Senaste recensioner av Darks Laugh

Updated review see bottom

Im an old school armored core fan, i played the first one, some spin offs, loved 4 and was okay with 5.

Ive been stuck on the chapter 1 end boss for several hours, ive tried various builds, weapons, tactics, nothing. even worse he only shows up after 4 to 5 hours of game play, meaning that if you get stone walled by him, guess what? steam wont give you a refund so your out 60 dollars. All the new from software fans keep saying its easy or git gud, because of course they do, BUT I DIDNT WANT ARMORED SOULS. Part of the appeal of armored core to me was i could PICK my style of play, not have it dictated to me or heavily restricted which i feel here.

In the old games you could build a nice all around AC and with a bit of tweeking make it through anything, i rarely ran into an actual AC build i couldnt make it through a mission or make viable with the slightest amount of tweeking. If you did run into a wall changing your overall build felt night and day in difference, here? all the defenses seem the same, sure the health amount changes, but when the enemies smack you for 25% health on a heavy shot what the heck does your total HP even matter?

The energy system is terrible. Its basically all the energy regeneration, or none of it. if your on the ground, your bar goes from 0 to max in a second, in the air? basically nothing. The game tells you that being air borne is a good way to play, but then severely limits your ability to stay in the air. to dodge things like the millions plus misses coming at you or massive almost insta kill fire blades.

The lock on system is borderline useless, it CONSTANTLY losses track of the enemies and god help you if you try to boost kick them because theyll almost always dodge it, your lock on will break and youll eat a blast to the face thatll get rid of most of your health. the FCS defines mid range max at 260m, which is stupid close to them, like shot gun range close. I spend more time having to manually aim my camera then the lock ons actually spent locked on

Guns, most firearms feels like pea shooters, sure the fire rate changes, and the damage changes can be seen, but seriously unless youre using explosives or melee weapons you feel like youre doing NOTHING to the bosses, even when theyre staggered

The staggered system, another terrible introduction IMO. Does it logically make sense? sure, game play wise, i hate it. dump ammo into the enemy so you stagger them so you can THEN do actual damage. If you dont stagger them, you arent going to do any damage worth a damn, again back to pea shooters. put on top of that the game almost feels like it MAKES you need a melee weapon cause of the sheer damage it does compared to other weapons, its nice melee got some love this round, but making me feel like i need to have it or im hamstringing myself was not the way to go.

The sound design feels off, not bad, not terrible, just off. The ACs lack any real oomph to their steps, the walk and sounds like their weightless. A lot of the fire arms also lack a nice oophm. The "big hit incoming" warning sound effect plays too soon, so if you hit the QB the moment you hear it, 9 times out 10 the enemy will track you through it and blast you in the face.

Credit where its due the movement and controls feels responsive, but as a result the game basically feels weightless. The ACs have almost no momentum, they change directions at the slightest touch of the control stick, makes for a very responsive system, but as a result i dont feel like im controlling a massive heavy mech. The scaling of the world feels off as well, like im piloting a model of an AC rather then an AC.

Is the game itself bad? no, are you wrong if you like it? also no, but this is not the game i wanted when i heard AC6 was coming. and THATS why I dont like it and dont recommend it. Maybe some of my issues and complaints get addressed later in the game, and if so, cool, but that doesnt matter when im getting stone walled by a boss i cant beat, in a game i can no longer refund.

edit: Begin stuck for several hours might have been an overstatement, maybe closer to 2-2.5, but the levels of rage and frustration certainly made it feel like more

Edit 2: Beat the boss, and yes some issues were addressed later in the game (just finished play through 2 of 3), however, I still feel many of my complaints remain valid. youre basically required to build to stagger bosses and unless youre willing to sweat super hard you NEED certain weapons for certain bosses (lookin at you bubble gun). While not always bad this game plays exceedingly different from 4 or 5 and if you come in with muscle memory from those games the learning curve (which is already somewhat painful) becomes infinitely more painful until you finally get a hold of all the new mechanics. While ive come to see the game in a more favorable light then when i initially posted this review it still not the armored core game I wanted, hence the not recommended, that said, it is a solid game outside of not keeping to the name sake and overall does deserve to be commended as a game all it own.

and before someone thinks about complaining that im giving positive marks while not recommending the game, imagine if a developer took your favorite franchise made a game that while very good, played very little like its original it was based on. how would you feel about that? give it some actual thought and youll see where a lot of old school AC fans are at.

Dumb, irrelevant, and fun as hell.

Funny, but incredabily short, the 5-6 hour time you read about is likely with all activities included because i managed to complete the base story in 3. the guns are great and the silliness will likely have to make you pause the game once or twice but overall its just too damn short. I think they really could have done some more with this if they had wanted to, and im a bit disappointed that they didnt. overall 3/5