Better paced than Armored Core, and the difficulty introduced by the latter half of the arena fights encourages experimentation and reveals the systems' depth and variety in a way that game never really managed. It sacrifices a lot of style by shifting to a conventional narrative, but there is something funny about your client being a pitch-perfect hardboiled fiction girl-in-need while exclusively appearing in her mech. Highlight of the game was all fifty arena participants having unique logos and single-sentence bios.