One step forward and a couple more back. I prefer the changes to the heat mechanic over how it worked as a Dark Souls poison effect in previous titles. It's been given much more depth now and only needs to be adjusted a bit here and there with heat generation from boosters and such. Missions and Arena are a total downgrade from previous titles, however, being largely uninteresting and easy until the final level but by then the game is already over. The economy also feels like a step back from Silent Line, but that could just be me as I prefer when the end-of-mission payouts are more strict unlike how forgiving they are here. The economy in these games is just as important as the customisation if you ask me, and they tend to synergise best when you feel like you're pressed for cash. It could be that the increase in payout rewards is due to the addition of part-tuning introducing another feature to spend credits on, in which case I can understand as part-tuning is a great new mechanic, so it's nice to have money spare to be able to essentially min-max builds I guess. Honestly, I had a lot more fun with Disc 2, which brought back a whole lot of remade and remixed 1st-gen levels as a celebration of the series so far. Nexus is a fine AC game, but it feels like a mere stepping stone between Silent Line and Last Raven.