Armored Core

When Fromsoft stops making Souls-likes, Vaati will end up having a thread on the farms. I can already see him developing aberrant behavior.
I don't think so, he'll try to branch out to other "souls-likes" and find that other community are less receptive of him barging in and regurgitating other peoples reddit posts and youtube videos.
 
The first and only AC I've played was 4, I don't really remember much about it other than the dog shit framerate which was a problem for a game that fast paced. What I'm most interested in is the level design, they've stated it's still based around missions (I think) but I wonder how that works. Do we have a semi open world like Dark Souls that acts as a stage for the missions or are we getting a handful of different stages that the missions take place in. It'll also be interesting I see how they handle the scale, the mechs are massive so the environment would be huge for a normal human. I've always liked stupidly large architecture for some reason.

There's something nostalgic about the voice acting, FromSoft have leaned hard on some superb British VA's in the past and it's nice to get that corny American voice acting that Jap games used to love. I wonder if we're getting any NPCs but I'm unsure how they would integrate it.
 
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As I said earlier in the thread, I got physical copies of all the PS3/360-era games, but it appears to me that none of the previous games are long either, so I might just go back to the very start via emulation. I've barely dealt with emulators, though, so I have to ask: What are the go-to emulators and libraries for the PS1 and PS2?

I wonder if From intends on making AC6 significantly longer to meet the greater expectations set on them now.
That is an intriguing one. I think I rather have a more focused experience and just have branching endings.
The first and only AC I've played was 4, I don't really remember much about it other than the dog shit framerate which was a problem for a game that fast paced. What I'm most interested in is the level design, they've stated it's still based around missions (I think) but I wonder how that works. Do we have a semi open world like Dark Souls that acts as a stage for the missions or are we getting a handful of different stages that the missions take place in. It'll also be interesting I see how they handle the scale, the mechs are massive so the environment would be huge for a normal human. I've always liked stupidly large architecture for some reason.

There's something nostalgic about the voice acting, FromSoft have leaned hard on some superb British VA's in the past and it's nice to get that corny American voice acting that Jap games used to love. I wonder if we're getting any NPCs but I'm unsure how they would integrate it.
The level design is actually a very good question. Missions could stand to be longer since some missions can be done in like 5 minutes. So having them have some girth to them would be nice, but I wouldn't expect a mission to be a legace souls dungeon either, 15-30 minutes per mission seems like the sweet spot to me.
 
So like I said I would, I began to play through the whole series. Got through all of Gen 1&2, so five games so far, now starting AC3.

First off, the controls are completely whack compared to our modern expectations, but that's just typical before the revolution of Halo: Combat Evolved. Fortunately, a combination of in-game button mapping and emulator settings allows for adequate twin-stick controls, though getting to AC2 required me to get another tool DS4Windows because the sticks were sensitive to the point of unplayability with just PCSX2. Pretty weird that the PS2 games use the L3 R3 buttons but completely disallow stick movement, though. I certainly pity the original console players who only had the in-game mapping options and, at best, can only emulate twin-stick controls with the face buttons.
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Started off on AC1 with just these default controls and got my ass kicked over an hour, unable to make credits for better gear as missions just get harder without being able to replay. Then I just went back to New Game with the remapped controls and save-scumming (not emulator save states) out of lost missions to do much better. I didn't even know about the Human Plus handicap feature until after I was done with AC1. I then continued through each game to 100% progression, including extra missions and Arena matches, with import saves when able and without Human Plus nor Overweight builds, Normal difficulty for Gen 2. Only referred to guides to find hidden parts in a game after finishing everything else. Except when it came to the cheating superbosses Matthias (AC2) and Nine-Ball Seraph (AC2AA), who I eventually got fed up with to go looking for outside help. Even then, recommendations were hard to come by for such old games with many players using Human Plus, and when I finally heard what seemed like good builds and strategies, the fights were still tough to execute. Oh, I also looked up the cheese hallway strat against Nine-Ball in AC1 for 100%, because I wasn't going to put up with that bullshit when I discovered the second Nine-Ball after all the pain of a surprise platforming segment and defeating the first Nine-Ball in an incredibly awkward column space.

Protip on getting 100% in AC2: If you find that you're stuck at 98%, even after eliminating all of the in-mission rival Ravens, you might have to replay the final mission. I only got to 100% when I did that, at which point the in-mission Ravens were also revived in the Arena for a total of 58 entrants. Seems that existing instructions for getting 100% in this game are few and unclear, with some people claiming that you don't have to replay the final mission at all. I think the difference might be in whether you initially beat the final mission before the Arena.

My favorite build is with the heaviest quad legs, enjoying the smooth 360-degree movement and flexibility of back guns. The Karasawa and other energy weapons are my go-to, or otherwise high-capacity machine guns if ammo is a concern, or full tank with grenade launchers if I need maximum DPS. Missiles and rockets always seem too unreliable on top of the ammo cost, especially in interior environments. For missions, I pretty much always take a back radar. Now having a start on AC3, I'm dismayed that quads have been changed such that they have a slowed backstep like other legs, though it is funny that it's only now that quads will actually walk instead of apparently hover.

I found that you can kneecap harder Arena matches in Gen 1 by selecting the parking garage map, in which case the low ceiling stops the opponent from jumping all over the place. And if an opponent is still too tough, there's a small tunnel to one side that provides you with safety as it confuses the AI. No such low-ceiling map in Gen 2, though, so I had to play all of those Arena matches straight.

Very barebones when it comes to story, comparatively outdone by Ace Combat. Still, I can see the signs of From's vague style of storytelling. Project Phantasma tells the most straightforward story, but it's also laughingly basic. Amusingly, Another Age is the most mission-intensive game so far, but it feels like it has the least amount of story, complete with an arbitrary non-ending to credits.
 
Gen 3 changed quad legs more than I anticipated. While I could equip energy weapons, they became essentially unusable due to energy regeneration getting shot. I've therefore been primarily running tank legs. Karasawa for mission fodder, back pulse rifle for extra energy ammo, and back grenade launcher for enemy ACs.

For the most part, getting through AC3 and Silent Line wasn't difficult, especially in the Arena. There were a few hard missions in the middle of Silent Line. But then when I got to the post-credits hidden parts collection phase Silent Line in which I realized that getting to 100% is a much more laborious than in previous games. There are several times more hidden parts, and most of them are not simply found on the ground in missions. Instead, each and every mission has at least one hidden challenge to fulfill for a part, some of which are hard to do even with tips from guides, and to top it off, one hidden part is put behind S-ranking every mission. When I was finished with the Arena and played every mission once, I was only at about 60% completion. I think I'll just set Silent Line aside for now and continue on with the next game, especially since there's no save transfer for this one, but I dread further games also having such intensive 100% requirements.

These Armored Core games so far have given me thoughts on what I'd like to see from AC6.

First off, I hope there's a good sense of scale giving the impression that you are, in fact, piloting a giant robot. Visual clues to indicate how big your mech is have been lacking, especially in the abundance of tedious room-and-hallway missions that I want done away with altogether. It's so strange that they're are even times in which you're crawling through giant robot-sized vents. AC3 has the best impression of scale so far with more windowed buildings around, the panes even shattering upon damage. Despite the graphical detail of AC6, though, it has me a bit concerned with scale because of the environment appearing to consist primarily of fantastical metallic superstructures, thus making your mech appear small.

Second, this may upset some veterans of the series, but I'd really like for the story to step up from how barebones it has been. A couple of particular ideas come to my mind:
  • Assuming that AC6 has corporations as usual, have them be represented in mission contracts and mail by named characters. They can present more personality and also allow for multiple characters under the same corp. I'm having issue that aside from perhaps having one defining trait (e.g., Crest is sycophantic to the Controller), characterization of the corps have been poor such that I often feel I have no reason to distinguish who I'm fight for or against on any given mission.
  • I'd call this one a pipe dream, but give named characters human appearances. Even just a drawn portrait would suffice, like Metal Gear Solid codec characters. This would give characters a greater impression to stick to memory and also serve as a reminder that ACs are actually piloted by humans inside of them. Furthermore, human appearances can also provide reference to fan artists and other creators, especially since mecha drawing is a niche skill. I suppose one problem with this idea, though, is the frequency in which characters are secretly AI constructs...
  • Perhaps give AC parts lore descriptions in Souls fashion? Besides just being an avenue to provide more story, it gives another reason to seek out parts besides their value as equipment.
 
I'd call this one a pipe dream, but give named characters human appearances. Even just a drawn portrait would suffice, like Metal Gear Solid codec characters. This would give characters a greater impression to stick to memory and also serve as a reminder that ACs are actually piloted by humans inside of them. Furthermore, human appearances can also provide reference to fan artists and other creators, especially since mecha drawing is a niche skill. I suppose one problem with this idea, though, is the frequency in which characters are secretly AI constructs...
I agree to this, but only for your Operator (Handler?) and other AC's Operators as well, given that they play the role of guiding you through mission objectives and rarely have to pilot an AC. Kasumi Sumika and Maggie comes to mind who will benefit a lot more from this than usual AC pilot. What sets Armored Core apart from other mecha game is that you can see the pilot's character through their mech design and unique decal, thus their flesh and blood appearance is rarely a factor in characterizing them. Take example from another game like Ace Combat where pilots' radio chatters are what characterize them, not their apearance, what plane they use or the liver decor put on them. Last time we have pilots on screen, DxM did such a poor job with them.
Perhaps give AC parts lore descriptions in Souls fashion? Besides just being an avenue to provide more story, it gives another reason to seek out parts besides their value as equipment
MRG-WA500: The two genuises who designed these 5 barreled machine gun in the shape of a hand accidentally shred themselves during a test run.
 
All I know is I hope the launch isn't as fucked as the PC launch of Gundam Battle Operations 2. Finally got fed up and uninstalled it this morning.
 
How a zoomer Youtuber plays a PS1 game:
1. Don't read the manual.
2. Ask online for most broken strat.
3. Speedrun the games to get to the next one.
Come on now, he seems to have played all of them in an honest way. He already shits on anything I ever did in the franchise since I only played AC1 till the last platform hell mission and AC3 till I got fucking tired with no analog support and thanks to his video decided to give Nexus a go instead of just waiting for 6. I mean, what is one supposed to do to be allowed to talk about AC?
 
Come on now, he seems to have played all of them in an honest way. He already shits on anything I ever did in the franchise since I only played AC1 till the last platform hell mission and AC3 till I got fucking tired with no analog support and thanks to his video decided to give Nexus a go instead of just waiting for 6. I mean, what is one supposed to do to be allowed to talk about AC?
At least not immediately use a walkthrough. Like I could understand using a guide for missable shit, but asking fans for strats is basically asking for the broken builds.
 
At least not immediately use a walkthrough. Like I could understand using a guide for missable shit, but asking fans for strats is basically asking for the broken builds.
Fair, though it certainly didn't seem like a walk in the park either and he did actually experiment with builds at different points. I was following a guide to get the hidden parts in 3 till I got tired of it. The thing I find surprising is he didn't go in a 1 hour rant about hating the franchise after force shoving it into his mouth in a month.
 
Fair, though it certainly didn't seem like a walk in the park either and he did actually experiment with builds at different points. I was following a guide to get the hidden parts in 3 till I got tired of it. The thing I find surprising is he didn't go in a 1 hour rant about hating the franchise after force shoving it into his mouth in a month.
With this kind of youtuber it's all about the fake positivity and "how it made me feel". The Armored Core is a potential new cash cow, it would be pretty stupid to hate on it and drive people away. Better test the waters with an overview so if interest in old installments pick up you can do several lore videos with "theorizing".
 
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With this kind of youtuber it's all about the fake positivity and "how it made me feel". The Armored Core is a potential new cash cow, it would be pretty stupid to hate on it and drive people away. Better test the waters with an overview so if interest in old installments pick up you can do several lore videos with "theorizing".
True, but can't deny he's gone above and beyond what he really needed to for is established fanbase. But unless he loves the fuck out of it I don't expect much of his standard content for it. The AC storyline seems lees likely to go into janky speculation for hours and honestly, though I expect it to sell gangbusters for an AC game, it will still be a fraction of Elden Ring. The game can be amazing but will just be the flavor of the month and be dropped for the next thing.
 
Supposedly some real info drops, though sadly through the lens of game journos, hopefully somebody that has actually played videogames for more than 5 minutes that aren't walking simulators got in and can give some proper insight. But yeah, From is being cagey as fuck again, though they did the same thing with Elden Ring.
 
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