Armored Core 1 for Playstation is... strange. It clearly was a stepping stone into a very popular franchise, and very ambitious with what this game was like to play, even with it's rough controls.
Now I will say I'm happy I played this one first. While the controls are heavily dated, and the game is annoying with it's movement controls and camera controls. I think the game does a great job with making it feel like you're piloting a mech.
I will say from the get go, this game is not so much hard, as it is... convoluted in it's gameplay to whether you have to be precise as possible in order to actually be able to play...somewhat correctly.
The game uses tank controls to move, but primarily what you'll be doing is (and mainly I did this) straffing/moving with R1 and R2 Sideways while using the Left and Right buttons on the D-PAD to turn SLOWLY! R2 and L2 are used to look up and down when it comes to targeting your enemies. R2 looks down while L2 Looks up, it can be very disorienting.
You use Square to attack your weapons and a Triangle to switch to your secondary weapon. Circle is used for a single strong melee attack. And X is used as 4 things: Boosting while moving forward, Jump Boosting, Jump Boosting while going forward, and Hovering.
The game atmosphere overall is expansive and huge for 1997 game, however I will say the game is a bit brutal for how it's customization is.
In terms of customization, the game has a fantastic wide variety of options to choose from in terms of Mech Customization parts with the cavoite of having weight limits, this causes the customization to become limiting when you purchase new upgraded weapons/armor/ new armor pieces in general. Now this does get rectified after you beat the game, but it doesn't change the fact you still have to deal with it on your first playthrough. So much so, you could up wasting money on a new armor piece just for it to be incompatible.
The game has a cool custom emblem creator, which saves separately from the game's regular save data.
The game itself is tedious with it's controls, I hope whoever design the final mission, #38 got fired for suggesting that a game that uses TANK CONTROLS should have platforming.
The final mission is divided into 2 different parts, where if you die it's game over.
The first part of the mission is easy even if you do lose some health, the second part is a test of sanity because the game has you platform these moving cubes, and if you make 1 wrong jump you don't die but you to attempt the jumps all over again, and it doesn't help that the cubes themselves have different speeds of movement. Only for the game to extend further with having you traverse down a long pipe and then get to another long pipe and traverse upward, all while being attacks, it's really not fun.
Overall I can see how this game evolved into the major franchise. Honestly only thing I would recommend about it is the customization with the emblems and the mechs if you have a complete save file as that's when the game is really fun. Apart from that, it's rough, but it certainly is imaginative and pushed the PS1 to it's limit with how FROM SOFTWARE decided to make this game a very great step forward when it came to 3RD PERSON games, MECH GAMES, and overall how expansive it is for a 1997 3D game. Overall very ambitious by FROM SOFTWARE.
I would recommend it if you want to play it and see it's good and bad qualities, now I would usually I recommend to play it on PS3 digitally since it's still available on the PS3 store at the time of writing (AUGUST 31ST, 2023). However I would actually recommend playing on an emulator like DUCKSTATION with a completed file in order to get the full enjoyment of Armored Core with it's full customization accessed. However if you feel like wanting to have a tough time with a rough 1997 tank control MECH GAME, then download it on PS3, or buy an expansive PS1 Physical Copy.
Overall... because of it's roughness, and because I got frustrated sometimes with how slow the movement was, and that awful final level with the platforming, I'm giving the game solid 3.5 stars.
Now I will say I'm happy I played this one first. While the controls are heavily dated, and the game is annoying with it's movement controls and camera controls. I think the game does a great job with making it feel like you're piloting a mech.
I will say from the get go, this game is not so much hard, as it is... convoluted in it's gameplay to whether you have to be precise as possible in order to actually be able to play...somewhat correctly.
The game uses tank controls to move, but primarily what you'll be doing is (and mainly I did this) straffing/moving with R1 and R2 Sideways while using the Left and Right buttons on the D-PAD to turn SLOWLY! R2 and L2 are used to look up and down when it comes to targeting your enemies. R2 looks down while L2 Looks up, it can be very disorienting.
You use Square to attack your weapons and a Triangle to switch to your secondary weapon. Circle is used for a single strong melee attack. And X is used as 4 things: Boosting while moving forward, Jump Boosting, Jump Boosting while going forward, and Hovering.
The game atmosphere overall is expansive and huge for 1997 game, however I will say the game is a bit brutal for how it's customization is.
In terms of customization, the game has a fantastic wide variety of options to choose from in terms of Mech Customization parts with the cavoite of having weight limits, this causes the customization to become limiting when you purchase new upgraded weapons/armor/ new armor pieces in general. Now this does get rectified after you beat the game, but it doesn't change the fact you still have to deal with it on your first playthrough. So much so, you could up wasting money on a new armor piece just for it to be incompatible.
The game has a cool custom emblem creator, which saves separately from the game's regular save data.
The game itself is tedious with it's controls, I hope whoever design the final mission, #38 got fired for suggesting that a game that uses TANK CONTROLS should have platforming.
The final mission is divided into 2 different parts, where if you die it's game over.
The first part of the mission is easy even if you do lose some health, the second part is a test of sanity because the game has you platform these moving cubes, and if you make 1 wrong jump you don't die but you to attempt the jumps all over again, and it doesn't help that the cubes themselves have different speeds of movement. Only for the game to extend further with having you traverse down a long pipe and then get to another long pipe and traverse upward, all while being attacks, it's really not fun.
Overall I can see how this game evolved into the major franchise. Honestly only thing I would recommend about it is the customization with the emblems and the mechs if you have a complete save file as that's when the game is really fun. Apart from that, it's rough, but it certainly is imaginative and pushed the PS1 to it's limit with how FROM SOFTWARE decided to make this game a very great step forward when it came to 3RD PERSON games, MECH GAMES, and overall how expansive it is for a 1997 3D game. Overall very ambitious by FROM SOFTWARE.
I would recommend it if you want to play it and see it's good and bad qualities, now I would usually I recommend to play it on PS3 digitally since it's still available on the PS3 store at the time of writing (AUGUST 31ST, 2023). However I would actually recommend playing on an emulator like DUCKSTATION with a completed file in order to get the full enjoyment of Armored Core with it's full customization accessed. However if you feel like wanting to have a tough time with a rough 1997 tank control MECH GAME, then download it on PS3, or buy an expansive PS1 Physical Copy.
Overall... because of it's roughness, and because I got frustrated sometimes with how slow the movement was, and that awful final level with the platforming, I'm giving the game solid 3.5 stars.