132 reviews liked by Cyuu_


Nah, I say Let It Die! Let it die, let it die, let it shrivel up and... come on who's with me huh?

Let’s see how well you can fly on borrowed wings


Call this game V.IV Rusty, ‘cause it never fucking misses

Armored Core VI has been one of the most positive surprises I’ve had when it comes to pieces of media, and I already went into it expecting to love it or at the very least like it, mind you, but it seems that my fate wasn’t to come out of this with my expectations set ablaze and built a new.

And thing is, not really knowing the extent of what I was getting into was completely my fault, Fires of Rubicon is the sixth numbered title in the AC series and the- HOW MANY NOW?!. It’s certainly not lacking the pedigree, and yet, probably because of the 10 years of radio salience the series has gone through, and 11 of a wide-world phenomenon that has changed the videogame industry forever that is the ‘’SoulsBorne Demon Ring I, II and III: Shadows Die Twice’’ saga, my understanding to Armored Core as series wasn’t as rich as I wanted it to be, and that kinda left my expectations for IV in a weird spot .

This not to say I expected Fires of Rubicon to be ‘’just like Dark Souls’’ or something like that, I knew this was going to be completely different; I knew a bunch of stuff and how the series worked, I knew how the series worked…

Except I didn’t.

I expected a fun mech game with deep customization options. I got that, yes…

But also so, so much more.

What’re ya buyin?

Welcome to your new living space: four cold and oppressive metal walls, a store that sells weaponry that I’m pretty sure breaks every Geneva convention both existing and yet to be written down, and like 5 different disembodied voices telling you in different ways that you gotta do some killing… joy!

You make home in different bases throughout the game, but you really wouldn’t know unless the game told you, they all serve the same purpose in the end: to make your mecha the ugliest piece of junk imaginable.

I’ve heard people say that you’ll spend the same amount time buying parts and building your mech as you do going ‘’pew-pew’’ in your comically big killing machine, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. The down time and management are the spine of ACVI; there’s a reason every time you die while in a mission the game gives you the option, to change your mech, you are gonna be taking a lot of work and not every question has the same answer… but you can make them be close enough! Even when the game poses some extremely daunting challenges, you can still say ‘’fuck capitalism’’ to the store and keep trying with your current build if you feel comfortable with it, I started using a Dual- wielding medium to light build pretty early on and even after all the upgrades and changes, that idea was kept intact even after the credits rolled.

Still, the game invites you to experiment and actively rewards you: the number of possible combinations is so humongous I don’t think it’s even possible to quantify from the essential legs which can define your entire giant robot to seemingly smaller things like add on and secondary weapons, but just as equally important, every single piece counts, and you are never punished for trying stuff out. Even if you create a mech that doesn’t even make sense of whose weapons don’t synergize with each other, doesn’t matter even if you spent all your money making it, ‘cause you can always sell those suckers for the same price you got them, ‘cause there are no obstacles to have fun in war!

But even with that freedom to try and fail, I imagine many players will center around one overall idea, and how not to when the game is equally as rewarding in that way? I feared that I’d treat my mech as a sort of ship of Theseus, making builds so specific that I’d have to constantly change it to the point it was unrecognizable from what it originally was, I waited for that moment to come sooner or later… but it never really did. Even against the end boss of the first chapter, an enemy that seems scientifically designed to make new players get into the idea they need to buy new shit, and probably the boss I struggled against the most… I ended up defeating them with the ol’ and reliable.

Building up a mech is important, but it’s equally as essential to knowing them. It doesn’t really mean much to understand some numbers if on ground you don’t know how anything works, and that’s what I found fascinating about the system; a system that rewards those who wish to experiment and those who wish to perfect themselves, plowing through enemies or figuring them out, sometimes both at the same time in both cases. Even if your robot starts as a Wall-E and ends up an Mazinger Z, your relationship with it feels the same, it feels as you made it grew and change, just as much as you did as pilot with it.

And that reminds me, speaking of the battlefield…

Got a job for you, 621

Oh boy!

You know what’s better than preparing to do cool stuff? Doing the cool stuff! If by cool stuff we mean committing acts that will forever hunt our darkest nightmare and make our consciousness eat us, of course.

Fires of Rubicon is not an action game, the game is the action. You know those dumb ‘’imagine showing this to a small Victorian child’’ memes? Well, Armored Core VI is that but like if instead of ‘’Victorian child’’ was ‘’any person during any age of history, even the current one’’, and I mean that the highest compliment I could thing of. There’s so much stuff happening at every single moment at every single second that the fact is all perfectly understandable must be some kind of deep dark magic shit. The freedom in this 3D movement goes beyond giving you space to shoot and gives you some damn crazy movement options, and you either have to use them or you better have good shields, because in this battlefield nonstop attacking and quick thinking are imperative.

Bullets flowing like traces of light or giant lasers impacting at full force, it’s a constant onslaught which you WON’T come out unscathed, but certainly victorious. This is the anthesis of ‘’You only do cool shit during the cutscenes’’, because you are the cool shit, and every time a character points out how fucking insane you are I don’t feel like the game is patting me in the back, I feel like… Yeah! I actually did that cool shit! Give me that trophy I deserve it!

The variation on missions and the places you visit feels so vast and natural I really couldn’t care if they get repeated, because even when they do, if feel warranted in the broader context and it’s always so fun to repel the forces of basic mechs, destroying or defending the objectives or facing off against enemies equal to you that I kind of secretly wish there was even more of it.

Battling against other ACs is such a pleasure, and whoever came up with the idea of the Arena deserves a goddam golden medal; not only it’s a perfect excuse to ‘’meet’’ other pilots and ACs you may or may not encounter in the game, but it’s also the perfect connector to make the OS system even more rewarding and to test your abilities as well as to learn from other builds. But it’s when you get to encounter real ACs in the wild that the true dopamine starts running wild; some of the hardest battles in the entire game are those against pilots that feel like other protagonist, with access to the same crazy weaponry and the ability to heal. It’s incredibly rewarding knowing that you defeated someone that was basically another you with different equipment, almost as much as when you defeat someone that’s straight up stronger than you.


The bosses are BY A LONG SHOT the moments where the spectacle is brought to a insane degree, but never to the detriment to the fight itself. It was during the fight against the ‘’gimmick’’ boss of the game and I realized how much fun I was having, and my jaw was dropping that I knew fully that this was a damn good game. Speaking of, I wish I was recording my face when fighting against one of them, it was a crazy-ass battle that feel even more of a bullet hell than any previous one , and I managed to defeat them with only one heal left and with my resources low… and then the fucker started rising again. I felt both so betrayed and happy that I could only nervously laugh, what an amazing bunch of bosses.

If I have to point out flaws, and I do ‘cause there are two things that irked me, would be the seemingly lack of any sort of real punishment and… the lock-on system. Previous AC game featured a debt system that could put you in the red and make you have literal zero money, and while that also seemed to have its surprising gameplay ‘’benefits’’, it was a system that I totally get why it didn’t return and money lost after every mission to pay off repairs is more than enough… but I still think there should have been something that punished you, if not for your using your resources, maybe because of reckless deaths or decisions. Because not every mission has provisions to pick up ammo at a certain point, I found myself letting me be killed or resetting back to the last checkpoint, knowing not much progress would be lost and the punishment wouldn’t be much higher. I only realized this four chapters into the game, but even before that I noticed that the game too lenient considering the setting and how the rest of the world operates, and even if it’s not necessarily a flaw, it felt off in some way… you know that it’s a flaw tho?

The lock-on… isn’t the worst, once you are locked in to an enemy you are set unless it pulls off some whacky stuff, and the red reticle tells you perfectly if you are hitting the enemy or not… but getting to that point is so confusing, so poorly shown, and it’s so hard and cumbersome to change between enemies in a game so fast paced, that I couldn’t help but groan at it every time a speedy bastard attacked me from behind and by the time I was finally locked I had to spend one heal, not even the manual aim upgrade helps much in that regard…

The lock on is probably the worst part about the whole experience, and its something that doesn’t even come close to make the battles less enjoyable, and hell, sometimes I even… like it? In boss fights specially, the little bit of confusion feels warranted and makes you rely more on your control over the camera, which ends up being the right call to evade many attacks. But even when it’s noticeably bad, it will take much more than that to ruin a combat so polished, so fun, so exhilarating and exciting as this. It’s in the middle of the action when I can only think of the battle, it’s in the store when I think of the planning, and everything flows perfectly…

But it’s in those moments in the middle of nowhere, or when seeing the briefing, that I remember.

There’s a greater horror beyond the scorched skies.

A winged mutt

The first mission of the game is to wipe out entire battalion of resistance members fighting for their land, just because they are a nuisance to a conglomerate.

The next mission is to destroy that company’s forces ‘cause another conglomerate told us to.

Welcome to Rubicon.

To be honest, this particular introduction is nothing new for this series, the very first game in fact has a really similar first mission tot that of VI, and this is where my lack of knowledge comes into play since I’m not really able to compare this game’s story to that of its previous iterations in any meaningful way… but I can look it as its own.

I can’t tell you how many times I was hearing the briefing of many missions and the only thing I could picture in my mind was the CEO of Arquebus saying something along the lines of ‘’Human rights? In this economy?!’’

There’s something so uncannily real about Fires of Rubicon horror, a silenced horror beyond the great threat that a possible return of the Fires of Ibis could entail, that threat feels cosmical, a cataclysm humanity has witnessed and its terrible result… but what’s more terrifying than that is seeing two corporations grander than entire system on a race to make that happen once again, a clash to the Armageddon only stopped by their own hubris and the efforts of the rubiconians.

Entire cities covered by snow and decay, their buildings now used as cover for weapons that should have never existed, companies and the PCA creating entire edifications in mere days, in the remnants of the institute of Rubicon, a memory of a series of mistakes that costed an entire solar system. The game tells a lot of this story through briefings and mid-level conversations (Kind of Kid Icarus Uprising, now that I think about it), and it even uses this information to surprise you with the complete opposite or something unexpected, but it’s in the levels themselves, with its amazing visuals and design, where the true tragedy of Rubicon is apparent.

Fires of Rubicon is a story that branches off even beyond the credits, but one that also feels perfectly told in its first run. What I thought would be a backdrop that gives context to why are you shooting ends up being everything, and the reason you yourself question why are you shooting.

It feels so violent, more so than the hectic combat, a story of broken pasts and promises, of lies on top of lies that end up in cataclysmic results, and of those that pursue the truth end up being the most vulnerable.

You arrive with a stolen name and as a dog of many owners, to a world where nobody has a face nor a real name, where they are but numbers from a series of gens of mechs and upgrades, where those who are on top of the world don’t trust those who are a little higher on the food chain, those who don’t even show themselves, as if terrible war they started is beneath them.

Nothing matters if credits are spent; even after you begin wars against them, you still buy parts of your mech from those same companies.

Little by little, I found those to call allies, like Carla or Rusty, and those to hate, like Snail, but even in their misfortune, they at least have a voice, unlike the thousands, maybe millions, of rubiconians, as muted as their cousins of the ever-expanding coral.

But even the end, is those voices that end up joining you against a force so massive it seems impossible to know where it begins or where it ends, so inhumane that knowing people are behind it all makes it even worse, and yet, you fight, you win your wings.

You are Raven.

I love this story, I love how open ended it ends, almost inviting you to explore more, but also being hopeful if you did the right thing, if you improved and knew who to trust and what you needed to do, a story that made each battle have the more meaning, and that made the final decision and the final fight some of the most bitter sweet moments I’ve experienced in a game.

Looking back, I almost feel ashamed, I expected so much less from what it ended up being, an inspiring trust in the player, an amazing combat and movement system, a story that is as grand, as tragic, and as terrifying as it needs to be. But also even more than that.

I arrived at Rubicon not even knowing what I was gonna fight for.

Turns out, I had to find the answer for myself.

The 1st Armored Core title on the ps2, is a very early installment ps2 as well so keep this in mind for this review. Let’s start off with the setting of the game, Mars, a big red rock planet with heavy weather. This leads to many of the missions and areas in the game being indoors, meaning many areas are laboratories or factories. While it can feel like a bummer to some people as the many open areas are found in the ps1 games. Here it checks out since the missions that DO have you outside, the weather is often rough like being at Mar’s poles, having to search and operate in a snowstorm. I find the areas overall good and fit with the setting, while there’s nothing to write home about for a gen 6 game.

Now let’s talk about the feature everyone loves dearly, the arena! I would sink in hours on end in the arena, going from rank 50 to 1 nearly all at the beginning of the game as there were no restrictions from stopping me. I feel rather conflicted about this game’s arena. On one hand, with the arena areas to choose from, I found myself swapping between them more often than I did with any AC title I’ve played as each has its own pros and cons. I love going to Falna Craters to give a large, almost flat arena to battle a fellow AC for example.

Now on the other hand… the AI in this game is dumb, I mean REALLY dumb. While yes, the difficulty curve for the arena is excellent in its own right. The AI placed in the areas given just doesn’t mix well. As you may know, areas are limited and if you leave the area borders, you fail. This same logic applies to the enemies, so you can beat ALL of the arenas by not shooting a single thing at an opponent. Can totally cheese by ringing out the opponents. The easiest to do this is by playing Abandon Highway. I say to give this a try as it’s hilarious, but the idea of being able to ring out even rank 1 AC by doing this is mind-boggling. This applies to the missions too, I personally have gotten an enemy AC trapped on my head in a corner and we’ll have an awkward moment together. While this is a clear flaw in game design, it being a solo experience makes the flaw not as bad if this problem existed in modern gaming.

Gameplay? It’s literally the same as the ps1 games but with better graphics. Don’t fix what isn’t broken I guess.

Music! The music in this title is good, full techno vibe for this title and great remakes of the 1’s ost. My favorite menu/garage theme without a doubt!

The story in this title is great and far better told than the previous entries. This time, the antagonists feel like a genuine threat and like you’re the only hope for the people on Mars, that feeling of being at a disadvantage the whole way through. Each mission has actual relevance to the story, unlike past and later titles where the plot only happens near the last half. Pleasant story and worth checking out for it alone.

Overall, this being my 1st AC game I tried it out years ago and gave up on it as it was too hard. Now back with 4 AC games under my belt and knowledge now going back into this game. This game is really really fun and what more can you ask from a video game?

I’m at a sheer loss to hype anyone about Armored Core: Verdict Day. And this is coming from someone who loves mecha, even the most dull ones I usually find some aspects worth looking into. Except for Nine-breaker, but that's a topic for another day. Here I am struggling so hard to get into a cockpit let alone function in one. In the end, I'm leaning quite heavily on “Skip this, please. For the sake of your sanity.” There is plenty wrong here, but I'll do my best to give a fair overview for those interested.

Set 100 years after the events of ACV. I won’t spoil what happens in the previous game, but suffice it to say. You control a new protagonist. The “Lone Mercenary.” Accompanying them is an operator Maggy and a transport pilot by the name of Fatman. Yes, I kid you not, one of your handlers' names is Fatman… Okay….Unexpected Kojima character aside You have slightly fewer main missions(Sorties) here than the predecessor with sixty to go through, but only ten have relevance to the story. The 50 are mainly AC vs. AC duels and the occasional eliminate every enemy unit. The Sorties barely drop important plot scenes here, quickly dulling my interest. Sure they can drip-feed you lore pages after duels, but these only talk about the enemy and less about enriching who, what, where, when, and why questions about the ACs we use and less so about the characters, relationships, and plot threads we encounter. Mostly delegated in cutscenes, but these are too small in number when a majority of battles are simply skirmishes without context. So lack of context and exposition here hurts. To give you the bare minimum: “The Three Forces” reign supreme. The Venide, Sirius, and Evergreen Family(EGF). I don’t need to discuss their background because there is hardly vital information to explore. But the gist is that the Forces are in a constant 3-way war with each other for the power to use the Towers. Tall megastructures dot various places around the globe with hidden ancient advanced technology. There is a fourth power; “The Foundation,” a group that claims neutrality yet supplies all factions with weapons and UNACs(Unmanned Armored Cores). And you, my unlucky friend, have to navigate the different assignments from each of these factions.

After completing all the missions offline, I have to say the story is a downgrade from its predecessor. Villains unremarkable of note and meh characters. The inclusion of lore is a nice touch that constantly updates in a sort of digital newspaper; “The Voice of War” or VOW for short. Yet, these ultimately don’t do much to engage players enough to immerse them further into the world. Serving as little more than a footnote, an after-action report after a main story encounter and as a result disinterests me to care for worldbuilding at large. One could easily see this as a checklist the devs did to fulfill a ‘lore’ requirement. Granted, the series isn't known for lore to feed, since we have to piece together the sparse environmental storytelling told through fragments of cutscenes, character dialogue, and morsels of information that may connect with villains. Yet this in itself isn't a strong point to dive into from my time playing AC2 to ACVD. There have been attempts by more dedicated fans on Youtube to somehow connect the pieces of lore, an endeavor I respect and admire. So perhaps there is something to tie knots...

One feature I loved in the earlier title is the workshop sites. These sites allow one to resupply and change their outfits with different parts. Here the devs removed it in favor of larger, wider areas to fight enemies and much smaller levels. However, this presents a more bland design. Now corridors and areas became too samey and copy-pasted throughout. Once you see one AC vs. AC engagement you’ve pretty much seen them all. Dropping you from one wasteland with cliffs to an industrial, and another with broken factories and inoperable war machines. The lack of creativity compared to the tight-knit levels in the preceding one is a cause for concern. This coupled with a meager amount of interesting enemy variety and cool special boss encounters to wow you, are nearly nonexistent here. This is exacerbated by a poor list of worthwhile main objectives beyond defeating all enemies. Sure there are a handful of very uncommon ones, but more often than not the objective is simply "eliminate everyone." Where are the timed limits? Defend against 'x' waves of enemies? Defeat colossus-type machines!?

Can’t even go online since the servers are offline on PS3. I wanted to try some cool Sorties I hear you can undertake with others, especially battling an old special enemy type from AC V. Now that’s not possible. The servers were gutted, which comprises I would say a 3rd chunk of content left to peruse. Wish I could play that… Somehow… sighs

Anyway, there must be something here worth experiencing?! Right!?

Thankfully, there is. For such a bleak world, the soundtrack composed by longtime AC composer Kota Hoshino with Yuka Kitamura is surprisingly uplifting, not full of edge and hardcore rock. Instead, I am treated to a slew of tracks keeping the beat, full of techno, violins at times with bass during heavy moments, and chaotic musical mayhem. Not seeking to increase my anxiety, instead the music pumps me up to be efficient, keeps my spirits up, and despite overwhelming odds stacked against me, I persevere through heavy damage. Vocals are carefully sung in a beautiful tone sometimes in the background rather than the foreground. Where prominent instruments like the drums reign supreme in precision tempo to not destroy the beat too much. Not with an intensity to the extent they’re drumming without end, but utilized carefully to keep tracks soulful, pleasant, and full of good rhythms. Although, some tracks raise the tension and suspense to full throttle. Giving rise to my anxiety, but even so, it is still not enough to delve into despair. Some of these tracks for some reason feel triumphant with hints of melancholy. In effect, the composition of the whole soundtrack is eclectic, with controlled chaos, and a dash of oozing coolness here and there.

There is a neat addition here I haven’t seen in all the AC entries I’ve played thus far and I dearly wish the feature will become a mainstay for future installments. In that upon dying. You don’t automatically head to the results screen. Instead, you are ejected from your mech with two big tanks equipped to your body to hover. From here you can spectate the skirmish as an active participant. Did you bring along a UNAC with you? Let’s see if they can defeat your enemies... If they can. You. Win. The. Mission. Oh my god. This single-handedly saved my playthrough and made repeating assignments upon failing them not a chore, but something I'm interested in witnessing since my buddy could finish the enemy AC or remaining mobs right? Yup! I lost countless times my ally finished the job when I couldn’t. They are a constant companion when you hire them during your main campaign progress. So fighting alone isn't so lonely when you have a buddy along!

Aside from that you can even upgrade these guys and make your own customized A.I. And even go above and beyond by allowing users to tweak their chipset to prioritize what to do during combat. I’m astounded at the sheer depth to have full control to tweak our A.I. companion into becoming a super killing machine. I didn’t delve into the option too much since I only found out during my repeated attempts at the final battle. But even without tinkering. The default UNACs you can use do more than enough damage to help you to victory. I’ll never forget SIGNS UNAC D/01. The dude carried me through countless fights, even when I used my previous build from importing. Salutes o7

As with certain entries in the AC series. You can import your saves from the past game to grant you additional parts, use your loadout, emblems, etc. I was able to use the build I had before the final boss painlessly. So it's a good idea to import if you do have a save. Fast process and you don’t need to have a struggle in the beginning.

That’s pretty much the only thing I could say positively to defend Verdict Day. I could sprout suggestions on what not to do, but I think FromSoftware learned from their mistakes here and is actively working hard to improve with the next entry coming soon. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. All in all, I’m incredibly soul-crushed to say, ACVD is a deteriorating mecha full of rust. And I shudder to enter the cockpit of one. The sum of its parts is not enough to redeem the underwhelming gameplay, poor level design, no noteworthy boss types, barebones story, weak worldbuilding, questionable feature replacement, missing online connectivity, and meh cast and villains. Customizing your AC remains satisfying, but everything else bogs my enjoyment. With very few positives for me to confidently recommend to newcomers or veterans. It’s a shame the last Armored Core the devs made before diving into a hiatus goes out not with a bang, but with a whimper. There is potential here, and I wish the servers were still online for me to play the multiplayer component. To anyone who enjoys this title, I triple salute your dedication. When I had only a little. I would only recommend this to super dedicated fans who want to try the last AC before ACVI by FromSoftware, but honestly, you're better off playing the past games in my honest opinion. AC2, AC3, Nexus, and AC4, are all better starting points.


4/10

Additional Material:
ACVD Tutorial Document for new players
Information, Explanations, and Q&A for Armored Core: Verdict Day (And 5th Gen)


A gigantic, triumphant improvement over Armored Core V, Verdict Day beats the odds to merely be very bad.

I already went on an unhinged rant about my problems with ACV, most of which were just barely less severe this time around, but I do want to say that Verdict Day has plenty of content laid over this totally irredeemable framework that I would love to have experienced in pretty much any other game. Like... there's some pretty decent writing, in an old-school AC way; you get character profiles of AC pilots after killing them in missions, which is a small thing that does (relatively) a lot to make the campaign feel less like an afterthought. Missions are also no longer atrociously long and samey (though the difficulty has been ramped up considerably), there are better and more varied maps, some of the new frame parts they added aren't as ugly. Strides have certainly been made.

The final boss gets hyped up a lot and: genuinely yes, it's an absolute standout as the best thing in the game visually, conceptually, and even mechanically. It's a pretty fun fight! I liked the actual gameplay of it! But like... I don't know if it's "play all of Armored Core Verdict Day for this" good. You can watch it on Youtube, frankly, it's not like the context of the rest of the game adds much. (The context of having played For Answer, however...)

If it wasn't obvious, I didn't fuck with multiplayer at all. There are a variety of reasons for this, but there's only a couple of months left that the multiplayer will even exist, so if the idea isn't as repellent to you as it is to me, you should probably hurry.

made like a dark, twisted version of pokemon haha. Just a glimpse into my dark reality. A full stare into my open-world survival crafting slop would make most simply go insane lmao.

How Owlcat managed to make 3 of the Best CRpgs Ever Made, in a row? I don't know.

But Rogue Trader is the most special one to me.

Why didn’t Avalanche just vote for a new CEO of Shinra?

This is what happens when a group of fanfic writers with some decent coding skills and a list of disgusting fetishes a mile long try and make a mod while convincing themselves that they understand Fallout better than anyone else who has ever worked on the series. It gets one star for being so bad that it's actually entertaining (at least the NCR route is), but other than that you'd be better off playing literally anything else.

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