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I am INCREDIBLY hyped for this one. AC is one of my all time favorite franchises and I've spent a good decade randomly pining about the lack of a new one to anyone who will listen.
As an aside, one thing I'd really love is a minis game built on the premise of the parts system. It dawned on me today I'll probably get my monkey paw wish in the form of a dull Steamforged boardgame version :(
It looks really good. You can definitely tell it's a From Soft game, with the graphical style and slow panning shots, but hopefully the gameplay will be something very distinct.
This almost seems how I imagine a Starship Troopers (the book version) would be like, very cool.
Pacific wrote: It looks really good. You can definitely tell it's a From Soft game, with the graphical style and slow panning shots, but hopefully the gameplay will be something very distinct.
This almost seems how I imagine a Starship Troopers (the book version) would be like, very cool.
Their style has really changed over time. The first two Armored Core games featured some brightly colored mecha.
Pacific wrote: It looks really good. You can definitely tell it's a From Soft game, with the graphical style and slow panning shots, but hopefully the gameplay will be something very distinct.
This almost seems how I imagine a Starship Troopers (the book version) would be like, very cool.
Their style has really changed over time. The first two Armored Core games featured some brightly colored mecha.
They were always relatively dark and grimy aesthetically. You just had the option of putting a bright paint scheme on your mech.
It's good. It's really good. Maybe not as modern feeling as people would like and the meat grinder bosses feel a little pointlessly gatekeepy to a franchise that has always been fairly niche, but it feels sooooo good to tune mechs and zip around blowing stuff up.
Controls are smoother than the PS2 era games, but not as floaty feeling as 4. It can still be tricky to manage the camera when things are zipping past you, but its also the primary advantage of speed and makes turning that against your opponents very rewarding. Missions are just the right length to feel like you get to put your mech through the paces and rewarding to replay after swapping loadouts.
The super hard bosses are kind of weird and definitely feel like they're more a result of the success of Souls than something built to reward a variety of playstyles. Putting one in the tutorial feels like its there to pull in the Souls community but feels like its more going to drive away everyone else. It's all manageable, particularly with solid checkpointing and the ability to access the garage before retrying, but I don't blame anyone who gives up before they even get the option to change parts due to the helicopter.
The story is still mostly static mission briefings and radio chatter. I'm not terribly far in, but I wouldn't call it a selling point. It's really all about the gameplay, which for the most part, totally lives up to what you'd want out of the franchise.
LunarSol wrote: It's good. It's really good. Maybe not as modern feeling as people would like and the meat grinder bosses feel a little pointlessly gatekeepy to a franchise that has always been fairly niche, but it feels sooooo good to tune mechs and zip around blowing stuff up.
Controls are smoother than the PS2 era games, but not as floaty feeling as 4. It can still be tricky to manage the camera when things are zipping past you, but its also the primary advantage of speed and makes turning that against your opponents very rewarding. Missions are just the right length to feel like you get to put your mech through the paces and rewarding to replay after swapping loadouts.
The super hard bosses are kind of weird and definitely feel like they're more a result of the success of Souls than something built to reward a variety of playstyles. Putting one in the tutorial feels like its there to pull in the Souls community but feels like its more going to drive away everyone else. It's all manageable, particularly with solid checkpointing and the ability to access the garage before retrying, but I don't blame anyone who gives up before they even get the option to change parts due to the helicopter.
The story is still mostly static mission briefings and radio chatter. I'm not terribly far in, but I wouldn't call it a selling point. It's really all about the gameplay, which for the most part, totally lives up to what you'd want out of the franchise.
Long time AC fan and I too really like the game.
Bosses in the old AC games, first four, always felt like they were trying to be hard but just lacked something in achieving this.
I feel like the bosses are perfect and challenging. The bosses are extremely hard and push you to really think about how you are piloting and weapon loadouts. I found if I am having trouble with a boss then I am not piloting well enough, why?
Last AC game I played the quad and tank legs were ok, but not really viable. I feel like AC6 has really addressed this and made them viable options in a battle. I would even dare say I only recommend seasoned pilots to use the legs and are only useful in the hands of a good pilot.
My pilot name is Ricky Bobby.
I made my AC look like The Trooper Eddie (Iron Maiden)
*Will post a pic later*
Overall, it is an AC game. If you're new to the series, welcome, and have fun fine tuning your mech to meet your style.
I beat all the bosses up to chapter 3 by using the heavy tank type builds. Simply couldn't pull it off any other way. And then I switch back to the agile builds for the more normal and fun missions. I'm not really all that great at the game, but it is fun for the most part.
Thargrim wrote: I beat all the bosses up to chapter 3 by using the heavy tank type builds. Simply couldn't pull it off any other way. And then I switch back to the agile builds for the more normal and fun missions. I'm not really all that great at the game, but it is fun for the most part.
I've generally been using a shotgun and chaingun build for most enemies, bosses included. With the 160% damage multiplier from the Nachtreiher arms, you just shred through most everything. Add on some launchers to taste so that you can stagger more efficiently and you can shred most bosses pretty well. If you're using tank legs, subbing in various cannons or the songbirds can add some nice damage and stagger as well.
Talking to a friend and he named his mech Tracy Chapman, because it's a fast core
I like explosion weapons because if you miss, you still might get them in the explosive wake. So I usually have a mix of energy/kinetic explosion weapons when I am in boss fights.
Agreed on the Nachtreiher arms, that multiplier is too good to pass up. I notice right away how much less of an impact I have in fights without them.
Currently playing around with the TIAN-QIANG core and legs. Seems to be a good pair.
Getting near the end of my first run through the campaign. The chapter 4 boss is absolutely mad. There's an exploitable brute force way through it, but fighting it fairly is super fun, if.... slightly impossible.
No, it's very different. It's got a lot more of an arcade feel, with short missions that are designed to be replayed with different builds. Gameplay is more dodging around incoming fire and returning your own. It's a lot faster than anything souls like and melee is limited to quick burst attacks followed by a quick retreat.
It has some FromSoft hallmarks for sure. I suspect you're hearing a lot about the boss encounters, mostly because they're memorable, but also show up as some pretty sudden difficulty spikes that players spend a lot of time bashing themselves into. Realistically though, the game has a lot more boosting around platforms blasting little mechs in its mission design. Flying around makes up a lot of the game, just not the parts people run to the net to get help with.
Mostly facing its challenges is often more about going into the lab and redesigning your mech to better fit the mission. There are a lot of challenging moments that can be trivialized by hover legs or a strong stagger weapon or something similar. There's definitely elements of learning patterns and the like, but due to the ability to freely swap parts and save multiple loadouts that can be swapped mid mission on failure, the game has far more of a "tinker" element in how you approach it.
No, it's very different. It's got a lot more of an arcade feel, with short missions that are designed to be replayed with different builds. Gameplay is more dodging around incoming fire and returning your own. It's a lot faster than anything souls like and melee is limited to quick burst attacks followed by a quick retreat.
It has some FromSoft hallmarks for sure. I suspect you're hearing a lot about the boss encounters, mostly because they're memorable, but also show up as some pretty sudden difficulty spikes that players spend a lot of time bashing themselves into. Realistically though, the game has a lot more boosting around platforms blasting little mechs in its mission design. Flying around makes up a lot of the game, just not the parts people run to the net to get help with.
Mostly facing its challenges is often more about going into the lab and redesigning your mech to better fit the mission. There are a lot of challenging moments that can be trivialized by hover legs or a strong stagger weapon or something similar. There's definitely elements of learning patterns and the like, but due to the ability to freely swap parts and save multiple loadouts that can be swapped mid mission on failure, the game has far more of a "tinker" element in how you approach it.
To build on this...
I basically have 3 different games in mind when I think of From Software now.
The first is Darksouls. And Darksouls style games are defined by their slow but precise and tactical game play. Elden Ring is also this. You have delays and slow downs between animations. Watching for openings and capitalizing on them. It's resource management. It's dodging. So much dodging.
The second is Sekiro. Sekiro isn't the slow waiting for openings that Darksouls is. It's a fast paced dance of precision actions that result in making your own openings. While some darksouls like features are there the 2 games have such completely different game play.
The 3rd is now this. Yes, you can dodge thrust to get out of the way of missiles or whatever. But it's not the same. There is no invulnerable frames for well timed dodges. You are hit or you are not. You were caught in that explosion or you weren't. This has the typical hall marks of mech games in that you build you mech. I didn't play the past ones so I am going off what I have heard in that it has been simplified a lt but I don't think thats necessarily bad. You have a generator that sets a energy capacity for the mech with different parts and weapons requiring different amounts of base power. But any excess is also your power bar for running your thrusters to hover, fly, sprint forward in a kind of dedicated fly mode, and do those dodges. The kind of thrusters you put on also impact this. Are they better for forward thrust? A quick burst that then peters out? Sustained flight? Vertical lift? How do you intend to use your mobility? Legs set total mechs weight capacity. Arms set weapon capacity and help reduce recoil. Torsos your back weapon capacity and a bulk of your durability. Heads your sensor suite. Then you get a targeting computer that impacts the effectiveness of your passive targeting at different ranges which couples with your arms to determine how accurate a lot of what you are doing can/will be.
In game it's a lot of signing up for merc missions (there is no over world travel thing. You just pick a mission and load into the start point and load out when the mission is over. Get paid. Buy parts.(I am probably being an idiot, but I am farming a mission right now for a bunch of credits to buy out everything in the shop that is available before I move on and new stuff becomes available. A higher payout mission is probably around the corner. But here I am running at a wall and fighting a big tank to grab guns and parts.)) run around broken cities shooting guys off buildings and occassionally fighting more ACs (Armored Cores) which put up a significantly tougher fight.
Yes some from soft things are there. You have Repair kits (You start with 3 per mission) that near instantly heal you just like an estus flask. But I would say the game play is more different from Darksouls than Sekiro was.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/09/06 18:37:07
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
It hasn't been simplified all that much. The main difference is swapping out a robust heat management system for the stagger/direct hit mechanic. In a lot of ways they function similarly, you just only have to worry about stagger from enemy hits as opposed to the heat generated by your own loadout.
FrozenDwarf wrote: Hmm i could prolly overcome the challenge aspect given time, but the tinker aspect, that is no longer me.....
I wish the era of demoes was not over......
It might not be for you, but it's very friendly about it. Parts sell for their purchase price so there's no penalties for trying something new. You can actually swap parts freely in the test arena so you can try a bunch of weapons to see how you like the feel of them in one go.
Finished my third playthrough last night. Got all the parts, completed every mission branch, cleared the arena and all the hunting logs. I'd have the platinum, but not sure I'm wild about trying to S Rank every mission though I'm still kind of itching to play more. Might need to try some online battles, but I also need to get back to SF6...
My copy finally arrived overseas so I've gotten a chance to play through 2 chapters after my little one is asleep. Overall I'm enjoying it, but it's quite a bit different than previous entries and there are definitely times where I would really like to fire up AC2AA or AC3, mostly because as LunarSol mentions the arcade like feel. I don't dislike it, but occasionally I have a craving for those much longer missions and having to carefully manage my ammo usage.
Gameplay is good and you can see a few DS elements come into the game, shields and blocking/parry immediately come to mind.
I actually prefer the stagger mechanics over heat management. AC3 being the worst offender with more than a few weapons having some obscene heat buildup as I recall.
I'm looking forward to playing some more when I get a chance. So far most of the weapons I've tried seem very viable, although the generic rifle types seem a bit underpowered compared to most other weapons. A shame since a rifle, blade and missile pod are always the iconic design for me.
I am in chapter 3 now and I enjoy the game. But i dislike needing to farm money to buy parts. I feel like being awarded parts for missions and especially grades on missions would have been much more satisfying. Games still good. But thats my biggest gripe.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
I didn't really farm. If I needed something I'd just sell some things to buy it. By the end of Chapter 3 I never found myself needing to sell anything at all really.
Hunting down Combat Logs is a good way to get money and secret parts though. It's a good idea to look to bump all of those from Pending to Complete if you feel like you need stuff.
Yeah I realize I can sell the stuff I have and buy the stuff I want to switch out builds, but that goes against my completionist motivations. I want ALL the parts and whenever a new batch of parts shows up and that list gets bigger I feel like I am falling behind. I recognize this is my own bs, but it is what is happening.
Also, since parts sell for the same price that you buy them for it begs the question, design wise, why you need to buy them at all? It just forces players to go in and out of a few menus to access an item to go to another menu to equip it. No ACTUAL cost. No REAL choice. Just additional busy work to get to what you want for mission you are in.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/09/14 14:39:44
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
