I’ve always liked mechs but I’ve never been able to get into their games. My brain is obsessed with min/maxing to an almost painful degree, so most of the time I just get overwhelmed by opening the mech builder screen in these games and seeing “this generator gives you a +5% energy increase for a -3.5% speed penalty when going around corners on Wednesdays.” That being said, since I am a modern From Software fan now and it’s been a long time since they put out an Armored Core game, I thought I’d try the genre out again. The above is just a disclaimer that I’ve never put much time, if any, into the previous Armored Core titles, so when I attribute long-standing Armored Core traditions to other games it’s entirely due to ignorance rather than forgetfulness.
The main thing that stuck with me as I was playing Armored Core 6 was how much it reminded me of other games, if only through its structure rather than its gameplay. The gameplay loop, for example, feels like it’s right out of Metal Gear Solid V: you’re playing as an independent mercenary that starts each level with a briefing voice-over from a character saying you’ll get paid to do things for them, and then at the end of the mission you suffer monetary losses for the amount of tech you used to complete your objectives. Hell, you probably even get airlifted away at the end of every mission too, though I don’t think we ever actually see that. Of course the game plays very differently once you’re out in the field and unlike MGSV Armored Core 6 doesn’t let you go into battle without any gear in the hopes of acquiring your own from fallen enemies, but it strikes enough of the same notes during the lead up and wind down of every mission that I couldn’t get the comparison out of my head.
Of course, the other difference when compared to MGSV is that you’re mostly helping corporations covertly try to kill each other in Armored Core 6, rather than the peacekeeping and animal rescues in MGSV. The plot (from what I’ve seen, more on that later) follows an augmented mercenary designated C4-621, who is sent to the planet Rubicon after their last mission goes south and the rest of their unit is wiped out. The titular Fires of Rubicon was a disaster that took place fifty years ago when the sci-fi miracle element “Coral” caught fire and burned across the galaxy, but now Coral has been found on Rubicon again and 621 becomes embroiled in a three-way war for control of the planet. Two of the main factions, Arquebus and Balam, are corporations ostensibly waging both an open and behind the scenes shadow war against each other on Rubicon, using hired mercenaries like 621 to attack the other while disavowing any connection to the damage dealt by these “rogue elements.” Meanwhile the third major player is the Rubicon Liberation Front, natives to Rubicon with the worst looking mechs around that just want the invading corporations to leave the Coral alone and are so painfully “the good guys” that it doesn’t even feel like I need to mention it. And of course 621 and their handler Walter have their own agenda, though 621 is kept in the dark about what that is for most of the game, so you won’t be called on to pick sides until the very end and will take missions from all three groups to help them continue killing each other until the plot says otherwise.
As a story Armored Core 6 does a serviceable job of moving you into some impressive spectacles, but there’s a lack of connection that made me only feel a little bad when I started having to kill people that I’d be fighting alongside only an hour or two before. Maybe it’s because you never actually see anyone outside of their giant robots and icons on the screen or maybe it’s because I only played through the “bad ending” during my time with the game. You see, while Armored Core 6 is pretty short by From Software standards (only about 20 hours) the time investment in the game is much like Nier Automata in that you have to replay it three times to be able to get the game’s “true ending.” As much as I want to do that I just don’t have time considering I have five more games in my queue, so my story impressions come from doing the nihilistic dark ending first. But even before you make the final choice that locks you into your chosen ending you’ll still have killed about half of your supporting cast because it’s rough being a gun for hire, and I didn’t really care much about having to fight most of the characters I came across. What I’m saying is if there’s a great, meaningful story here it’s not going to be found in your first playthrough regardless of the choices you make, but I’m not going to fully condemn the whole story in a game that is designed for you to play through it multiple times.
I’m not going to let my disappointment in the story get me down though since the fighting just feels so great in AC6. I play action games a lot and I can say without exaggeration that Armored Core 6 is one of the most satisfying games to control in combat over the last four years. Your mech sliding across the ground and soaring through the air all feels very slick and is matched with a surprisingly natural control scheme where each of your weapons is controlled by a different shoulder button. This simple design makes switching between new weapons on the fly incredibly easy, as there aren’t really any new combo attacks or other such burdens you would expect from any other game outside of maybe a weapon’s fire rate, and this ease of use is vitally important given Armored Core 6’s emphasis on being able to swap between builds if one isn’t working for you. All in all the combat always feels like a treat that helps you overlook the occasional blemishes, such as a touchy lock-on in some battles, the game’s melee weapons occasionally not aiming where you’d like them to, or certain actions like reloading and special abilities being tied to pressing two buttons at once on a controller, which never feels natural.
What I’m not entirely sold on is Armored Core 6’s level design. The levels themselves are reasonably sized (when you consider you’re in a giant robot) and the battles you find yourself in are surprisingly stunning in terms of spectacle, with fights against small and medium-sized mechs interspersed with battles against giant weapons platforms and even capital ships that you have to blast out of the air. The issue is how boring it can some times be to get to these fights, as on the way to these epic showdowns you have to contend with minor, pathetic mechs that are almost no threat to you at all. It certainly helps with the power fantasy as your powerful, sexy, handcrafted “AC” tears through lame, gray, stocky drones that are half its size, but it’s about as unfulfilling as having to kill four rooms of grunts in Halo before the elites show up. The thought occurs to me as I’m writing this that maybe this is From Software making a condensed version of the Dark Souls experience of “running from a bonfire to the boss arena after you’ve died twenty times already and nothing on the way is a threat any more.” Every level is surprisingly short at around five to fifteen minutes, and at times it really did feel like I was just pushing through a level without a care in the world just to get to the real threats at the end. Either way I wasn’t very impressed by most of the combat encounters that weren’t against mechs of similar durability, but maybe I’m undervaluing that power fantasy angle.
The Dark Souls comparison I made earlier really isn’t fair, as the game is surprisingly generous with its respawn system. Even in these short levels there are a plentiful spattering of checkpoints that reward you with full health and healing items regardless of what state you’re in when you activate them, and as I mentioned before you’re also given the option to completely change your build before you respawn. The flexibility is great, though I only found the need to use it a few times when a boss or two really pushed me, but I feel like the bar was missed slightly when it comes to the implementation of this feature since you can only mix and match the gear you currently own from the respawn screen. Most gear in AC6 is acquired through the shop on the main menu with credits that you get from finishing missions, and if there’s a piece of equipment that you think would be perfect against your current obstacle but you hadn’t bought it ahead of time then you’re shit out of luck unless you restart the entire level. Again, the levels are short and the checkpoints are kind so this isn’t a huge deal, but it feels like an unnecessary speed bump to not let players visit the shop at the same time that they’re rebuilding their mech for a boss that just won’t die.
There are certainly a lot of toys you can play with though when trying to kill those bosses. AC6 has a ton of customization options that both ties back into the min/maxing I mentioned earlier but also just gives players a lot of opportunity to express themselves. You’ve got automatic weapons, semi automatic weapons, shotguns, energy blades, grenade launchers, pistols, missile launchers, and debuffing tools, and that’s just what you can hold in your hands. On your back there’s also everything from multi-rack missile launchers to artillery cannons for offense and shields or autonomous drones for defensive play, and they’re all in service of balancing ammo count (it’s rare to run out of ammo but it can happen), damage output, and the “stagger” a weapon will inflict before stunning an enemy into a state where they take extra damage. There’s a lot more stats at play than that if you really want to get into it, such as effective ranges, reload time, weight, etc but every piece of gear also has a simplified stats screen to give you the “headlines” of what it does and how it can do it. Your mech’s body is even more detailed with all sorts of heads, arms, legs, torsos, and engines that can be combined in service of fast, balanced, four-legged, or heavy tank builds that can all fit different needs and have various influences on your robot’s accuracy, speed, energy, and health. The last game I played that had this much emphasis on “playing your way” without feeling like it was forcing you down a particular path was Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and just like that game you can play however you want and look cool while doing it.
Visually the game has a lot of great individual details, with the many thrusters attached to your mech realistically firing in response to your micro movements as you zoom around the battlefield and the game’s many instances of slow motion giving you a chance to appreciate how precisely the many rockets fire from your shoulder pods. It is not a drop-dead gorgeous game in all the ways that something like the new God of War titles might be but it works perfectly well for what it does and I never found myself annoyed or disappointed with anything visually. In fact I’m struggling to think of any technical issues I may have had outside of the occasional issue with the lock-on in combat, and most of the time I think that was by design given the way those enemies moved. The audio is great too, with haunting music and the appropriate booms coming from your various weapons, and I especially liked how the game incorporates both visual and audio cues into combat. Your mech’s audio notifications (which sadly don’t seem to be customizable) will warn you about your dwindling ammo and also when you pass a certain health threshold or use a repair kit, while the game’s lock-on reticle has helpful bars on both sides to show you the ammo/cooldown status of various weapons at all times. These passive features can help keep you zeroed in during combat rather than having to constantly avert your eyes to see when you need to reload or what your current ammo is at, and I think other games could learn a lot from these design choices.
Armored Core 6 is a fun, sleek game with a lot of tools to experiment with and definitely a lot of bang for your buck. Along with the story taking multiple playthroughs there’s also a level ranking system that scores you based on speed, damage, and ammo usage that I’m sure lots of people will love to sink teeth into (also a multiplayer component that I haven’t tried), and I certainly will be coming back for more once I’ve gotten through all the other games on my plate. If it had come out in any other year I believe AC6 would have had a real chance to shine, but with all the rest of this year’s heavy hitters I think it’ll be unfortunately overlooked by anyone other than those who have wanted a new game like this for a while. If you’re one of those people then you’ve probably already bought it, played it, and are mad that I didn’t get through the full story before I reviewed it, but if you AREN’T one of those people and any part of “soaring through the air while blasting fools in a giant mech” sounds appealing to you then you should definitely give Armored Core 6 a shot. Just don’t let all the numbers get to your head… or do, if you want. It’s your robot.
