Well this was a disappointment

I wasn't really expecting that much, I was drawn in by the stylish presentation in terms of the main menu and UI, and I like the concept of mech action fulfillment. I even felt like it had similar systems to EDF 4.1.

Boy could I not be more wrong, it's actually so mechanically dull and formulaic that every single mission actually became more irritating in how it drops the ball. It's kinesthetically bare, with actions that don't feel powerful to hit and enemy attacks that feel like chunks to your own tankish armor. The enemy design is so boring and easy to work with that it's almost devoid of any challenge. That extends to the boss design too, with some weak point areas that are a sleepfest to just exploit. Even the "dogfights", where I was hoping would at least be the most interesting part, turned out to be the least interesting. The AI for their combat is straight up trash, easy to take down, and I felt not a single bit of compelling fun with the encounters against them.

The story and characters are forgettable too, featuring stand-in one note trope personalities, and it's so overbearingly anime in all the worst ways that statement could imply. The narrative is poorly paced and not so interesting to behold, turning out to be as simple as it let on at the start.

I don't want to play any more of it, it's just boring. (4/10)

Daemon X Machina is like if you took Armored Core, took most of the clunky and obtuse things out of the combat and put it all right back into the writing and narrative planning.
(More below)
v
v
v
v

I think everything worth talking about with Daemon X Machina (DXM for short) can be summed up into several broad categories:

– The ways in which DXM borrows and innovates on Armored Cores format.
– DXMs sharp and striking presentation and art direction
– DXMs sort of uninspired vision for the "body" of its content
– The writing and what I can only describe as "anime bullshit"

With those things in mind I like to ask 4 questions about the game...

o


What is Fun about Daemon X Machina?

DXM is what you could call an “Armored Core-like”, it borrows general gameplay concepts like Armored Cores mission structure and design as well as its mech customization in large part (You can equip several sets of weapons for both hands, heavy shoulder mounted weapons, lots of similar armor stats and functions, etc)

DXM makes quite a few contributions on top of this that enhance QoL a fair bit - things like flying not requiring energy, several kinds of mech-agnostic powerups and abilities that recharge easily, as well as ammo and weapons and even healing and explosive objects scattered around missions to make players more autonomous. Armored Core missions were sometimes battles of attrition so this is a positive change.

The issue DXM has is that it has worse mission design overall. Not as much variety in the shape of levels or the types of missions, and as many as half or two-thirds of the encounters are fakeouts and might waste your time and resources if taken seriously. One or two missions are genuinely exciting but 80% of DXM is on par with Armored Cores most pedestrian (boring) missions.

Bosses are a mixed bag - on one hand they are not the giant death walls that might burn you down in 30 seconds like in Armored Core, but on the other hand they still feature some awkward sensabilities of their own. Things like emphasis on physically ramming into you, a penchant for leaving the playable space frequently for not-insignificant amounts of time, and just some general clunky and spammy behaviors. Armored Core was also unique in having really dangerous, foreboding bosses and some of that is lost in having more traditional boss fights.

o

What is Daemon X Machinas Vibe?

One word I would use to describe DXM is “sleek”. Theres alot of crisp sharp modern UI, almost all the robot components feature smooth race car appeal, and the color red features prominently in alot of the design. Theres some nice space sci-fi atmosphere going on, with imagery of part of the moon crashing to the surface of the planet and looming gutted in the sky. The “moonfall” as its called has introduced environment-altering energy to the surface, creating red stalagmites, blue forests, and even inverted-white deserts. DXM is a very striking red-neon mecha wasteland of orange vistas and red oceans.

“Sleek” does not apply to anyone who lives in this world tho. The major corporations that vie for control of the wild frontier all talk to you as if they are trying to sell you weight loss supplements, all your fellow mercs in this high-tech modern world sometimes form companies with each other over their mutual interests of pretending to be 19th century english royals, and almost everyone has only one singular personality trait (such as “guy who likes playing cards alot”).

And unfortunately, this quality also deeply impacts the interactions characters have with each other and also the greater motivations of the plot at large. For such a dangerous, grizzled line of work everyone talks to each other like they have the worldview of a 15 year old. Anime has this problem in general but in DXM the way its written and presented really infantilizes the world and makes these characters seem like they are an aliens 2nd-hand interpretation of what humans might be like. Whats more, is that it means nothing actually important ever really happens. The stakes have never been lower, the game tells you things are serious but shows you an 8th grade playground. Its Shakespeare written by an AI, as performed by clowns.

But the robot designs tend to deliver, and for the 10-15 minutes where they steal the spotlight, they really bring the sleekness back in focus.

o

What is Impressive about Daemon X Machina

As a game taking considerable influence and aping another (notably niche) franchise, the ways in which DXM innovates are minor and localized. Considering that tho, I think DXMs changes are very thoughtful, and it really conveys that the devs had strong ideas about what they thought needed to change to Armored Cores original formula. Good design is always admirable and its often difficult to make the right changes, even when theyre small.

This understanding definitely does not translate into the extremely hacky writing tho, and it makes me really wonder why the devs didnt observe Armored Cores story elements in quite the same way as they did its gameplay elements. More than just departing from Armored Core tho, the writing commits some serious literary and ludonarrative faux pauxs.

Like, more often than not the battle banter is so long winded that you will likely cut it off by progressing “too fast”, and so many encounters with other Arsenal (mech) pilots are scripted to be unwinnable because exposition in cutscenes and text-comms is more important than letting a more kinetic battle drama play out. Dialogue is often more than half the duration of a mission because the game has a small army of narrative twists it desperately wants to employ, despite not having set anything up to earn it.

This becomes so bad that the game actually experiences an anti-climax, the last 25-33% of the game is easily the most middling and incohesive part of the game from all angles. Narrative, design, pacing, gameplay, all of it - and thats just not what you want for your game. It should be the best part, thats why its called the climax.

o

What is Interesting about Daemon X Machina

“Interesting” is a bit of a wild card concept, cuz whats interesting about your game might not always be intentional. I think as an Armored Core fan, it is relatively interesting to see a new take on its format, especially without fundamentally changing its genre. Its not very often you see more incremental experimentation with a concept, too many changes and it might be hard to really compare the end result.

As sabotaging as I think the writing is to otherwise promising premise, to some extent thats also mildly interesting: how can a set of creators get some things so right and other things so wrong? Its not the kind of “interesting” you might recommend to someone else but its important to ponder, what was the blindspot here? Clearly their design process could result in good changes, and alot of the decisions about presentation and UX are high quality. Its evident that there are talented people who worked on this game - so what the hell happened to the characters? Was there no workshopping there? Theres a morbid curiosity to the breakdown of it.

And unfortunately at the end of the day, thats all thats memorable about DXM. Its either its contributions to Armored Core or the state of its writing - maybe the most frustrating part about it is even if you took the core concepts and just wrote them better somehow, the game would still not be saying anything interesting. Its shooting for a Participation Trophy in all the subjects it broaches and it just doesnt evoke a strong overall image in your mind. It honestly ends up feeling like the ultimate goal for the devs was just to achieve Anime as an Aesthetic, the Anime Je Ne Sais Quoi. The Anime Bullshit.

o

Closing Thoughts

– I think I can only really recommend DXM to people who are already big fans of Armored Core as this is not an especially interesting mech game.
– Itll be interesting to see if Fromsofts own Armored Core output makes any innovations along the lines of DXM as they seem positive.
– Honorable mention: DXM does feature a competitive PVP system and a basic set of co-op missions but these feel complementary and arent very interesting unless youre in love with the rest of the game.
– Another honorable mention: the bosses in DXM feature a minor mechanic where defeating them earns progress towards unique rewards in a pseudo-Monster Hunter feeling kind of way. I think leaning into that more and centering more game progression around it could have been a more interesting way to fill out the mission list vs the more generic missions they went with (could have been a bigger co-op opportunity as well)

If I was ever going to play a mech game, I'm not playing the one by the Souls team, I'm playing the one by the Harvest Moon team!

Mechs in general don't really do much for me, so I was wary that the game might be unapproachable and overcomplicated, but I think this game strikes a pretty good balance for a “casual+” like me. There's also decent mission and landscape variety, and the early missions are fairly short and forgiving. I think using the trigger buttons was a smart way to design the combat of this game, however playing this in handheld mode or with joycons does not feel great. This game feels like it was designed to be sat in front of a screen with a pro controller or with the game’s custom handheld peripheral… not really designed for the vanilla Switch experience.

While this game is generally adequate all around, it struggles to maintain my interest too much or pull me back in after I set it down. The story doesn't have much intrigue. It introduces a ton of characters, so that you can later unlock them as teammates, but as a result you don't really feel connected to any of them. it’s hard to tell what the actual stakes are, and the enemies are undefined AIs without a clear motivation. There are some named enemies but the game has you destroy them at the end of each mission, so it does not feel personal. The progression is also slow and incremental, I don’t feel much different after an hour or two of playing. Overall it’s somewhat disappointing as a RPGish experience, but I’m ok with it being the type of game I can passively absorb over a long period of time, without needing to focus on. This isn’t a game I feel a need to finish or see everything, I can just chip away at if I ever want to jump back into a mech suit.

Aside from the obvious joke of this being "Armored Core at home", Daemon X Machina really sucks at its core. There's two massive problems with the game. One, it has one of the wordiest, most cliche and uninteresting plots in anime writing history, trying to balance a cast of like 25 characters with no interesting traits that are dumped on you in the first hour. It's a mess.

Secondly? This mech shooter is terrible when you're fighting actual enemy mechs. As they fly around unpredictably, blinking and dashing in every direction, you just spray and pray with slow projectiles until you win. I never felt good at the game, but I never lost at it until the ridiculous final boss. It's less two robots fighting and more trying to shoot mosquitos with nerf guns. It's rarely fun unless the AI decides to randomly stay on the ground, and 75% of the missions are just fighting one of the many characters who have annoyingly large health bars.

The 5 minute missions often feel like 15 because they're so tedious, which is a massive problem in a game with a bunch of them. It's a tedious slog that feels nigh impossible to truly master, because dodging enemy attacks feels like its not even intended until you get the blink power at the very end.

I did love the skill trees that slowly mutate your sexy anime babe into a cyborg abomination by the end game. It's incredibly weird, but I was actually excited to grind up cash for borderline useless upgrades because I wanted to see my character get limbs hacked off. The upgrades were 90% useless Borderlands shit like powering up your character outside of the mech by 5%, a thing that is literally never a good idea.

Daemon X Machina is a plain old bad game that feels outdated in spite of its striking art style and animations. It feels cheap, the combat is junk, the camera is bad, and power creep ruins any progression. I would call it the Mighty No 9 of mech shooters, but at least Mighty No 9 was like, a little bit fun for what it was. And frankly, this was fun for a little bit as well, chipping away 2 missions before work in 15 minutes. It's just not worth anything more than free to Armored Core fans.

cool game.

fun gameplay loop, awesome music, good voice acting with cool characters, neat presentation, and the customization really rounds things out nicely.

obviously its a little jank and the boss fights are queeestionable but its all good fun and i haven't played a ton else like this on switch. higher budget for cutscenes and stuff would have gone a long way.

love u shuichi ikeda

Bought this like 2 years ago and only really started it a year ago. Was not expecting it to be as long as it was and kept getting sidetracked by other games.

Do not go into this expecting Zone of the Enders (I did cause I'm fucking stupid), this is basically Armored Core meets Monster Hunter story/mission/grind structure for better or worse. The most "feels good as fuck to play, but with dogshit story" game I've played in a hot minute, but that's okay what really matters with video games is that it's fun foremost and a good story can come after. Will probably still be playing this for a few more weeks or even months after learning of all the post campaign/co-op mission content available.

Anyways, banger OST and mark me down as excited for a sequel that further improves on the already stellar combat and perhaps delivers on a better told story.

the first year of the pandemic provided such an ample amount of time for gaming that I didn't quite know how to process it. especially early on I had very little contact with anyone besides the students I was a TA for and my partner at the time, and with that limited social sphere I found myself with far too many thoughts about the games I was accelerating through and no outlet for them. to pass the time I began writing reviews on my own with uncertainty if they would ever see the light of day; ironically, I put much more effort into establishing historical context in these than I do in my modern reviews. they're still sitting on my hard drive never to see the light of day (outside of my ex, who unenthusiastically (but very thoroughly) edited a 10-page 12pt TNR paper explaining the high level of achievement of sonic adventure while also mourning its sacrifices in game design), and likely never will... ok maybe I gotta publish that sonic adventure review at some point. most of the games I wrote about in this period I finished right as the lockdowns were beginning, and for the most part I've managed to cover them on this site as well. however, one review paralyzed me even back then, and has continued to prove a sore point for me up to now. the often confusing, misguided, yet still lovable daemon x machina continues to defy my attempts to categorize its strengths and weaknesses concisely, and only now with a barren backlog of reviews to write do I find myself tilling this soil again hoping to perhaps spring new insights.

all of this is odd to me, since the game itself is a simple concoction: fuse elements from armored core with bits of monster hunter's loot grind and fluid and snappy combat. missions generally revolve around eliminating enemy forces with occasional wrinkles such as protecting an objective or navigating a maze. rival mech users - termed as "outers", with their mechas called "arsenals" - often are put toe-to-toe with you in frenetically thrilling and equally awkward dogfights that test the player's skill in avoiding motion sickness while rapidly spinning. even with how clunky this combat can sometimes get, the game does a great job scaling your toolkit with the difficulty and variety of the fights, specifically since virtually every unique weapon an enemy arsenal carries can be looted and equipped in your own build. blinking around with a samurai sword slicing up multiple high-powered foes at once does much to paper over the wars of attrition that can happen in longer fights or occasional bouts in cramped geometry where both player and AI will frequently get tangled. strewn throughout are giant immortals, which serve as monhun-esque fights meant to be replayed ad nauseum via the side mission selection. much like freedom wars (which I previously maligned) simply shooting incessantly at giant enemies is a lot less fun than the game it so obviously cribs from, where combat is much more deliberate and risky. some of the immortals are relatively well designed, such as the quadruped you fight in the demo and early on in the main campaign. this fight has a variety of smart ways to take down the foe and a variety of interesting attacks, such as a giant cannon you can rip off and bludgeon the body with, and force fields you must maneuver around. the same cannot be said for all of the rest of the main boss fights, many of which force you to wait while they fly out of bounds or do little except volley off artillery and roll around. considering the mechanics built up around this, such as unique gear crafted from material gained from repeated fights, it's a true shame that the game shies from centering these fights and instead leaves them half-baked within a structure they do not augment in any significant way.

that's functionally the entire game, and your enjoyment of it relies heavily on how much you can immerse yourself in the action. the campaign is not particularly long especially if side missions are skipped, but even in that short period of time it's clear to see that there just isn't enough meat to sustain the dozens of copy-paste objectives. rank upgrades don't feel particularly meaningful, looting quickly becomes a chore, and the endless jaunts through labryinthian identical interior factories really strained my enjoyment. it was those occasional flashes of brilliance in the dogfights, the thrill of teleporting around decapitating foes, and the endless destruction that kept me going, and the stretches between these amazing moments seemed to become less frequent as the campaign drew to a close. it doesn't help that there is an absolute deluge of one-note characters yapping before, after, and during missions with a large web of storylines which rarely matter and often reappear as soon as they've dripped out of your memory. following the story beyond "you are chosen one, big menace in asteroid in center of planet, evil mercenaries vs good mercenaries" is pointless, and the increased reliance on cutscenes towards the end only highlights this. there's also some armored core-esque factions of corporations/nations/post-apocalyptic military orgs that pit you against your allies as the game progresses (complete with the post-mission emails AC fans expect), but I could not explain a single storyline involving them to save my life. even with some great fights in the back quarter, this really strains my ability to enjoy the game.

there's also PvP, which I have not really tried given that I'm sure that most players past the first couple months are much more dedicated to the grind than I am. alongside this are monhun-style co-op quests which is something I'm more familiar with, but the offering is rather slight. there's not a lot of fun to be had in mowing down the basic groups of enemies from the campaign even with a friend, and the immortal fights don't quite satisfy either. I did attempt the online-only boss with a rando online (unsuccessfully unfortunately) and it was relatively fun, but at the end of the day a strategy that boils down to circle strafing in the air and rapid-firing just doesn't feel appropriate for what should be endgame material. once I settled on the fact that the online wasn't going to give the game any longevity for me, I unfortunately had to put it down for good. once the campaign is over and the fleeting moments of sleek mecha joy pass, the undercooked nature of it all looms large over the experience.

It has a potential to be best mecha game of all time...but it lost his chance...

I've made this review after the first 4 hours of my gameplay

Pros
+ YOU CAN PLAY WITH F*CKİN MECHA..
+ awesome mecha customization, character customization and mecha designs
+ Aesthetic af
+ good optimization
+ it's fun to fly on the battlefield with your mecha...

Cons
- Boring and repetetive gameplay
- bosses are bullet sponge
- boring storyline
- Gameplay mechanics are very barren.

The game has 3 overall enemy types:

Fodder robots, which are anything from flying turrets to tanks. Despite generally just being a matter of holding the fire button these were the enemies I enjoyed the most. Mowing them down is overall satisfying even when your main weapons lack the oomph to feel satisfying on their own.

Boss robots, which are various gigantics that all share a weak point design. Their attacks hit harder but aren't any more difficult to avoid than the ones by fodder. This leads to them largely just being bulletsponges.

Then there are piloted mechs like your own. These started out being my favourite before very quickly devolving into absurd stats that their AI aren't capable of handling. teleports behind you levels of speed, bottomless stamina and health, weapons that chunk you if you dare get too close. All in service of AI that spends most of its time flailing around or getting stuck.

The plot spends a lot of the early parts of the game vaguely insisting that there is one, while feeding you a ton of characters who are all too uninteresting to make up for it. I remained uninvested.

The progression system mostly gives you 1-2 options per archetype per slot unless you happen to enjoy the default types.

But (and this is very important): I think my cyborg pilot is very cute, even if I don't understand how the limited amount of things you can do outside your mech justified the development effort.

This is terribly formatted but I just wanted to write down Thoughts before I went to bed and forgot about them.

Some really well crafted garbage. Think about a late 90s action film; or I guess really the move is to not think about it at all. Nothing in this game really makes all that much sense but its so cool it doesn't really matter. You get a cool mecha and get to move around fast. Maybe there's some kind of explanations in the cutscenes and whatnot but those are quick enough I just kind of ignore them. Seems to want to be MonHun but with mecha, which I'm cool with.

I haven't actually finished this yet, I just got to some level where I have to use my Mech to blow up meteors falling on some equipment because of a "Moonfall." It was pretty annoying. Otherwise I'm at the point of the game where I'm just fighting other mechas--cool.

Daemon X Machina is an action game released by Marvelous for Nintendo Switch and PC in 2019. The only difference between the NS and PC release is that on PC the game runs more smoothly, of course. As the game isn't graphically demanding, you will have no problems running this game above 90 fps at all.

You're playing as an avatar (Outer) who is using a highly customisable mech (Arsenal) to accomplish your mission. Since you're practically a mercenary, you will engage in various missions ordered by different consortium nations operating within the Oval Link (a barrier to contain Femto particles (particles that fell to the planet when the moon broke apart during the Moonfall)).
Missions mostly consist of defeating Immortals, but the further you go through the game, the more you'll engage with other mercenaries as different consortium nations have different objectives. Overall the missions are divided into 5 ranks, each rank increasing the difficulty. I felt that at least half of the missions weren't intriguing enough, practically I went several times on the Fandom site to check how many missions I have yet to finish to get access to the higher rank.
The story also isn't really interesting at the beginning and there is barely some story until the last rank. Between some missions, you get several story-related cutscenes which raise the feeling that something is coming, but none of it is presented before you get access to the last rank's missions. Half of the game I wasn't even sure if whatever other mercenaries were talking before and after the mission, was important. One more reason it was hard to understand the story, especially at the beginning, is because of how many mercenaries you meet, not realising that almost none of them has a major impact on the story.
The best part of this game is the combat (gameplay) and the mech customisation options. On the battlefield, you can bring up to 4 different weapons (I recommend equipping all slots since in boss fights you'll probably end up without ammo near the end), a shoulder weapon and an auxiliary. There are also decals which further increase the customisation options but keeping in mind that you'll watch the back of your Arsenal, I see no use of them.
The shop is used to buy and sell equipment, mostly to sell them since the buy option isn't used as much as in other games. The only thing you can buy is processors, the only thing you can't loot from defeated AIs and other mercenaries's Arsenals (mechs). You can also craft better weapons, which require the base weapon and material used to augment it.
Most of the earned currency in the game (you're a mercenary, so, you're paid after every mission) you're gonna use it to buy skills from the Lab section found in the main hub, which according to the description are either for you Outer or Arsenal.
I forgot to mention that you also can leave your Arsenal (that's why there are two different skill sections) when it's heavily damaged. You are not as powerful as if you were in your Arsenal, but some missions will demand you not to use your Arsenal, but to engage on foot.

All in all a game that concentrates more on the gameplay than on the story itself. To sum up, the game is decent, but the quality isn't still there yet to call this game great.

Customization and Mechanics are spot on as a sort of Armored Core Gaiden. But the gampaign is lackluster and there is a huge lack of challenging content to push the player to get even close to mastering or caring about most of the mechanics.
Even multiplayer 'super bosses' are far too easy compared to the Armored Core Verdict Day counterparts they are inspired by and there is hardly reason to keep optimizing your builds.

The coop roguelike dungeon exploration mode feels like the true endgame, which is a very strange dynamic for this kind of game. This makes the whole feel more like an experiment than a finished game. 1v1 multiplayer is not enough of a push to keep playing. Big missed potential here.

This game grabbed me immediately upon playing the demo, and I hawked sales for six months before I gratefully bought the hard copy for half price on eBay.

My momentum with this game didn’t last long. The missions start repetitive, simple, slow, and boring. They don’t mix up the variety of enemy or mission types at first, and it’s easy to sail through the opening hours of the game with few armor or weapon upgrades/unlocks to show for it. The whole allure of the game to me was the radically deep customization options and mastery of the game’s systems, and it wasn’t giving me enough of that to keep coming back.

As I muscled through, I was rewarded. The mission variety improves, and they eventually get somewhat challenging, at least in parts. A big way to improve the difficulty and rewards is to have the player engage more enemy mechs (Arsenals) instead of lesser enemies. There are whole chapters of the game seemingly committed to just that, which was a nice relief. Additionally, I revisited the armor and weapon development menu ten hours in and found it well worth diving into, as opposed to the other times I had checked it too early in the game.

So many of my qualms got addressed with a little patience. Other things, not so much. The writing is among the worst in any game I’ve played. Both the general story and the individual dialogue lines are all written like a really bad anime. It’s hard to get invested because the story is gibberish, and the characters are almost entirely insufferable. They are horribly overwritten, with people routinely saying things only anime characters would ever say or think they could get away with.

The pacing of the game is dire. Every single mission is bookended by either cutscenes, dialogue sections, or both. Missions are frequently voiced over by more dialogue, and interrupted still more by cutscenes and dialogue reads mid-level. I’m pretty sure some if not all missions are wall to wall dialogue, hardly if ever giving you a chance to appreciate the sound effects and music without talking. It’s as talky as an MGS title, but not nearly as interesting, and the game probably takes as long per mission as it does for each accompanying cutscene and dialogue break. I’m not making this up. I had half a mind to skip it all, but I was invested enough that I did want to find out what the heck is happening in this game. It’s about as considered as what I was writing in middle school, so I was not expecting to be blown away at time of this writing.

Controls are good and fully customizable. Gameplay is good when it’s good. Graphics are a nice lightly cel shaded style but technically developed as well. I think the visual style is VERY cool. Customization is deep and confusing. Maybe impenetrable might be a better word.

The presentation as a whole is good, with tons of HUD elements and gauges to dress everything up, nice effects and particle stuff to catch the eye. It looks good and feels good to fly and zip around and shoot stuff up. The guns suffer from feeling a bit weak, shooting a bit slow, and not locking on from enough distance. I realize these are things that can be balanced and tweaked, but even when optimizing for these things, you still feel sort of impotent sometimes. I thought maybe that would get better as I keep bumping up my kit, but it never truly does.

The story is absolute hogwash, but it’s delivered with such conviction. The stakes get more and more dire as the game goes on, and by the end it’s utter catastrophe. But I never feel threatened or intimidated by any enemy or mission. (Until the final boss, woof.) All the emotion and drama is confined to text messages, dialogue exchanges, and cutscenes.

So far I’ve only spent one short paragraph praising the game. Of note, the presentation is really terrific. PMCs and characters send you chat messages between missions, with a smart and simple interface that even includes ellipses of the next message being “composed” before you click A to show the next one. The main hub area is a hangar bustling with screens, activities, your unlocked weapons, and dominated by your giant Arsenal.

The hangar music, which extends to the menus around the main hub like your armor and weapon customization, is extremely good and catchy. It fits the mood perfectly. The soundtrack is pretty terrific, although it occasionally veers into some screamo and metal territory that doesn’t always work for me. But a lot of it is just great stuff.

I’m really impressed by the graphics. I mentioned them earlier but they strike a nice balance between artistic and technical. Honestly I’ve compared them before to Breath of the Wild. I think there are some aesthetic similarities there, but BOTW stretches its visuals much further by constructing environments that are vastly larger and full of things to do and look at. DXM’s environments are bleak on purpose, but they’re largely barren, devoid of anything to look at. Sometimes you get some city blocks or a bombed out sports stadium; other times you get vast empty desert scapes, big military bases, or subterranean tunnel networks.

The cutscenes are surprisingly dynamic and well directed. They use a lot of flash camera moves and effects. They feel high quality.

I love how they portray the inside of the cockpits. The empty blackness with floating holographic screens is super cool.

It took me multiple years of playing on and off to beat this game. I finally had to look up how to beat the last boss, which was wiping the floor with me before that. I remain a bit flummoxed by this game.

Strip away the story and writing and when you’re just PLAYING it, it feels like one step forward and one step backward everywhere. Controls well and combat seems like it should be fun, but it’s dull a lot of the time with brilliance sprinkled in here and there. My Arsenal never felt incredibly lethal despite seldom meeting a challenging opponent; I would rather have had a more capable mech and tougher enemies than playing a game that always felt like one of the training wheels was still on.

I was looking forward to deep diving the customization, but a lot of it was too much fussing and not enough impact. Plus, aggregating parts and weapons took much longer than I would’ve wanted to hold my interest. I basically just subtly tweaked my mech to keep it well rounded every time I obtained new kit. Oftentimes I’d unlock a part or a weapon and never use it. I just wasn’t hooked like I wanted to be.

That’s what it really boils down to. I wanted to like this game, and I overall did…barely. It just could have and should have been so much better.

…which is EXACTLY why I’m stoked for Armored Core 6. BRING IT.

This one has one of the worst, cringiest, most cliché dialogues and nonsensical story in the history of anime plots. And I'm not even exaggerating.
It's a pretty fun brain-dead shooter though.
Just don't expect it to be a complex mecha builder, since most stats are not properly explained and do absolutely nothing.
And certainly don't expect any good story here - the MC is a mute piece of cardboard, 95% of the game has no story at all and the rest 5% is a hilarious exposition ultra-dump so concentrated it melts your brain.