I played the PS2 Armored Core games back in the day, but finally went back and played the original. Maybe it was my latent familiarity with the series, but I thought this game held up rather well. It's a bit jank compared to later titles, and the starting Armored Core seems absurdly weak, but after that it was a very playable experience.

The robot customization is rather weak, though I did miss some parts. And I have to mention it, why even have back weapons equippable for bipedal legs without Human-Plus (a cheat item)? But, at the time and frankly ever since the customization hasn't ever been matched. These games are completely unique and there's nothing like them, and what is like them is even jankier than these games and have nothing else going on.

The presentation in this is maybe the best in the series. I may have glossed over details when I was a kid, but wow this game has incredible atmosphere and vision. The visuals are styled like high quality 90s anime, the particle effects and UI in particular, and I think they nailed it in low fidelity 5th generation graphics. It has aged well. The soundtrack is also pretty nice, very sci-fi techno. What else impressed me is the (albeit periodic) sound design in certain missions. The mission you go find the Human-Plus details has this Silent Hill-esque soundscape, loud banging noises, human voices repeating, all with specific cues in a large spooky mission, enhancing the sense of mystery and grandeur.

Another terrific moment is wiping out the Chrome side (that's the path I took) you fight the remnants in a large somewhat abandoned facility. The enemies are the same as the beginning, weak and go down instantly, and not that many, sporadically spread out in the area. There's a lot of darkness, and the draw distance is cut back very strongly, and there are gigantic massive rotating fans with a stark sound. It is otherwise completely silent. All this makes this mission a very strong punctuation point right before the end of the game.

The story also impressed me, the cynical hyper capitalist dystopian set up is right there at the beginning. The first two missions you can accept are "Eliminate Strikers" and "Eliminate Squatters" which communicates the setting about as quick as possible lol. But the main story, about men becoming machines, people being willing pawns in greater schemes and more than anything else a deep deep paranoia that is an undercurrent to every single thing. With later plot revelations about being manipulated, there's a subtle implication that every other figure in the story was similarly turned into a paranoid mess. Factions attack each other out of the fear that the other will, that doing nothing is considered a grave threat to all of mankind no less! It's a story that has aged incredibly, and more relevant today than ever before.

I do have to dock the game a bit for that insane final mission. Legit what were they thinking how are you even meant to do that without save states or banging your head against a wall for 15 hours. I only failed maybe twice in the game up to the end, but I flatly gave up at the end and just used save states. I do like that it is a big finale, big reveals, lots of stuff being thrown at you.

Overall, it's a landmark game that is more influential than realized. I'm looking forward to 6.

DISCLAIMER: I do not give a FUCK about the dev drama. I have my own opinions about what happened, but it isn't my or your place to make judgements on an art piece based exclusively on one sole exposure of its creators. The steam reviews and part of the backloggd reviews are so clearly negatively biased towards the game because they're terminally online, faux-altruistic psychos who are reductive to the art of critiquing games. Games, for the most part, are to be judged on the material presented in the product; and that product is one of the best new indie games I've played in ages.

Forgoing sucking off its gameplay premise, Fight Knight consistently evolves on its mechanics and designs in a traditional, linear, and fantastic way. In an era of indie games where most aim to reinvent, subvert expectation, or stand out arbitrarily, Fight Knight can only be described as confident and sincere.

There was never a moment where I felt a headache coming on due too an overly complex puzzle. Any headaches were induced purely by my own mistakes, both in and out of combat. Enemy AI is stoic, and not very complex or manipulatable, but in turn makes approaching them a unique challenge with each armor set. Each fight is a puzzle of reaction time, weakness recognition, and player ability. Marry these concepts with amazing set pieces during boss fights, awesome cliches, and amazing art direction, and you've got half a great game.

The other half of this great game takes place in a dungeon crawler, and like the combat, the puzzle of each challenge makes me feel like Einstein. Which, to be honest, is all I can really ask for in any game. Its complexity, difficulty, and engagement only evolve on themselves as the game go on, culminating in a game that can only be described as "fucking cool."

I want to be able to tell you to ignore what you've heard about the game and its history- but I know for a fact no one but me is reading this. So I'm gonna tell "you" anyway. Play this game and see for yourself. Stick it out all the way through, even if it isn't your kind of game. I would mock the games visuals, writing, and overall idea before I played it.

Then I played it.

The game that I loved no longer exists in this world.

With the relentless march of time, the game grew, changed, twisted, and morphed into another, different game bearing the aesthetics of Ragnarok. As is the fate of all live service online games, when updates come and changes are made, the previous iterations of the game are lost forever to the ether, becoming playable only in the memories of those who were there to experience it.

There is a loose network of small fan-run servers that attempt to emulate how the game once was. They are imperfect, as all memories are. Still, it is a comfort to me knowing they are there, maintaining those recreations of a bygone virtual world, keeping the doors open in case any previous resident becomes too nostalgia-drunk and stumbles in.