[PC, PSx, XB] Armored Core VI: Fire Of Rubicon

[briareos_kerensky]

Chapter 4 cleared, onto to chapter 5. I wonder if FromSoft will ever be able to

->Open Spoiler<-

write a story without mentioning flames, fire, cinder, and anithing associated with those terms again.

Also,

->Open Spoiler<-

this game has its own Malenia. Nowhere as difficult though.

[briareos_kerensky]

Thomas The Tank Engine Mod:

https://www.nexusmods.com/armoredcore6firesofrubicon/mods/35

Emblem Creator (why TF FromSoft didn't include the possibility to import images directly on PC is beyond me):

https://github.com/pawREP/ACVIEmblemCreator

[briareos_kerensky]

Aaaaand....game completed. Well, one of the endings at least. Once you're done with the final boss and the credits, you're thrown back at the start of chapter one, with everything you've unlocked, including the ability to replay all cleared missions. Well, I really wanted for Mr. Attack Helicopter to meet Ms. Heavy Grenade Launcher, I think they would have made an explosive couple together.
But this means the first chapter boss will be able to meet the twins VE-60SNA and the twins JVLN ALPHA, that made good friends with the final boss of the first playthrough.
More impressions to come.

[fishbowlhead]

I really want to get stuck into this but just don’t have time at the mo, 30mins of getting my arse handed to me after a 14hr work day just leads to frustration when I should be learning dodge and boost mechanics properly.

[briareos_kerensky]

So, impressions after completing the game once.

After completion, you're sent back to the beginning of chapter one with everything unlocked so far. Unlike Souls games difficulty does not scale, and for a few missions everything unfolds as before. Then during one mission you get to choose whether to follow the original objective or go for a new one; complete the current mission with the new objective, and you get a brand new mission to tackle afterwards. After taking sweet sweet revenge on the first chapter boss with your most powerful weapons new arena battles are added, and I think these will lead to new OS Tuning options, as OST chips rewards seem to be more than the normal options would need.

The final boss I faced is the last difficulty spike; before the game pretty much settles on AC on AC battles where the AI behaves basically the same no matter what is used.
Whether it's a reverse-jointed, high mobility AC that likes to fly around, or a lumbering, heavily armoured AC, you wait for them to come close or exhaust their boost to shoot them with one or more explosive weapons to break their guard and then unload as much as possible during their weakened state; some might trigger pulse armour or similar (and during missions ACs piloted by named warriors will have three repair kits too), and some battles will be won by the skin of your teeth, but it's a bit unfortunate that AC on AC battles play incredibly similar to each other. This is not to say they are bad, they still are exhilarating confrontations where your opponent is on the same ground as you are (in terms of how ACs are configured), but they are also way easier than the first two bosses (I'm not considering the opening attack helicopter).
Back to the final boss. It is

->Open Spoiler<-

an AC, but it's souped-up one and behaves more like the Sea Spider, but can still be cheesed with the correct build...in fact, you can defeat it without even moving, no joke. It's like using a mage in Elden Ring, the moment you have Comet Azure you can stand back and blast anything to oblivion without actually fighting. In AC6 Comet Azure is replaced by double needle guns and double bazookas (or double chainguns); it's a pleasure to split open everything the game throws at you with this build. Unfortunately you have to use a tank build, and heavy builds (including heavy bipeds) aren't as cool-looking as light and medium bipeds.
You can go toe-to-toe with the final boss, and if you do I recommed an agile build, tetras and threads won't really be able to keep up with it.

I enjoyed AC6 (and still do, I'm sticking with it until YS X arrives at the end of the month, and probably more): the combat is fast and rewarding, the mechas look cool, and my initial fear that only a certain type of build would work have been dashed, even if the game can be easily cheesed with some heavier builds.
But.

I was surprised the game is this short for a single playthrough, less than 20 hours, but I guess it's better having it short and sweet rather than overstretched and boring in the final parts.

I wanted more complex and longer missions, there are some cool setpieces early and later in the game and I wanted some more. This complaint goes along with the graphics: cool style, but a bit muted and not as striking and original as Elden Ring; this was 100% a deliberate choice to keep the game fast, but I wouldn't have minded a better use of contrasting colours, a lot of environments are grey and dull. I would have loved for some intense reflections from the Coral (when present), more moody atmosphere in a lot of maps, and a more diverse approach to lighting. AC6 has this sprawling, gigantic environments that are at their best when seen from afar; once you're actually into them, well, I was expecting a bit more artistically speaking.

Difficulty is another sore point: you have two spikes in the beginning, then nothing worth mentioning up till the last boss.
Same thing with new parts, they arrive at certain intervals in the story, some times leaving you with tons of money but nothing wortwhile to buy, some times doubling your choices where you have to grind a bit if you want to try out everything. This is one game where trying weapons before buying would have been great.

The lock-on...I like target assist when dealing with mobs but there is one mission in particular where both target assist and target lock are driven beyond their limits and actually prevent you from doing what you want. Having to constantly reorient the camera and relock against single bosses is a major pain, I can understand having lock break when something quickly jumps on your back, but not with most movement patterns. No wait, I'm taking that back: it would be OK if you were playing as a human, but not if you're in a mecha with 360 degree sensors; if you receive alerts from threats outside your field of view, lock should be able to track targets moving all around you, especially when tank builds can rotate their torso all around.

Overall, a good effort but it feels there should have been more meat to AC6, I'm wanting for more and simply going through the game once again might not be enough.

[briareos_kerensky]

Second playthrough completed, a couple of missions into the third. More impressions later.

[briareos_kerensky]

The second playthrough goes much, much faster than the first.
The first four chapters are almost identical between playthroughs, with only a few missions being completely different, and an other handful featuring small changes, like a named pilot instead a random AC, and more 2-on-2 or 2-on-1 battles (you against two or you an ally against one, both happen). Chapter 5 is where the big changes happen, missions are completely new and drive the current storyline to conclusion. Unfortunately the game isn't above reusing bosses, and though this only happens twice, it still happens and those fights are disappointing because the reused bosses might have a few new attacks, but nothing particularly noteworthy...though I will elaborate more on this point later.
The changes are enough to keep you interested for the second playthrough but there are some missions that are a pain to replay, you know where ambushes are and what to expect. Plus defence and escort missions are always a pain, no matter the loadout you have.

The second playthrough also nets you enought OST chips to fully tune your AC. Maybe these are useful in multiplayer, I don't know because I won't really touch it, but in single player you spend those chips because there isn't any other use for them: manual aiming is useless (scan highlights and locks on targets for a short period of time, only slightly shorter than the time it takes to recharge the scanner), boosting melee and energy weapons is pointless in single player, as is the ability to mount hand weapons on shoulder hardpoints. The only "secondary" ability worth mentioning is hacking speed, which only really comes into play if you're gunning for S Ranks in all missions.

One of the reasons the second playthrough goes fast is that you know which weapons to use and there is no reason to experiment with your loadout any longer. If a mission ends up with a boss fight, load twin needle guns on your shoulders. The boss is big, armoured machine? Use twin handheld bazookas. The boss in an AC? Two chainguns are the way to go. Other still use twin bazookas, the AI can be easily baited to dodge one shot and unload everything else during their recovery window; stability gone, the first bazooka has reloaded, free damage. Rinse, repeat, and everything goes down in less than five minutes. It's cool doing that to bosses that gave you trouble in the first playthrough, it's less cool that new bosses fall prey to this tactic too. Seriously, I defeated the last boss of the second playthrough before it could go through all its dialog lines.

The fact it's not those weapons are overpowered (you still need to take into account ricochet distance, bullet speed, reload times, etc etc), it's that most other weapons are useless. Why would you ever use a handgun against bosses or heavy ACs? You'd need to be at close range for bullets to be effective and you'd still do risible damage. Missiles and other weapons (like the basic linear rifle) find their use in missions with with plenty of targets (lock, fire missiles, lock on the next target), and this second playthorugh really made me want longer, more complex missions, and not just a string of boss fights.

After all this negative notations, would I still recommend AC6? Yes, but not as strongly as I did when playing or after my first playthrough. If you don't want to see everything, AC6 is perfectly fine; then the armour becomes brittle and enjoyment goes down.

[kryss]

I feel a bit sad getting lapped repeatedly at this. It's almost as bad as that MK time trial thing we did for mk8.

[briareos_kerensky]

This will be my last progression post for AC6, as yesterday I cleared the third and last storyline, and the game notified me I've also cleared all available missions; as usual you're thrown back to chapter one with everything unlocked so far, with the exception of

->Open Spoiler<-

the last three analysis missions you progressively unlock as you go through the third playthrough. For a moment I thought there were some extra battles that would lead to some cool rewards, but alas that was not the case.

Anyway, there would be single player content to still do, like getting S ranks on all missions, find all battle logs, and the seemingly infinite grind for money to buy all AC parts, but I don't feel particularly enticed to do them...some of the weapons you unlock in NG++ are cool but otherwise useless, as the usual combo of twin chainguns and twin needle guns is more than enough to comfortably defeat anything the game throws at you. Maybe they find their use in multiplayer, but again, I'm not touching that.

The third playthrough has some of the best missions, the best storyline, the best voiceacting, the best ending (still cryptic in perfect FromSoft style), but also the worst mission in the whole game, and you still need to go through the same missions you've already played at least twice to get where you are. It's not particularly bad, but everything passes you by in kind of a blur, and most of the times I was thinking "OK, let's be done with this, it'll be quick", or "oh, I don't want to do this defence mission", so it's not particularly good either. Some missions have a third variation, but it's not until the last two story chapters you play completely new stuff, and one of those missions is...urgh.

The mission itself wouldn't be so difficult if the target assist and lock would work, let's say, as the Souls games: you lock onto the target in front of you manually, and that never changes until you manually disengage. Instead here you have the effin' target assist that locks whatever it wants, even when you crosshair is dead-on onto something else, even with all target assist options off (we'll there's only one). Or better, you would have your crosshair on a target, only that your AC covers whatever is directly in front of you, so you fire at random in manual mode, miss the target, and fail the mission. This is worse than a mission in the first playthrough because there you had to destroy everything, in the NG++ mission you need to focus on specific targets. Not to mention that missiles are slower than those targets (even with missiles firing straight out of the launcher, never mind vertical or pincer launchers), and even with a full lock the AC doesn't fully account for projectile speed and the target escapes.
With perseverance and a lot of pattern memorisation you can beat that mission, but damn I want a complete revision of the target locking mechanic...the worst part is that default options work very well in normal situations, it offloads locking tasks so you can concentrate on movement and firing, but I'll gladly take manual locking over this any day now.
And yes, I've tried manual targeting but once you try to lock, it seems it locks onto the closest threat firing on you, and not what you have in your reticle.

Enough of the bad stuff, let's talk about the good stuff. One mission in particular is easy but it's a great setpiece for the story, and there's also one duel on interesting terrain. I'm playing with Japanese voices, and some of the acting is really on spot and goes along well with what you're going into. The final boss battle is properly epic even if the boss itself goes down like all others, and the ending is the most elaborate of the three. I won't go into too much detail because it will be very spoilery, but everything happens after the mission I talked about in the previous paragraph, and it's a real palate cleanser, even for some of the repetition stuff.

Overall my previous conclusion about recommending Armored Core VI still stands, though it improved a little. Hopefully FromSoft will straighten things up for AC7.

[Atticus]

First Armored Core game for me. I held off at first based on the difficulty barrier being talked about but thought I'd give it a go anyway. The game does a great job of teaching you stuff along the way. Already it's throwing more technique stuff and parts at me ... but bit by bit, so not overwhelming.

I know I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I'm not kidding myself. I know it's going to kick my ass hard at some point. But I love the feel of the combat and the artstyle of the mission locations. It has to be fun to encourage replaying missions, which I also love.

I'm also not a loadout tinkerer, but I actually enjoy it in this game because everything gives something cool and satisfying to try out.

I am only a little way in. I know it's being gentle so far. I did enjoy the epic scale of the big mining machine battle. And last night I got to the Juggernaut mission. It was one of those battles that I nearly beat first go, more luck than management, then every go after I got worse by trying out tactics ... and then got better but not quite enough and threw the towel in before bed. I am looking forward to having another go later though.

[Finsbury Girl]

Getting my arse kicked often. It will take me a long while to get used to the movement and controls.

I'm in Chapter 1 enjoying it so far.

[QualityChimp]

Kinda related, but there's a new show coming on Dec 10th to Prime called "Secret Level" with each episode about a different videogame IP and one is about Armored Core.

[Finsbury Girl]

I've been finding this very difficult to play ; the controls are not quite in my wheelhouse, however now that I have persevered, it is starting to click. I'm just up to Chapter 3 so I hope there is no massive difficulty spike for a while.

I have spent ages mucking around with the colours on my mech ; the mech designs are absolutely sick.

The story is suitably FromSoft obtuse. Can't wait for the outcome.

[briareos_kerensky]

I've found it to be smooth sailing after the flying armoured spider till the final boss.

[Finsbury Girl]

So onto NG+ after finding out target lock disengages if you touch the right stick, the rest of the game was not too bad especially with some OP builds - tank + double gats + stun guns FTW

I still have no effing idea what the story is about after one ending - hopefully after I get all 3 endings I may find out. Perhaps I'm just dim.

S ranking some of these missions is very annoying - I will persevere but not sure I have the mad skillz to do it.