waskindaepic
This review contains spoilers
Armored Core: For Answer is not a game fit for human consumption, which is precisely why I love it so much. For some unneeded context for the contents of this review the only AC game I had played prior to ACFA was AC6, which colored a lot of my perspective when playing ACFA.
FA at the start doesn't toss you into the deep end, there's a surprisingly decent tutorial which teaches how to pilot your mech and should equip you to deal with the first few missions up until you fight the cover character "White Glint" where if you didn't look up anything prior like I did you GET CURBSTOMPED because the game didn't tell you about mechanics like quick turning and chain boosting.
I don't think this is super egregious but both of those mechanics cannot be landed upon on accident when using your mech due to the super specific inputs required atleast on the REGULAR-B control setup which is the best way to play. the "SIMPLE" control setup is a LIE made by Miyazaki because he hates you.
Trivial things aside few things I felt immediately when booting this game up was it's tone and presentation, with the main menu screen where you access all the missions feeling like a computer terminal, the briefs you recieve before the missions having varying graphical styles depending on what corporation you decide to work for and the safe corporate language they use despite the work they ask you to do always ending with the deaths of thousands on your mechanical hands regardless of what path you're on.
It all factors into selling the dystopia, the gameplay as well bolsters this fact these deathmachines you pilot feel good you can really understand how someone would grow desensitized to the killing. I wouldn't be surprised if the AMS system the NEXTS (what the mechs are called) use to make pilots synchronize with the NEXT blur out the faces of the humans they slaughter.
The music also feels almost diegetic? like it's so weird and melancholic I wouldn't be surprised if in verse it was composed by some underground rock group deep below the toxic wastelands of this armored hellscape. Safe to say it's a highlight. Specifically I loved the tracks "Remember", "Precious Park", "Someone is Always Moving on the Surface" and lastly "After The Time". Hell I'd say listen to them even if you don't intend to play ACFA, it's a soundtrack that can exist and stand proudly outside it's own context.
Aesthetics aside, what does this game offer in terms of minute to minute gameplay. You can expect insane frenetic action with enemies turning into tiny red dots that you pray that your bullets are hitting and then suddenly get hit with the mission complete dialogue while you're sweating buckets. Unfortunately this description isn't entirely accurate for every mission in the game. Some missions you can beat without ever needing to worry about your AP going below 95% I'd say most missions that don't involve either Arms Forts (Big Weaponized Fortresses) or Enemy Nexts kinda fall into this category.
It felt like they failed in grasping just how fast and strong your tools of war are, so much so I rarely felt challenged in those types of Missions. Until I reached the NEXT and Arms Forts fights, Arms Forts are more of a puzzle than a challenging mechanical fight. Each one will have a gimmick and your job is get your NEXT to exploit it and win the battle. They force you to interact with them in specific ways and I find that fun. Fights with NEXTS however truly feel like the pinnacle of what this game can achieve and easily match the grandiose description I gave for the gameplay earlier.
However if I were to mention one last flaw it's mech customization. I think this game incentives you heavily to build light to mid weight mechs as the draw backs for being "slow" just end up being too high in practice (become the robot equivalent of a sitting duck). While you will swap out weapons and parts you won't ever really change the core essence of your build.
I ended up going for all 3 endings, S ranking all 42 missions including hard mode variations (which is a must play due to the wrenches it tosses into the previously established missions in the form of adding more enemies or upping environmental effects etc) and had a grand old time with it. ALSO I STAND WITH ORCA.
"League Dogs! Welcome To Earth!"
- Maximilian Thermidor, My Beloved.
FA at the start doesn't toss you into the deep end, there's a surprisingly decent tutorial which teaches how to pilot your mech and should equip you to deal with the first few missions up until you fight the cover character "White Glint" where if you didn't look up anything prior like I did you GET CURBSTOMPED because the game didn't tell you about mechanics like quick turning and chain boosting.
I don't think this is super egregious but both of those mechanics cannot be landed upon on accident when using your mech due to the super specific inputs required atleast on the REGULAR-B control setup which is the best way to play. the "SIMPLE" control setup is a LIE made by Miyazaki because he hates you.
Trivial things aside few things I felt immediately when booting this game up was it's tone and presentation, with the main menu screen where you access all the missions feeling like a computer terminal, the briefs you recieve before the missions having varying graphical styles depending on what corporation you decide to work for and the safe corporate language they use despite the work they ask you to do always ending with the deaths of thousands on your mechanical hands regardless of what path you're on.
It all factors into selling the dystopia, the gameplay as well bolsters this fact these deathmachines you pilot feel good you can really understand how someone would grow desensitized to the killing. I wouldn't be surprised if the AMS system the NEXTS (what the mechs are called) use to make pilots synchronize with the NEXT blur out the faces of the humans they slaughter.
The music also feels almost diegetic? like it's so weird and melancholic I wouldn't be surprised if in verse it was composed by some underground rock group deep below the toxic wastelands of this armored hellscape. Safe to say it's a highlight. Specifically I loved the tracks "Remember", "Precious Park", "Someone is Always Moving on the Surface" and lastly "After The Time". Hell I'd say listen to them even if you don't intend to play ACFA, it's a soundtrack that can exist and stand proudly outside it's own context.
Aesthetics aside, what does this game offer in terms of minute to minute gameplay. You can expect insane frenetic action with enemies turning into tiny red dots that you pray that your bullets are hitting and then suddenly get hit with the mission complete dialogue while you're sweating buckets. Unfortunately this description isn't entirely accurate for every mission in the game. Some missions you can beat without ever needing to worry about your AP going below 95% I'd say most missions that don't involve either Arms Forts (Big Weaponized Fortresses) or Enemy Nexts kinda fall into this category.
It felt like they failed in grasping just how fast and strong your tools of war are, so much so I rarely felt challenged in those types of Missions. Until I reached the NEXT and Arms Forts fights, Arms Forts are more of a puzzle than a challenging mechanical fight. Each one will have a gimmick and your job is get your NEXT to exploit it and win the battle. They force you to interact with them in specific ways and I find that fun. Fights with NEXTS however truly feel like the pinnacle of what this game can achieve and easily match the grandiose description I gave for the gameplay earlier.
However if I were to mention one last flaw it's mech customization. I think this game incentives you heavily to build light to mid weight mechs as the draw backs for being "slow" just end up being too high in practice (become the robot equivalent of a sitting duck). While you will swap out weapons and parts you won't ever really change the core essence of your build.
I ended up going for all 3 endings, S ranking all 42 missions including hard mode variations (which is a must play due to the wrenches it tosses into the previously established missions in the form of adding more enemies or upping environmental effects etc) and had a grand old time with it. ALSO I STAND WITH ORCA.
"League Dogs! Welcome To Earth!"
- Maximilian Thermidor, My Beloved.
2017
Hollow Knight is one of the first games I ever attempted to 100% and I got pretty darn close (110%). I don't do this often I do one playthrough of a game try to get everything I can whatever I missed be damned. Hollow knight was different in many aspects in the ways it had me in a vice grip.
First the Art & Music. From what I've seen in general game discourse online, I feel like the importance of these aspects in a game has dwindled and on a logical level I do understand games as a medium are more of a physical tangible "experience" instead of something you view passively and often times we've seen countless times where studios prioritize graphical fidelity over actual good moment to moment gameplay but I do think we can praise titles immensely for their art when something as stylish and stunning as hollow knight comes around. The Music especially just elevates exploration and combat my personal favourites from the OST being Pure Vessel and Nightmare King Grimm and the art just makes you want to find more of it via exploration.
Level design also feels like one of those things similar to UI where you don't think about it unless it's really bad safe to say I wasn't thinking about the level design during my time with hollow knight, it does get quite challenging in some areas which is good considering if there was nothing to use all your movement abilities on there's really no point in having them.
Combat was another stand out, each boss having a very clear tells for attacks but you still need to execute things perfectly or as close to perfect as possible or you will get absolutely decked by any boss for that matter.
All in all If you haven't played hollow knight, fix that.
First the Art & Music. From what I've seen in general game discourse online, I feel like the importance of these aspects in a game has dwindled and on a logical level I do understand games as a medium are more of a physical tangible "experience" instead of something you view passively and often times we've seen countless times where studios prioritize graphical fidelity over actual good moment to moment gameplay but I do think we can praise titles immensely for their art when something as stylish and stunning as hollow knight comes around. The Music especially just elevates exploration and combat my personal favourites from the OST being Pure Vessel and Nightmare King Grimm and the art just makes you want to find more of it via exploration.
Level design also feels like one of those things similar to UI where you don't think about it unless it's really bad safe to say I wasn't thinking about the level design during my time with hollow knight, it does get quite challenging in some areas which is good considering if there was nothing to use all your movement abilities on there's really no point in having them.
Combat was another stand out, each boss having a very clear tells for attacks but you still need to execute things perfectly or as close to perfect as possible or you will get absolutely decked by any boss for that matter.
All in all If you haven't played hollow knight, fix that.
2017
I think it's quite crazy how this studio went from pong-tier illustration (this isn't a dig at the previous game's art fyi It's an observation) work in the previous game to THIS. Super stylized pixel art(?) with stellar looking stages and player character's that don't just blend into each other. However on the gameplay front for me it was really nothing to write home about I do like the addition of new weapons (love how you can parry arrows) but I think this is definitely a title you only pick up if you're fortunate enough to have friends who'd be willing to drop some cash on a game you're likely to only play for a day and then never pick up again.
2014
I think I would have gotten a lot more out of this game had I played with friends but unfortunately I couldn't because as someone who actively writes reviews on games on niche game websites I don't have any, the game was a fun romp with with cool combat and a neat gimmick with the objective being to repeatedly bash the other dude's skull in so you can reach his goal on the right side of the screen to be eaten. So essentially football but..you are the ball?
Unfortunately it was still deeply unmemorable for me despite the unique win condition. Which I admit doesn't mean much for you, the one reading this as our perceptions of things and or memory capabilities might be vastly different but I think ultimately you can't really go wrong giving it a shot you can probably get through it in a single sitting anyway.
Unfortunately it was still deeply unmemorable for me despite the unique win condition. Which I admit doesn't mean much for you, the one reading this as our perceptions of things and or memory capabilities might be vastly different but I think ultimately you can't really go wrong giving it a shot you can probably get through it in a single sitting anyway.
I went into boltgun after watching some glowing reviews on Youtube and unfortunately I did not leave this game with the same emotions or thoughts as those youtubers did (No hate though love those fellas, pancreasnowork especially) there were several reasons for this.
First being the level design because my lord is it atrocious at times you don't have a map for this game which just doesn't make sense as a design decision.
There's an emphasis on verticality in the game and tons of backtracking due to you having to get keys and other doohickeys, I think an ideal compromise would have been a realtime updating map as you move around but no map at all makes it super frustating to reach locations you've already seen.
Combat is quite good in the first act. You get new weapons almost exactly when the weapons you already have start getting old but the enemies you fight don't really evolve to compensate for all the weapons you have even accounting for the weapon reset that happens each act as you get all your weapons very quickly. This weapon reset thing is also very annoying as each time it happened it almost felt like you were starting the game AGAIN, this was not only frustrating but made the game last way longer than it should have.
Third was the movement, it was fast which is always cool but honestly in a genre that this game claims to be part of which always has insane movement tech this game lacks...anything of the sort except the dash you get from the chainsaw and the put-myself-into-a-bad-spot charge which is super useless past the first act.
In conclusion, if you ever want a game that you can mindlessly play while some guy on youtube talks to you about how boomer shooters are cool and internally feel confused as to you why you're continuing to play one that would have probably benefited tremendously if it actually straight up copied things from it's betters play this one!
First being the level design because my lord is it atrocious at times you don't have a map for this game which just doesn't make sense as a design decision.
There's an emphasis on verticality in the game and tons of backtracking due to you having to get keys and other doohickeys, I think an ideal compromise would have been a realtime updating map as you move around but no map at all makes it super frustating to reach locations you've already seen.
Combat is quite good in the first act. You get new weapons almost exactly when the weapons you already have start getting old but the enemies you fight don't really evolve to compensate for all the weapons you have even accounting for the weapon reset that happens each act as you get all your weapons very quickly. This weapon reset thing is also very annoying as each time it happened it almost felt like you were starting the game AGAIN, this was not only frustrating but made the game last way longer than it should have.
Third was the movement, it was fast which is always cool but honestly in a genre that this game claims to be part of which always has insane movement tech this game lacks...anything of the sort except the dash you get from the chainsaw and the put-myself-into-a-bad-spot charge which is super useless past the first act.
In conclusion, if you ever want a game that you can mindlessly play while some guy on youtube talks to you about how boomer shooters are cool and internally feel confused as to you why you're continuing to play one that would have probably benefited tremendously if it actually straight up copied things from it's betters play this one!
2021
This game started out being quite corny due to it taking it's own premise super seriously but it's genuine commitment to it's premise as the game goes on makes it tolerable and even great! the ending that wrapped everything up quite nicely was really touching to me.
On the gameplay front this game never gets dull each chapter having tons of innovative ideas based on very simple gimmicks with additional really fun and quick minigames that added a lot of charm and often even revealed a bit more about the relationship the two characters have with each other. It took way more than two to make this game but my god was it worth it.
Pick it up if you can! especially if you have an xbox game subscription and a friend who you don't want to euthanize on sight like I did.
On the gameplay front this game never gets dull each chapter having tons of innovative ideas based on very simple gimmicks with additional really fun and quick minigames that added a lot of charm and often even revealed a bit more about the relationship the two characters have with each other. It took way more than two to make this game but my god was it worth it.
Pick it up if you can! especially if you have an xbox game subscription and a friend who you don't want to euthanize on sight like I did.