When it became official that I had gone insane and was going to Play Every Armored Core, I knew Last Raven had to be the last one. On top of being thematically the end of an era, it is by reputation the hardest game in the series, or depending on who you ask, the hardest FromSoftware game ever. I made the right choice, because this was an incredible note on which to end my idiotic nerd ass journey.
First things first: I think the difficulty is somewhat overhyped. I could be wrong; they say Nine Breaker, piece of shit that it is, is supposed to legitimately teach you how to play Armored Core properly. Maybe it actually worked. Maybe I'm good at video games now. Either way, Last Raven is definitely hard, but for my money, if you know how to counterbuild there are only a few really extreme spikes. It's not a grueling game. For my money.
More importantly, it's just, fuck. FUCK, this game is good. It further refines Nexus's big mechanical changes and then gives you drastically better material to engage with them. The mission design here is just about peak; there are a limited number of maps and it pulls that Another Age trick of having multiple missions where you're on different sides of what is clearly the same incident, but the map design is great (mostly), the scenarios are rich and varied and keep you guessing, and the pacing is airtight.
Combat itself is also incredible. This is my favorite arena in the series; I beat most fights in one or two tries but they were brutal, exciting tries. The AI behaves differently in Last Raven than in most games, but I don't know if I should say it's smarter or slightly dumber. Enemy Ravens have preferred strategies, are aggressive yet reactive to what you're doing, and generally seem to behave more logically--which can make them more predictable, in a good way. They're not pushovers (infamously, every single one of them has Human Plus/OP-INTENSIFY effects even though the player can't get those in this game), but beating one really feels like you're outsmarting a rival.
In general, the level of polish and depth on display here is as much what makes it natural Grand Finale material as anything. There's such a sense of completeness to Last Raven; every game that came before it was study material, and this is the exam. It's oldgen Armored Core in its most evolved form. There's a sense that something has been perfected, not in the sense that it's totally without flaws but in that it's realized its full potential at being what it is. It gives you kind of an insight into why AC4 was such a huge shift in direction; where the hell else would you go from here?
The story is kind of gonzo (affectionate), if only because of the structure. This is the first game in the series with multiple endings, and the one with the largest number at six (or seven, depending on what you count). The way this works is: a single playthrough is only between ten and fifteen missions long, you're choosing between several mission options at almost every stage, and there's an absurdly intricate and totally invisible pathing system in which previous mission choices dictate future options, eventually locking you into an ending.
Use a guide. You can get your first ending blind if you want (I did), but if your goal is to find everything yourself I do not know how long it's gonna take you. This is all paired with the ridiculous (affectionate) premise that the game, representing about a dozen discrete fully organized combat missions carried out by a single person, takes place over the course of 24 hours--you know, like that TV show. What was it called again?
This wacky progression structure is a double-edged sword, though; I consider it both one of the many good things about the game and probably the worst thing. It's a type of ambitious jank I tend to love and respect, but it must be said that on top of playing through six times for the six endings, according to the guide I'm using it takes at least another four to complete all missions, which is the requirement for unlocking a sort of EX Boss that I very much intend to get to. It's a short game, but ten runs is pushing it, especially considering how many times you have to repeat certain missions to get to the new ones.
In a lot of ways I was surprised by how forgiving Last Raven is, considering the reputation. As in Nexus before it, it's honestly quite difficult to lose money on a mission; even if you barely survive, most payouts are going to be larger than expenses on the order of a full digit or even two. Nexus's tuning mechanic no longer costs you anything, either. The upshot is that if you're importing a save and getting a head start on collecting parts, you will have more money than you could possibly spend at pretty much all times.
This is important context for the parts damage mechanic you may have heard of, in which it's actually possible for parts of your AC to be permanently destroyed so that you have to buy replacements; with how rich you are, this is not a major concern. And frankly it's very rare anyway; you have to be VERY near death, and even then it's far from a guarantee that a particular body part will have taken enough hits. The mechanic is more of a funny curiosity; it's kind of hilarious to get out of a really clutch fight and see the default legs on your AC in the garage.
That said, when the game decides to get really hard it does get really hard. A lot of people wholeheartedly advise you to give yourself an approximation of Human Plus with cheat codes; if every enemy is using it, why not level the playing field, right? I definitely don't blame or judge anyone who decides to do that, but I was having a good enough time that I didn't want to. The final boss of the sixth route, the most notorious fight in the game, almost broke me. Part of what stopped me is that it seemed so impossible at first that I wasn't sure how much H+ would even help.
But it was, unironically, a skill issue; I wasted a lot of time overthinking what build would be best, but I ended up literally just doing it with double rifles. All you need for Zinaida is patient, defensive play, good movement fundamentals, and Execution. Can't relate to people who get tilted at her. I for one love to see a girlboss win.
Armored Core: Last Raven is absolutely one of the best games in the series. I can't recommend it enough, but it's definitely worth playing at least through the rest of gen 3 first. The whole experience is designed to be an Ending, so make it a satisfying one.
Good work, Ravens. Let's head back.