (heh) it's just more of the same, which depending on how you feel about the previous games may be good or annoying
you have to complete all the missions to beat the game (there's 98 of them, not counting the postgame ones) and it's as fun as it sounds. 90% of them are extremely simple and boring, but some of the last ones are extremely hard and frustrating. this game doesn't add anything to AC2's formula, but it did remove the arena tho. It's an all around boring and unnecessary experience, unless you reaaaaaally loved AC2 i guess
2002
It's another Armored Core game, just like virtually every other games that came before it. You take what the previous game had, slap a few QoL improvements (like seriously i think the only big thing the series has added since the first game was the arena, and it was added in the second game), and you got a brand new game. At least this one had a few missions that felt a bit more unique than what gen 2 offered, and i like the atmosphere, but that's kinda it.. that doesn't mean it's a bad game, it's definitely a better one than 2/2AA but i'm starting to get tired of this series never really trying anything new, and from what i've heard this doesn't change until gen 4 sadly
it's still just the same game as last time + a couple QoL changes/more parts but this time i was actually pleasantly surprised because i feel like this game boasted the highest amount of unique missions. There's also a ton of hidden parts, multiple by missions, usually gotten by achieving certain objectives, which is neat tho the game doesn't tell you what the objectives are so you need to follow a guide
definitely the one title i'd recommend above the others if you only had to play one game from gen 1-3, tho i think it works better if you also played 3 beforehand
definitely the one title i'd recommend above the others if you only had to play one game from gen 1-3, tho i think it works better if you also played 3 beforehand
2020
This game manages to make the difficulty ramp up by doing more than just increasing the BPM of the songs/number of presses you need to do, and it also manages to have a story that on top of being pretty good (tho the dialogue feels a bit rough at times, which is probably a translation issue more than anything), actually mashes with the gameplay in a really cool way. The gameplay's awesome, the music is phenomenal, there's even a song from xaki, one of the composer for the hit visual novel Umineko: When They Cry which is a reason to play the game by itself if you ask me fr
2004
Disc 1 (Evolution) is kinda terrible. They added a new control scheme where you can finally use your right stick for camera control but i'm so used to the old controls i reverted to them after one mission. They also rebalanced everything. Those balances changes are mostly ass, like for example machine guns now have to reload every X shots which is stupid. The game's easy overall, but it never felt satisfying to play in the sense that unlike previous games i never really got to a point where my machine was an unstoppable behemoth, which is fun! the heat mechanic is now HORRIBLE, boosting now heats your mech and a lot of powerful boosters just melt your radiator it's no fun
The game also has changed the entire economy. Now selling parts doesn't give you back as much money as buying them, which is a stupid change because that means you can't just try out a new part for free now! But don't worry, it doesn't matter because every mission gives you 10 times more money than the repair/ammo cost, and so you're virtually never gonna run out of money. At this point why even have a shop, when you can virtually buy a brand new mech in like 5 missions (even without selling your current parts). They also made the shop UI worse than in AC3/SL which is really funny
They also got rid of the arena, now you just sometimes have missions that are 1v1 AC fights and that's it. The other missions are as uninteresting as ever, but i feel overall they're even shorter than ever. the last boss is somehow even funnier than the AC2 another age last boss in the category of "wait why is this dude the final boss"
Disc 2 (Revolution) is kinda cute but also eh? you play remakes of missions from Armored Core, Project Phantasma and Master of Arena, and they all have a reverse side (play for the opposite camp) and/or and extended side (a followup to the og mission) that adds more lore to them. It's cool conceptually, but since the mission design never really evolved it's not as cool as it could have been, even if there's some really cool fanservices for fan of the PS1 games. Had this disc not been here i would probably only have given 2.5 stars to the game, but even with this i still wouldn't recommend Nexus tbh
The game also has changed the entire economy. Now selling parts doesn't give you back as much money as buying them, which is a stupid change because that means you can't just try out a new part for free now! But don't worry, it doesn't matter because every mission gives you 10 times more money than the repair/ammo cost, and so you're virtually never gonna run out of money. At this point why even have a shop, when you can virtually buy a brand new mech in like 5 missions (even without selling your current parts). They also made the shop UI worse than in AC3/SL which is really funny
They also got rid of the arena, now you just sometimes have missions that are 1v1 AC fights and that's it. The other missions are as uninteresting as ever, but i feel overall they're even shorter than ever. the last boss is somehow even funnier than the AC2 another age last boss in the category of "wait why is this dude the final boss"
Disc 2 (Revolution) is kinda cute but also eh? you play remakes of missions from Armored Core, Project Phantasma and Master of Arena, and they all have a reverse side (play for the opposite camp) and/or and extended side (a followup to the og mission) that adds more lore to them. It's cool conceptually, but since the mission design never really evolved it's not as cool as it could have been, even if there's some really cool fanservices for fan of the PS1 games. Had this disc not been here i would probably only have given 2.5 stars to the game, but even with this i still wouldn't recommend Nexus tbh
yeah ok i played one hour and dropped it, i already knew about it beforehand but this game is just "training missions" that aren't really fun to go through, and an arena that does have an interesting concept behind it at least, instead of going up by beating your opponents you win or lose points depending on if you win/lose and that's about it. There's no shop so you need to have bought everything in nexus if you want to play, i could grind the arena to get top rank and do some missions but honestly i can't be assed to do so, maybe if i thought nexus had the sickest gameplay ever it'd be cool but i don't so eh, i got better things to do
yeah ok this game exists
i guess the concept of tuning an AI on top of your AC is kinda cool but like you can just manually pilot the AC which feels like it's stronger 99% of the time
the controls are not great cause the PSP has less buttons, and having everything in your garage from the get go kinda sucks, there's no sense of progression at all due to that, i basically made a big tank with big energy weapons and went through the whole game with it.
Some fights can be a pain in the butt depending on your build but that's like in every AC arena fight. None of the fights really felt unique enough for me to remember them tho, at least for once the final boss isn't nine balls ig
i guess the concept of tuning an AI on top of your AC is kinda cool but like you can just manually pilot the AC which feels like it's stronger 99% of the time
the controls are not great cause the PSP has less buttons, and having everything in your garage from the get go kinda sucks, there's no sense of progression at all due to that, i basically made a big tank with big energy weapons and went through the whole game with it.
Some fights can be a pain in the butt depending on your build but that's like in every AC arena fight. None of the fights really felt unique enough for me to remember them tho, at least for once the final boss isn't nine balls ig
From it's intro cutscene alone, Last Raven is a game that stands out from the rest of the series up to that point, with its gritty tone and for the first time ever, appearance of human beings outside of the mechs. I went into the game with high expectations, as I heard that Last Raven is as good as it is hard, and this cutscene immediately hooked me up.
Last Raven, in more than one way, feel like both the culmination and a goodbye to the "old gen" AC games. The game adds a part breaking mechanic (each AC part can now be damaged which reduces their efficiency, or straight up destroyed which forces you to buy them again), rebalances stuff from Nexus/Nine Breaker, and the arena’s back, but on the surface, it's just like every single game (minus Formula Front and I guess Nine Breaker) since Armored Core 1 released: the same as the previous game with a few additions. But saying Last Raven is just like the previous games is a huge understatement, because while there's a lot that's different outside of the "base gameplay" that it makes the game stand out above every other ones.
Firstly, the story. After the ending of Nexus, corporations have all merged into Alliance, and the Ravens have split between serving Alliance, trying to be standalone warlords, or joining Vertex, which is basically the remnant of the Raven's Nest that didn't join Alliance. War ensued, and Vertex put an ultimatum: in 24 hours, they'll launch a massive attack.
The game's entire structure revolves around those 24 hours. Each time you clear a mission, time marches forward. No matter who you choose to help, doom seems inevitable, and the game really plays off that atmosphere really well. The garage music evolves as time is running out, you can check the status of the other Ravens and slowly but surely see that everyone is dying, the doomsday scenario of this game is great. Not only that, but who you choose to help matters! The game has multiple routes, depending on who you decide to side with. I only played one of the routes so far but from what i've heard, depending on the route you take, motivations for some characters will be revealed whereas they're a mystery in the other routes, which is really good both for worldbuilding but also replayability.
The progression of the game thanks to the doomsday scenario is also greatly improved. For once, you’re not just playing as a mercenary, you’re playing as a mercenary in a world that’s running out of time. Meaning not only the number of missions on each route is way lower than usual (for most of the game the clock advances by 2 hours for each mission), but they also all feel more interesting than in previous games. Sure, you still have some missions that just require you to kill a dozen MTs and you’re done, but this time the context of the story makes it feel more involved.
But the one big thing that makes the missions stand out is the difficulty. There are easy missions, of course, but every mission that requires you to fight an AC is on a whole different level. Simply put, ACs in this game are straight up cheating. They all have human plus/OP-INTENSIFY, which you can’t have, and their AI is NOT playing games, they’re fighting for their life as much as you are! I think i even read somewhere that their pattern will adapt to what kind of build you have, tho it may just be internet rumors. No matter if it’s real or not tho, the difficulty of those boss fights is real, and you will have to adapt. While it’s still possible to find a build that suits your playstyle for most of the game, Last Raven is by far the one game that will require you to modify your build the most, because some archetypes are a nightmare to use against some bosses. It feels like the game tends to emphasize being fast and flying around, which sucked for me since i tend to be a quad legs user, but you can still just use a good old tank…. In most situations, at least.
I only finished one route for now, but even then, Last Raven is by far the best the series has to offer, at least so far (i still have to play gen 4-6). It’s not easy to recommend to someone who never played one of the old gen AC game due to how brutal it can and will be, but if someone’s already into the series, it’s a must play. While it may sometimes be frustrating and unfair, finally managing to beat whatever boss is giving you trouble has never felt that good, which is just like another series From Software is known to have worked on
UPDATE: after clearing all the routes i'm upping this game from 4.5 to 5 stars. It's GOOD on a single route, it gets even more awesome once you start getting into the hardest routes. I'm still shaking from the Zinaida fight it's so peak
Last Raven, in more than one way, feel like both the culmination and a goodbye to the "old gen" AC games. The game adds a part breaking mechanic (each AC part can now be damaged which reduces their efficiency, or straight up destroyed which forces you to buy them again), rebalances stuff from Nexus/Nine Breaker, and the arena’s back, but on the surface, it's just like every single game (minus Formula Front and I guess Nine Breaker) since Armored Core 1 released: the same as the previous game with a few additions. But saying Last Raven is just like the previous games is a huge understatement, because while there's a lot that's different outside of the "base gameplay" that it makes the game stand out above every other ones.
Firstly, the story. After the ending of Nexus, corporations have all merged into Alliance, and the Ravens have split between serving Alliance, trying to be standalone warlords, or joining Vertex, which is basically the remnant of the Raven's Nest that didn't join Alliance. War ensued, and Vertex put an ultimatum: in 24 hours, they'll launch a massive attack.
The game's entire structure revolves around those 24 hours. Each time you clear a mission, time marches forward. No matter who you choose to help, doom seems inevitable, and the game really plays off that atmosphere really well. The garage music evolves as time is running out, you can check the status of the other Ravens and slowly but surely see that everyone is dying, the doomsday scenario of this game is great. Not only that, but who you choose to help matters! The game has multiple routes, depending on who you decide to side with. I only played one of the routes so far but from what i've heard, depending on the route you take, motivations for some characters will be revealed whereas they're a mystery in the other routes, which is really good both for worldbuilding but also replayability.
The progression of the game thanks to the doomsday scenario is also greatly improved. For once, you’re not just playing as a mercenary, you’re playing as a mercenary in a world that’s running out of time. Meaning not only the number of missions on each route is way lower than usual (for most of the game the clock advances by 2 hours for each mission), but they also all feel more interesting than in previous games. Sure, you still have some missions that just require you to kill a dozen MTs and you’re done, but this time the context of the story makes it feel more involved.
But the one big thing that makes the missions stand out is the difficulty. There are easy missions, of course, but every mission that requires you to fight an AC is on a whole different level. Simply put, ACs in this game are straight up cheating. They all have human plus/OP-INTENSIFY, which you can’t have, and their AI is NOT playing games, they’re fighting for their life as much as you are! I think i even read somewhere that their pattern will adapt to what kind of build you have, tho it may just be internet rumors. No matter if it’s real or not tho, the difficulty of those boss fights is real, and you will have to adapt. While it’s still possible to find a build that suits your playstyle for most of the game, Last Raven is by far the one game that will require you to modify your build the most, because some archetypes are a nightmare to use against some bosses. It feels like the game tends to emphasize being fast and flying around, which sucked for me since i tend to be a quad legs user, but you can still just use a good old tank…. In most situations, at least.
I only finished one route for now, but even then, Last Raven is by far the best the series has to offer, at least so far (i still have to play gen 4-6). It’s not easy to recommend to someone who never played one of the old gen AC game due to how brutal it can and will be, but if someone’s already into the series, it’s a must play. While it may sometimes be frustrating and unfair, finally managing to beat whatever boss is giving you trouble has never felt that good, which is just like another series From Software is known to have worked on
UPDATE: after clearing all the routes i'm upping this game from 4.5 to 5 stars. It's GOOD on a single route, it gets even more awesome once you start getting into the hardest routes. I'm still shaking from the Zinaida fight it's so peak
2006
In another universe, From Software fired Miyazaki after realizing how ass this game is, making Dark Souls and its consequences on the game industry but a fever dream.
Armored Core 4 is very different from its predecessor; Ravens are now called LYNX, ACs are now called NEXTs, at least that's how it's supposed to be but half the time in game dialogue uses the old terms (i have no idea if it's on purpose or not). The game is now much more focused on speed and aerial combat, it's very easy to make an AC with near infinite flight capacities, and you now have 3 buttons assigned to boost all around the place, the movement in this game feels really neat!
Unfortunately, movement is the really good thing the game has going for it, mechanically speaking. The customization UI is terrible, probably the worst from the series so far, getting to understand where to go to build your AC and how to even display how much money you have took me a few minutes. I do like the idea of getting blueprints of ACs you defeat tho, that concept is neat.
Heating has been removed, and weight now functions differently, you just have an overall weight value instead of having arm and legs weight. (at least i think so; again, that customization UI is dogshit) So are optional parts and tuning, now you just get FRS points that let you finetune your AC, letting you get more turning speed, boost power, energy output, damage, w/e you want. The game doesn't explain that at all tho and the same applies to the stabilizer mechanic, i have no idea what those do or which ones are good.
The part selection is... Eh. I didn't really vibe with any of the weapons. In fact, one of my biggest issue with this game is how the combat feels like it's lacking some feedbacks. When i get hit, i barely register what's happening, i just see my HP go down but whatever's hitting me doesn't really have enough visual impact for it to feel like i get hit, and the same kinda applies to when i hit something, it's the same kind of issue i have with the Halo games I played.
The missions are a biiiig whatever dude. They exist. Some of them even last longer than 30 seconds, but most don't. There's a few that feels really cool, you're just blasting around at extremely high speed, blasting small robots that pose you no threat at all, it's neat and really highlight how sick the movement is and how much you feel like an unstoppable mecha... Except they never last really long enough to ever feel good. There's also no really challenging missions, which isn't really an issue by itself but after how GOOD Last Raven was because it was beating your ass half the time, it's a bit disappointing. The game is also ridiculously short, it took me 6h30 to beat it and that includes the fact i was idling in menus for long period of times and also had to redo some missions because i forgot to save and the emulator sometimes crashes on cutscenes.
The story is also like so weird. Corporations are fighting each others and you gradually destroy them all i think but the game gives so little like actual story it's hard to feel involved in it. i could barely give you the name of any corporation and who i was fighting for the most because it really feel like it doesn't matter, you just destroy shit in missions and sometimes it apparently "changes the world" but there's no real impact. Again, i wouldn't mind it that much normally if the previous game wasn't that good in that regard.
At least the music's really good, but apart from that and the movement being badass there's not much of value to be found in Armored Core 4, and comparing it to Last Raven makes it even worse
Armored Core 4 is very different from its predecessor; Ravens are now called LYNX, ACs are now called NEXTs, at least that's how it's supposed to be but half the time in game dialogue uses the old terms (i have no idea if it's on purpose or not). The game is now much more focused on speed and aerial combat, it's very easy to make an AC with near infinite flight capacities, and you now have 3 buttons assigned to boost all around the place, the movement in this game feels really neat!
Unfortunately, movement is the really good thing the game has going for it, mechanically speaking. The customization UI is terrible, probably the worst from the series so far, getting to understand where to go to build your AC and how to even display how much money you have took me a few minutes. I do like the idea of getting blueprints of ACs you defeat tho, that concept is neat.
Heating has been removed, and weight now functions differently, you just have an overall weight value instead of having arm and legs weight. (at least i think so; again, that customization UI is dogshit) So are optional parts and tuning, now you just get FRS points that let you finetune your AC, letting you get more turning speed, boost power, energy output, damage, w/e you want. The game doesn't explain that at all tho and the same applies to the stabilizer mechanic, i have no idea what those do or which ones are good.
The part selection is... Eh. I didn't really vibe with any of the weapons. In fact, one of my biggest issue with this game is how the combat feels like it's lacking some feedbacks. When i get hit, i barely register what's happening, i just see my HP go down but whatever's hitting me doesn't really have enough visual impact for it to feel like i get hit, and the same kinda applies to when i hit something, it's the same kind of issue i have with the Halo games I played.
The missions are a biiiig whatever dude. They exist. Some of them even last longer than 30 seconds, but most don't. There's a few that feels really cool, you're just blasting around at extremely high speed, blasting small robots that pose you no threat at all, it's neat and really highlight how sick the movement is and how much you feel like an unstoppable mecha... Except they never last really long enough to ever feel good. There's also no really challenging missions, which isn't really an issue by itself but after how GOOD Last Raven was because it was beating your ass half the time, it's a bit disappointing. The game is also ridiculously short, it took me 6h30 to beat it and that includes the fact i was idling in menus for long period of times and also had to redo some missions because i forgot to save and the emulator sometimes crashes on cutscenes.
The story is also like so weird. Corporations are fighting each others and you gradually destroy them all i think but the game gives so little like actual story it's hard to feel involved in it. i could barely give you the name of any corporation and who i was fighting for the most because it really feel like it doesn't matter, you just destroy shit in missions and sometimes it apparently "changes the world" but there's no real impact. Again, i wouldn't mind it that much normally if the previous game wasn't that good in that regard.
At least the music's really good, but apart from that and the movement being badass there's not much of value to be found in Armored Core 4, and comparing it to Last Raven makes it even worse
"Oh shit we forgot to put actual missions in AC4" - Miyazaki coming up with For Answer, probably
Just like Last Raven before it, For Answer follows up on a mediocre game and turns it into something great, although for reasons completely different than Last Raven; LR is the hardest AC game, but FA is definitely the easiest one so far.
FA saw the good points of AC4 and doubled down on them: never before have you been so fast, flying around infinitely is now basically a given and it rules. In AC4, sometimes you'd feel like a badass because you're just controlling a huge mech and blowing up everything (something cool on a fundamental level), but it never lasted long enough for it to ever feel that good. FA solves this by making missions longer, and more varied: from destroying huge fleets of dozens and dozens of battleships to fighting city sized forts, the variety of stuff to blow up in FA is extremely good, and even having to replay missions for the different endings doesn't feel like a chore. The final chapter of the last ending is just literally insane and something i'm sure to remember for a long time, truly the second best AC game to me (LR still clears) and definitely the one i'd recommend the most to people willing to play one of the older AC games
Just like Last Raven before it, For Answer follows up on a mediocre game and turns it into something great, although for reasons completely different than Last Raven; LR is the hardest AC game, but FA is definitely the easiest one so far.
FA saw the good points of AC4 and doubled down on them: never before have you been so fast, flying around infinitely is now basically a given and it rules. In AC4, sometimes you'd feel like a badass because you're just controlling a huge mech and blowing up everything (something cool on a fundamental level), but it never lasted long enough for it to ever feel that good. FA solves this by making missions longer, and more varied: from destroying huge fleets of dozens and dozens of battleships to fighting city sized forts, the variety of stuff to blow up in FA is extremely good, and even having to replay missions for the different endings doesn't feel like a chore. The final chapter of the last ending is just literally insane and something i'm sure to remember for a long time, truly the second best AC game to me (LR still clears) and definitely the one i'd recommend the most to people willing to play one of the older AC games