Just beating out Verdict Day in the vote for Armored Core With Most Awkward to Abbreviate Subtitle, Project Phantasma is the second game in the series and it is... middle of the road. It's not the AC game that most could have been an email, but it probably could have been an email. In fact it would absolutely be DLC today, with only a handful of new parts added and a story clocking in at maybe three hours (not that most other games in the series get far past the 8-12 range, counting just the main story).
Said story is considered sort of... an oddity. It has more... it's more of an... it has A Character. Like a persistent supporting one who's relevant to the plot. That's more than the other very early games, or at least the others never really show up on screen. Sumika is another Raven, though, and you occasionally co-op with her. That said, the main impression the story gave me was of something more... Saturday Morning than the usual Armored Core fare. It's a very straightforward, self-contained conflict against a single antagonist, who is also probably the most Generic Cartoon Supervillain character in the series. He even has kind of a catchphrase, which is pretty annoying. (Ha ha, get it? It's like the thing!) But hey, the voice actor is having fun with it. It's just not exactly the darkly camp political commentary or high-melodrama real robot anime tropes the rest of the series might get you used to: a bad man wants to build a scary robot to take over the world, so you shoot at him until he dies, and also, a lady is there. (I'm not marking this as spoilers.)
It must be said that by far Project Phantasma's biggest contribution to the series, if not exactly a unique draw, was the Arena. Basically just a series of standalone, optional AC duels in which you climb a rankings ladder one opponent at a time, it's an instant-staple game mode that didn't exist in AC1; the concept of Ravens being officially ranked was just there for narrative flavor, despite the rankings getting an entire main menu option. It honestly feels a little wrong that the Arena started here. Not, like, morally wrong, it just sounds Incorrect. I mean, the very next game is the one that's actually about the Arena. PP doesn't mention it in the story at all, as far as I can remember; it's kind of such a random Thing Off to the Side you could be forgiven for assuming it's nondiegetic, up until you play Master of Arena.
I will also point out that the reward for beating the final arena opponent is one of the funniest weapons in the series--the FINGER, a hand-shaped five-barreled machine gun with absolutely obscene DPS that also burns through ammo faster than any weapon in the game. That might almost balance itself out if not for the ammo capacity being 3000. Yeah, Fromsoft wasn't really big on constant balance tweaks yet at this point, but this thing got nerfed into fucking oblivion for the next game.
Mission design is... fairly solid, for the early series. I'd call it more even than AC1, if not necessarily better; it's possibly debatable which game has higher peaks, although I'm leaning 1, but 1 for sure has lower valleys. PP is a very Safe kind of game compared to the two it's sandwiched between. I don't recommend skipping it, but neither do I really recommend not skipping it; it's just, Some More. Take it or leave it.
Anyway, the next game pops the fuck off.
Said story is considered sort of... an oddity. It has more... it's more of an... it has A Character. Like a persistent supporting one who's relevant to the plot. That's more than the other very early games, or at least the others never really show up on screen. Sumika is another Raven, though, and you occasionally co-op with her. That said, the main impression the story gave me was of something more... Saturday Morning than the usual Armored Core fare. It's a very straightforward, self-contained conflict against a single antagonist, who is also probably the most Generic Cartoon Supervillain character in the series. He even has kind of a catchphrase, which is pretty annoying. (Ha ha, get it? It's like the thing!) But hey, the voice actor is having fun with it. It's just not exactly the darkly camp political commentary or high-melodrama real robot anime tropes the rest of the series might get you used to: a bad man wants to build a scary robot to take over the world, so you shoot at him until he dies, and also, a lady is there. (I'm not marking this as spoilers.)
It must be said that by far Project Phantasma's biggest contribution to the series, if not exactly a unique draw, was the Arena. Basically just a series of standalone, optional AC duels in which you climb a rankings ladder one opponent at a time, it's an instant-staple game mode that didn't exist in AC1; the concept of Ravens being officially ranked was just there for narrative flavor, despite the rankings getting an entire main menu option. It honestly feels a little wrong that the Arena started here. Not, like, morally wrong, it just sounds Incorrect. I mean, the very next game is the one that's actually about the Arena. PP doesn't mention it in the story at all, as far as I can remember; it's kind of such a random Thing Off to the Side you could be forgiven for assuming it's nondiegetic, up until you play Master of Arena.
I will also point out that the reward for beating the final arena opponent is one of the funniest weapons in the series--the FINGER, a hand-shaped five-barreled machine gun with absolutely obscene DPS that also burns through ammo faster than any weapon in the game. That might almost balance itself out if not for the ammo capacity being 3000. Yeah, Fromsoft wasn't really big on constant balance tweaks yet at this point, but this thing got nerfed into fucking oblivion for the next game.
Mission design is... fairly solid, for the early series. I'd call it more even than AC1, if not necessarily better; it's possibly debatable which game has higher peaks, although I'm leaning 1, but 1 for sure has lower valleys. PP is a very Safe kind of game compared to the two it's sandwiched between. I don't recommend skipping it, but neither do I really recommend not skipping it; it's just, Some More. Take it or leave it.
Anyway, the next game pops the fuck off.