I think most AC games pretty much dump you into the first missions with a stock mech. AC6 is only distinct in that the first mission is so long and includes a comparatively-difficult boss-fight.
Agree that the mecha feel a bit more samey, but I played the heck out of the first AC games and I don’t miss the long and winding maps. I still remember maps I had to play Descent-style constantly switching to the 3D map (like the biological missions with the mouse-monsters in the first game). It was boring and tedious. And I don’t miss superlong missions where I had to ammo-ration.
A fundamental problem with AC is they don’t give you enough info to make informed decisions about config unless you want to try->die->redesign. Like if they had a preview of the terrain and some rough guesstimates about mission length and ammo needs, you could tailor your mech without the “oops I didn’t know this was going to be a marathon I’m out of ammo” which is just the most miserable way to lose. AC6 makes this explicit in that you probably won’t run out of ammo if you’ve 4 weapons and you use all of them. Given the alternative, I’ll take it.
And as for the “why isn’t stagger a function of knockback” that was terrible gameplay you could stunlock people in the early AC games.
I like the cooldown-based weapons, like the motion model (fighting while doing the flanking boost is hella fun)… But yes, the energy model is weird and imho does a lot to make the ACs feel samey. It used to be picking an energy weapon meant a tradeoff that you were draining your boost power when firing.
But yes I miss the radar. I think the expectation is that players will lock-on and then forget it, but I hate lock-on so I switched to mouse and keyboard and I find I’m often losing fast-moving targets in my periphery.
I miss the limited rotation rate of the early games, where boosting backwards to put a target in front of you was often better than turning to face them. Rotation rates was another way different layouts felt different. This also led to considerations with FCS shapes - short-ranged weapons with wider targeting-boxes that didn’t require aiming.
But on the other other hand, the spreadsheet of numbers is always dumb. I can’t think of any genre other than turn-based RPGs that are better for including “this weapon does different damage to target X vs target Y”. That’s always annoying trivia - let the Pokemon players keep that nonsense.
PowerStone 2. 4-player full-freedom game. Think Super Smash meets WWE games, but with pulp adventure theming (including a kinda stereotypical T-Hawk-style indigenous dude) and a vaguely Tezuka retro-anime art style. That and Virtual On Oratio Tangram (which is like if Armored Core was a fighting game) were reasons to own a Dreamcast for innovative fighting games.
That was BR2. BR1 was kinda distinct because instead of the bat lady it had a heavyset middle-aged warthog woman - most anime-styled fighting games only include female characters for T&A (like the bat lady).
I honestly don’t get what they’re thinking. They make phones. They making gaming equipment. Why don’t they integrate those together like they did with the Xperia Play? I don’t necessarily mean taking another kick at that can (but yes, they should take another kick at that can) but why not work with what they’re good at? Like they work with Backbone to make a Playstation branded version of it – but it runs on iPhones only!
It seems so obvious - make an Xperia/PSP branded gaming-grade phone, offer a first-party Backbone-like controller, sell a Playstation Portal screen-and-wifi-only device that also docks into that Backbone-like controller, etc. The only real problem is Google’s monopolistic rules against letting hardware companies offer alternate stores on PlayStore-based devices, or they could have a Playstation Android Store focused on gamepad-based games that are specifically targeting their gaming Android devices.
Wait, you can reconfigure mid-sortie? How? I know you get a chance to garage-only-reconfig after the briefing, but the briefings haven’t contained contain useful info for planning loadouts so far. Is there something in the “Restart from checkpoint” screen I’m missing? I was disappointed I couldn’t tweak my loadout at resupply, for example.
edit: I’d always been assuming that leaving the mission meant leaving your checkpoints. Is there some way to partially-leave-mission?
Mine’s basically the same but with the plasma rifle instead of the pistol and the plasma artillery instead of that dual launcher (I don’t know what that is) you’ve got on the left shoulder. Although I had to downgrade to the starting head to make that all fit.
I beat him with a hardcore mobility and missiles build, but I’ve heard he’s much more doable if you switch to a superheavy build of all plasma weapons (the “Meefcake” is its name in the meta). One thing I noticed is his movement habits make him pretty vulnerable to missiles, which catch up to him when he holds still.
With mouse and keyboard where you can track him well he’s very fun to fight in close range since he likes to hold still for his missile volleys (you can pour in the damage while dodging), except that his ability to punish you with the bazooka means every screw-up is lethal when you’re in close. And that’s 10X worse when he gets his flaming sword.
There is no grind. Parts sell for 100% value, and even the training missions give you valuable parts, so with no grinding I’m pretty much at exactly the mech I wanted from all the parts available.
The game is difficult, but it’s rewarding about it. The fights are hard but also fun and interesting and the game gives you tons of interesting parts to try loadouts.
I just finished the first really hard boss (Balteus) and I’m having a ball. Can recommend. But play it on PC with KB+M. I know it’s a fromsoft game, but the KB+M controls are 10X as good as gamepad controls.
I was already doing a plasma rifle, but the warnings about Balteus convinced me to do some tweaks to optimize the build before going into the End Of Chapter 1 mission. Inverse legs, lightweight arms, the starter head (it’s better than the flat-head and it still fit, every other head either made overweight or over-energy). One plasma rifle, one sword, one plasma-mortar, the big volley-missile-mortar, and speed. I might not have been as tough as the full dual Meefcake, but I killed him with style, even finishing with the sword. I honestly couldn’t tell if I died or he did in the final explosion, then the dust settled and I had one notch of health left.
Took about 2.5 hours of trying.
Holy shit that was fun. I’ve played Armored Core games, but only the early ones that didn’t have Soulslike bosses like this. That was goddamned amazing.
That’s been the central feature of this series for like 25 years - Battletech level customization, but fully visible in your mech’s construction, and with Gundam/Macross style mech action and styling. And now they’ve added some Soulslike gameplay now that they’ve returned to the series after all that Elden Dark Blood Whatever.