do you like the oldgen mission format, AC vs AC fights and uh... programming? if so, then boy oh boy have i got the game for you:

...it's a shame there aren't more campaign set pieces a la ACV, but if their absence means having order missions that don't suck ass, maybe that's not such a huge price to pay. i'll certainly take 60 solid missions over 9 good ones and 80+ that suck ass

final boss made me remember things

proof that dumbasses will clown on anything that differs from what they're comfortable with. take it from someone who had zero gen 5 experience and nearly wrote this game (as well as verdict day) off due to its flak and generally misconceived perceptions as being outdated and invalidated:

these people are fuckin' wrong!

yeah - the ACs are shorter and stockier, the game's slower paced and the combat's more tactical. but this is a problem... why? as if 4/fa weren't massive departures for the series in the first place, gen 5 tends to be treated like a black sheep when it has more in common with old gen to begin with. give me a break

if you like weighty mechs that feel akin to cobbled together machinery - this may be the AC for you! movement seems limited compared to gen 1-3 on paper, but it also boasts more potential. you may not be able to boost directly up in the air - fly high or watch the sun rise - but you can hop up and off walls infinitely, hover in midair and execute a slew of more advanced movements that amp the mobility tenfold

a lot of gen 6 ideas can be seen in their infancy here. shape based emblem editing that doesn't suck ass is a nice one (iykyk) as well as the boost kick and scan mode. more importantly, weapon bays make their first proper appearance (hangars don't count) and they're especially significant due to there being 3 damage types this time around. if this sounds daunting - it isn't. so as long as this image doesn't describe your attitude, you'll be fine - you have five fucking weapons - do the math

as for the campaign: it's all killer and no filler for the main story missions. they're lengthy and totally substantial - clocking in at around 10-20 minutes minimum and 20-40 a pop on average. here's the catch: there's only 10 of them (one less if you don't count the finale being a potentially 15 second long boss fight). it's pretty short. additionally there's 80 or so "order missions" which serve as a sort of postgame side content, but they're pathetically simple compared to the main story, super trivial and probably not worth the time

but overall - fuck what you've heard. this game's fun. if the short campaign doesn't sway you too negatively, pick it up. it's still a rewarding single player experience and physical copies aren't nearly as outrageously priced as vd's

oh yeah - soundtrack bangs too - but you knew that already

utterly stomps the shit out of its predecessor in every regard. way better missions, music and narrative. definitely starts with its weaker leg forward, but those last two endings - the fucking audacity of this game - it's unreal

unfortunately the localization is a bit muddy, but that's true of 4 as well. voice acting's still top notch but you might need to look at a wiki to grasp some of the character motivations and other behind-the-scenes stuff. not a big deal, but worth noting nonetheless

by the way: zinaida was still harder than that one mission - even on hard. if you've played it, you know the one

i was pretty blown away right off the bat by this game's speed, scope and scale. i mean fuck - skydiving past anti air lasers in the second mission? destroying a fleet of battleships shortly after?? being able to destroy a gen 1 AC by flicking it??? shit's crazy!!!

it was kinda surprising how fast-moving the narrative was in general. the foreshadowing towards a grand scale war over a clearly dangerous resource, the rising value of the player as a mercenary - leveling a corporation's entire base of operations halfway through the game? imagine my shock!

...when the following mission ended with credits

that's it? that's armored core 4?! this game is like 30 seconds long and hardly anything actually happens in it!! what the fuck?? this is effectively a prologue and a tech demo. i mean, don't get me wrong - it's a cool tech demo and it's really fun while it lasts - but holy shit is it brief and anticlimactic

anyway. nice appetizer. some of the hard missions were cool too i guess. fuck that 4v1. i'll be getting to for answer now

sleek and dark even by the standards of a series that operates on those terms. cranks the industrial hellscape vibes to infinity both sonically and aesthetically and i'm here for all of it

route system is badass - the constant feeling of impending doom absolutely menacing. enemy ACs are fun to fight and can be seriously trying (not to mention raven personalities are actually memorable now too)

weapon balancing is also at an all time high. seriously, i feel like just about anything is viable in this game if you've got the skill and know-how to make it work. i never changed up my builds - or saved multiple ones - nearly as much in any other game in the series. i did that constantly here

i have exactly two gripes:

1. there's one ending in particular that's pretty much the objectively most climactic and finalizing of them all. it's by far the most difficult and the most cinematic too. this was my second route... so the following ones felt much more whelming than they probably should have

2. mopping up stray missions for 100% is a bit of a chore. if you could just play any mission out of sequence after getting the main endings - that'd be perfect. i don't really think the superboss is significant or challenging enough to justify an additional five playthroughs (minimum) just to access it.

that's the extent of my negativity. this is a killer fucking game. old gen seriously ended with a bang

fucking awesome. doubles as a really solid entry in its own right and an incredible love letter to the rest of the series by this point. top it off with an absolutely killer soundtrack and you've got one for the ages - the agetec, if you will

not every mission is a banger (some, like 'eliminate vip' are downright hilarious in how worthless they are) but the biggest point of controversy - the cooling system - in spite of everything is:

A. not a problem
B. turbo filtration at its finest

actually needing to be somewhat concerned about heat is a completely reasonable handicap to balance out the new controls. tuning is a great addition as well and allows for a decent amount of build customization. ammo capacities are slim, but weapon hangers are a fun remedy for that and most missions are brief and focused enough to not be too restrictive anyway. additionally, they're much more cinematic this time around and the cutscenes go insanely hard

also - one of the best openings and endings of any game ever. i was really confused by a review below talking about this game's finale being more impactful than "all of ac6's endings". but uh, yeah. wow. holy SHIT

cool premise but narratively it's a lot of wasted potential because almost nothing happens throughout. definitely feels more like an expansion than a true sequel to 3 - albeit not to the borderline insulting degree of another age

a few missions were pretty tough, but overall i think 3 is a little more consistently challenging. the final boss here is especially a fucking joke. bro ate lead before he could even fire off a single meaningful attack. bro couldn't even stack up to the controller. fuck outta here loser go hang out with stinger

...also: why in the world is a moa-tier version of the finger the unlock for finishing the arena? why are you rewarding me with actual garbage?? do you intend to fucking mock me???

completely superior to the first two generations in pretty much every regard. has the same narrative concept as ac1 but it's told in a way that's significantly less stiff and amateurish. no nine-ball tho - kinda tragic

could be a tad harder by the end (that final stage was a little toothless, albeit a cute nod) but it's all killer and no filler nonetheless. not one mission felt like an eye-rolling¹ waste of time²

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1. armored core 2: another age
2. armored core 2: another age

this could've been the best out of the first two gens if it only just had like 80 of its 100 missions cut out. instead it's the weakest entry so far. the nonexistent narrative and total lack of context for much of anything doesn't help matters

there's way too much "go back to the brown cave and kill disorder units" and "blow up every box in this boring maze". not nearly enough "shoot enemies from atop a moving airplane" or "destroy a fleet of battleships"

this would probably be a 4/10 if not for the massive mt and the multi-ac fights. those went hard

looks, sounds and feels nicer than first gen. the arena is especially much better this time around - both in terms of raven personalities and the fights themselves. missions are pretty standard and overall unmemorable though. holding higher hopes for another age on that front

klein's a cool antagonist with some interesting implications, but not a whole lot happens with him. final boss was a fucking joke. gave me intense stinger flashbacks

shout outs to hustler two and count one tho. they're real af

if project phantasma was a shorter and less substantial ac1 with marginally better gameplay, then this is an even shorter version of that with little to no improvements across the board. that said, there's nothing really downgraded here either (except for the wa-finger being nerfed out of fucking existence - that was truly tragic)

i don't really get what others love so much about this game's arena. the extra disc has its moments, but generally enemies just let you absolutely obliterate them with barely any resistance. there's virtually zero difference between the sub arena and the actual arena. no wonder some of these losers were selected for human plus - they cannot hit SHIT

as for the missions, they're easily the weakest in all of gen 1. honestly i'd say the most captivating thing here is the story - minimalistic as it is, it's pretty neat

nine-ball's cool in general though. shout out to tha goat. i'd kill the protagonist's family too. prolly had it coming

some of the fellas here are in DIRE need of reeducation

total blast from start to finish - even after the third playthrough. narratively it's just the right amount of explanation vs interpretation with a compelling cast whose voices are so well spoken that you'll remember the mains (especially walter and rusty) in full color even without putting a single name to face

they lend an incredible amount of authenticity to the story, which is pretty subtle overall and relies on foreshadowing and tension more so than big twists. i'll keep it vague and just say that when it comes to solidifying the routes, megaten ain't got shit

as far as combat goes, it feels great and build variety is top notch. there's something to be said about how some playstyles can outshine others in terms of efficiency/simplicity, but the biggest strength of the AC customization is that you're ultimately able to use whatever you enjoy (within the compromises of weight/energy restrictions, anyway). 100% buy/sell rates ensure you can always experiment and try new things too

some would claim this stops being the case with the "big bosses", which the same people tend to compare towards sekiro and dark souls, but i'd argue that's a case of what we in the biz refer to as a "skill issue" and nothing less. simply put - you can beat balteus with whatever the hell you want - i used two shitty assault rifles because i didn't want to restart the mission and it worked just fine (sure it took four hours of trial and error, but still - i got really good after that!)

also: this game's fucking gorgeous. and it only ramps up progressively more on that front as it goes on. i swear each chapter has at least 3 wallpaper worthy shots in cutscenes alone. music's killer too - more subdued than what you'd probably expect from hoshino (most of the time) but i dig the reznor vibes just as much as the autotuned dog barks, y'know?

at first i didn't really want to write a long review here, but it felt wrong just submitting a vague joke that only certain people would understand. so instead i decided to write that exact same joke anyway, but sandwich this review between it so i'd feel like i still did justice on one of my favorite games in the past ten years. now i'm the freelancer who has it all

main system: activating combat mode

rance's sense of humor and the way it builds its cast is like baiting someone into the pipeline for a series of deez nuts jokes and then hitting them with a thousand gottis simultaneously

i mean that in the absolute best way possible. but you know what isn't good? this game's dumbass grindy event orb system, which is too inane to even describe concisely. also - a minor point but the ui is the ugliest fucking puke ridden disaster i've ever seen. it looks like the worlds shittiest winamp skin and i say that as someone who unironically uses winamp

anyway this would be more like a 7.5 but i'm going to round up out of respect for my GOATs sieg and anise