Before releasing their PSX swansong Echo Night 2, From released this interesting little gem on the ill-fated Dreamcast. It follows the 'spiritual series' rule that King's Field did with Shadow Tower, and the Souls games would do in the future, in that Frame Gride is clearly derivative of Armored Core.
What we have here is Armored Core adapted into an arena fighting game in a medieval fantasy setting. The aesthetic is compelling, but unfortunately the game isn't as fleshed out as it should be. Opening and closing narration is pretty much all the story there is.
The single-player consists of a ten mandatory fights, with plenty of optional fights for grinding resources. The resource requirements for attaining new equipment are too stringent for the brief runtime, giving less room for experimentation than it should have; I started as a medium mech and ended the same, as the resource cost for switching to light or heavy never seemed worth the risk.
So there's not much here, but what's here is mostly enjoyable. A fighting game built around mech customisation rather than set characters is unique, and though the gameplay has its own problems there's a satisfaction to its methodological approach, with heavy energy management and plenty of options for zoning and arena control.
A cool little game that could have been great with more fleshing out. This world/aesthetic is something From should revisit if they ever want to truly go down that "Armored Souls" route many speculated Armored Core VI would, it would be a perfect fit.
What we have here is Armored Core adapted into an arena fighting game in a medieval fantasy setting. The aesthetic is compelling, but unfortunately the game isn't as fleshed out as it should be. Opening and closing narration is pretty much all the story there is.
The single-player consists of a ten mandatory fights, with plenty of optional fights for grinding resources. The resource requirements for attaining new equipment are too stringent for the brief runtime, giving less room for experimentation than it should have; I started as a medium mech and ended the same, as the resource cost for switching to light or heavy never seemed worth the risk.
So there's not much here, but what's here is mostly enjoyable. A fighting game built around mech customisation rather than set characters is unique, and though the gameplay has its own problems there's a satisfaction to its methodological approach, with heavy energy management and plenty of options for zoning and arena control.
A cool little game that could have been great with more fleshing out. This world/aesthetic is something From should revisit if they ever want to truly go down that "Armored Souls" route many speculated Armored Core VI would, it would be a perfect fit.