Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023)

It's a bit absurd that you have to beat AC6 three times to see the real ending, and the true final boss being a random dude who's had very little screentime up til that point is kind of a letdown. But the second and third runs offered just enough new twists to feel worthwhile, and blazing through them at lightspeed with a perfect understanding of how best to pilot my elaborate, elegant robot was admittedly pretty cool. Each mech I faced looked bigger and badder than the last, but they all fell like sacks of potatoes with a well-timed boost kick!

I love, too, that the game is confident enough to hide away giant, playstyle-defining mechanics like melee boost cancelling, fully content to let you pass them by entirely. The possibility space of all the different ways an AC6 mech can move and fight feels dauntingly huge, but whittling those options down and finding exactly what works for you makes your relationship with your death robot feel strangely personal. More so than any Dark Souls knight I've played, more so than even Sekiro from Sekiro, my mint-green, boost-addled sword mech feels like its own character.

Found AC6's rendition of the Moonlight Greatsword, and sadly it's just about the worst version of it I've seen in any FromSoft game. Looks cool as heck, shoots rad energy vortices with every swing, but it's wayyy too slow to ever hit any of the hypermobile bosses you face.

Instead, my final loadout for the Chummer ended up just being 3 different missile batteries and the sword you start with at the very beginning of the game. Guns are the only weapons that make use of your mech's aim stat, so it turns out that ignoring them entirely lets you shave a ton of weight off your build and reinvest it into even more absurd melee damage and speed!

Here's a look at the final version of the Chummer, plus a tank and tetrapod mech I built just to try em out.

Took me a hot minute to figure out a control scheme I liked, but now I'm up and running and having a lovely time with my first Armored Core game! Here's my first mech, the Chummer, an ultralight reverse-joint build focused on quickly inflicting stagger and then zooming in for big melee damage.

Been kind of enjoying the game but man... am I the only one who finds that the lock on system is pretty bad? I'm constantly losing track of my locked target and I feel like if I move the camera to try to keep up it unlocks but if I lock on they simply move too fast for the lock to keep up? Seems like a real no win scenario unless I'm missing something...

I don't know, kinda thought this might be a GOTY game for me but I find myself holding on by my finger tips just 'cause it's Fromsoft and starting to wonder if the only good thing they've ever done is Dark Souls... But I've got more game to go before I really say...

After beating NG++, I think I have to put this as my front runner for my personal GotY. The customization is so fun, the story is surprisingly good with a lot of twists and interesting characters, and the combat is sublime.

50 hours just flew by with this game. Hope it does well and we get more, whether another game or a dlc expansion.

I've been playing Amored Core 6 for the past couple of weeks and it's all I can really think about. I've long been anticipating the next Armored Core game, even since before Elden Ring was fully revealed. Knowing FromSoftware was the studio behind those games was enough to pique my interest. And while I had played several of them over the years, I did so casually, without ever being a really hardcore fan. I never paid attention to story and it was back when I wasn't a conscious appreciator of game design and all the trappings that come with that.

So when they announced Armored Core 6 at the VGA show last year, it gave me something concrete to look forward to. Even though I was interested, I didn't have that ravenous hunger for it that would make me pour over every scrap of info the studio might reveal ahead of time when promoting or showing gameplay. I stayed relatively blind. I'm glad I did because it has completely ensnared me and I think going in blind was a big part of that.

I've been obsessed with this game since the moment I started. I love everything about it. The mech component, the movement, the combat, the cast of characters, the voice acting, the bleak and serious tone, the world design, the story events, the competing factions, the art style, the mission structure, the weapons, the customization, fucking everything. There are so few things about this game I don't like that I have no reservations saying it's my favorite FromSoft game. I love the Souls games, I love Sekiro, I love Elden Ring, but if you told me FromSoft was never going to make those games again and was just going to make more Armored Core games, I would say "that's perfectly fucking fine," because that's all I want. I want 10 more games just like this. I don't want this mech party to end. It's just too much fun.

Part of my praise and elation for AC6 comes undoubtedly from the fact that it's the first modern game I've bought for my gaming PC and is also the first game I'm experiencing in ultrawide. It's a benchmark, a milestone of sorts. And because I'm playing it on PC, I'm also benefitting from having the audio output go through my recording studio setup with Mackie M624 monitors. In other words, I'm experiencing this game in the best damn conditions one can experience it.

And holy shit is it an experience.

Armored Core 6 is packed with so many epic "FUCK YES, LET'S GO!" moments and "wait, what the hell?" moments alike. Far more than any other FromSoftware game. And unlike most other FromSoftware games, it's 100% obligatory to play through the game multiple times due to the different courses the story can take based on your decisions and based on what alternative missions become available on the subsequent playthroughs.

The only qualm I really have right now is the weaponry. At the time of writing, the meta build is to dual wield the Zimmerman shotguns with some kind of heavy duty explosive shoulder weapon, usually the Songbirds. And it's not that this combo is OP; it's really that everything else is pretty underpowered. Assault rifles have very low impact, low damage output, and the range and velocity of the bullets make them relatively useless for most endgame bosses. The difference between the effective ranges of the Zimmerman shotguns and the rest of the weapons is so negligible that it doesn't make any sense NOT to use the shotguns. Either way, you're going to have to be right up in the enemy's grill to score hits so you may as well make it count.

I'm sure there will be a mod that tweaks this if FromSoftware don't patch it themselves but that's the only thing I can complain about. That's it. I don't have any other issue with the game. It's a 5 out of 5 for me, full stop. As usual, I don't know how to end my rants so there it is.

I beat my first playthrough, one of two endings I could pick from anyway. I had a blast with this game. As a massive FromSoft fan it's a huge breath of fresh air to get a game that is relying something so different from what has become they're standard dare over the past decade. Especially since Elden Ring moved things in a direction I'm less excited about (note: I still gave it 5 stars lol).

Generally Armored Core games have follow-up games that add on to the initial story, tho I'm not sure how that could be possible here, at least with the ending I got. In this day and age, DLC is more likely to take that function. I'd be happy to play one, but I'd also be happy if they moved on to other things.

I know from word gone around that this game has significant added content post-game, so I'm definitely planning to keep playing it. Not sure if I'll review it or wait til I've finished new game +. Hence this little spiel, lol.