Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023)

I'm a huge Fromsoftware fan but but have not paid much attention to Armored Core previously. I was initially blown away by the visuals and sound design but really struggled to grasp the gameplay and controls...until it finally clicked about 8-10 hours in. Once past the learning curve I began to absolutely fall in love with this game and it's fast paced but methodical combat. Once I completed the campaign I immediately started again in NG+ to test out new builds and put my new skill to test against the levels that I struggled through on my first playthrough. This is an incredible game and I look forward to playing through the original AC games now.

I wanted to like this game but I kinda already knew I wouldn't. I did complete one playthrough but I have no desire to do two more for the "true" ending. Try as I might, mecha games just don't ever speak to me. While I do enjoy watching mecha stuff, playing it is a different matter. Obviously, a huge part of the appeal here comes from designing and tweaking your mecha but I just don't have the patience, creativity, or desire to do anything like that, especially when I have no plans to do pvp. As for the game itself, it was actually fairly underwhelming. While fast, responsive, and visually pleasing in battles, every single encounter plays out the same. Almost everything can be boiled down to just strafing in a single direction and then boosting when you hear that beep signifying a powerful attack heading your way. The name of the game is to never stop moving. This game is already becoming notorious for being really hard and "filtering" people, but I just kinda did Quad shotguns once I got the weapon swap and just wiped the floor with the entire game, sometimes swapping to dagger or songbird. Maybe I shouldn't have done that... but nothing ever felt challenging. AC battles end extremely quickly (<30 seconds in arena) and shotguns almost always fill the stagger bar significantly for boss battles. Anyway, it was okay.

I don't think I'll be writing a full review for this one. I kind of figured I wouldn't really like this game as I'm not really interested in the mech idea and I didn't really like the couple earlier games in the series I tried much. But I've loved so many From souls games that I thought I'd give it a chance just to see what it was like. It was about what I expected, maybe worse. It's very pretty despite some bleak environments, but I just didn't find the gameplay engaging. Glad I gave it a chance so I don't have to wonder and part of me likes to have an idea of what the big games coming out are like, but I think this one was clearly not for me. Normally I write a review when I'm "done" with a game, even if I didn't beat it or whatever. But I'd rather not try to write a more detailed review when I played so little of the game and my thoughts are basically "didn't think I'd like it and I didn't."