Though it differs so little from the original, Project Phantasma manages to showcase every weakness of the PS1 Armored Core titles while showcasing only few of the strengths.
All the new equipment is very overpowered, and you start with a budget here so every story mission becomes trivial incredibly fast. Not to mention all the weapons and money you get from the arena, they just shred everything to pieces, and the final one has a ridiculous 3000 bullets at that.
The arena, which from what I can tell became a staple and a very popular mode in these games, is very poor here in my opinion. All the competitor emblems and names (the Dill and Pickle combination for example) are fun and all, but having so many different named robots to fight removes the point of the first game, where each encounter with one was special and memorable, and entire levels were built around such encounters.
It also really showcases the shortcomings of this combat system. When the go-to tactic becomes choosing an arena with a very low roof so that the enemy doesn't fly into the stratosphere, you know it's not great. There's more ways to cheese stuff in a similarly unsatisfying way, but it's so effective and the opponents get so annoyingly fast and hard to track that it becomes tough to even consider anything else. They even give them a ridiculous sword that deals, like, half of my mech's 9000 armor damage. Also, certain explosions either stop or send sky high even the heaviest of mechs.
The story isn't that of a mercenary anymore, but a hero chasing an evil dude, whose only thing is that he calls you a nuisance every time he meets you. He gets progressively crazier to the point of merging with a superweapon. Who cares, I absolutely demolished him with a bajillion health to go each time I saw him. You also get a female robot companion you have to save and then protect, and you know it's a female robot because it's pink and slender. Aside from the voice of course. There's too few missions to really develop the story, none of them are particularly good or memorable anyway, some have a gimmick to them but I can't even come up with any standout one like I could with many of those from the original.
The music freaking slaps this time around, there's much more of it and the arena themes are great but because you have to do 50 fights, and even repeat some of them multiple times, they ultimately become tiring.
Big downgrade in my opinion, feels less like working with the core of what they have and instead slapping on new stuff which only shows the cracks in the foundation. It is shorter than the original, but I'd much rather replay that over Project Phantasma.
All the new equipment is very overpowered, and you start with a budget here so every story mission becomes trivial incredibly fast. Not to mention all the weapons and money you get from the arena, they just shred everything to pieces, and the final one has a ridiculous 3000 bullets at that.
The arena, which from what I can tell became a staple and a very popular mode in these games, is very poor here in my opinion. All the competitor emblems and names (the Dill and Pickle combination for example) are fun and all, but having so many different named robots to fight removes the point of the first game, where each encounter with one was special and memorable, and entire levels were built around such encounters.
It also really showcases the shortcomings of this combat system. When the go-to tactic becomes choosing an arena with a very low roof so that the enemy doesn't fly into the stratosphere, you know it's not great. There's more ways to cheese stuff in a similarly unsatisfying way, but it's so effective and the opponents get so annoyingly fast and hard to track that it becomes tough to even consider anything else. They even give them a ridiculous sword that deals, like, half of my mech's 9000 armor damage. Also, certain explosions either stop or send sky high even the heaviest of mechs.
The story isn't that of a mercenary anymore, but a hero chasing an evil dude, whose only thing is that he calls you a nuisance every time he meets you. He gets progressively crazier to the point of merging with a superweapon. Who cares, I absolutely demolished him with a bajillion health to go each time I saw him. You also get a female robot companion you have to save and then protect, and you know it's a female robot because it's pink and slender. Aside from the voice of course. There's too few missions to really develop the story, none of them are particularly good or memorable anyway, some have a gimmick to them but I can't even come up with any standout one like I could with many of those from the original.
The music freaking slaps this time around, there's much more of it and the arena themes are great but because you have to do 50 fights, and even repeat some of them multiple times, they ultimately become tiring.
Big downgrade in my opinion, feels less like working with the core of what they have and instead slapping on new stuff which only shows the cracks in the foundation. It is shorter than the original, but I'd much rather replay that over Project Phantasma.