#genuinely liked ac4 and for answer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kieuecaprie · 1 year

Text

KieueCaprie's Games Completed List of 2022 #43: Armored Core For Answer

Started: (i don't remember) Finished: 28/12/22

I have mixed opinions about 4th gen Armored Core as a whole and I don't really know how to go about it without sounding like an overly negative mid 2010's youtuber. Maybe the best way to go about this is the classic sandwich.

Experiencing Armored Core's 4th gen games after playing through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd's felt like I was being given Human+/OP-INTENSIFY from the get go and told to go buckwild. Movement is fluid and fast, you could actually keep the jets rolling while on the ground, and the overall gameplay is so much better. Hell, you could even shoot weapons with NEXTs that ordinarily ACs would have to stop to use (unless they're a tank-legs user).

AC4 felt a little too barebones but I liked it enough to want to play through 4A and, well, I liked early-game enough and the story is definitely more in-your-face compared to the previous gens. And some of the missions in 4A were a step-up from 4's, which is to be expected. And my favorite thing, the arena, came back so naturally, I had to play through it before I could even progress any further.

That was a mistake.

Y'see, in the Armored Core games, there's a shop where you could buy new equipment for your mechs, ACs/NEXTs, to use in combat and the arena tends to be an exercise in "How can I cheese these encounter?/How should I build my AC/NEXT to take on this dude who uses six guns at once?" but... you don't get much to play around with without playing the story first. The shop was empty when I first started 4A until I actually started doing missions.

Speaking of missions, I liked some of the early missions/NEXT battles, they were pretty fun to zip around in! But... well, I started to loathe the late-game missions due to the sheer difficulty spikes. One mission would be absolutely easy while the one afterwards would be a complete nightmare to play, even with the "optimal" build.

Even late-game missions where you had to fight enemy NEXTs became an exercise in frustration! Even with the best stuff I could find (I didn't even find out about the busted Kojima (yeah, i know) missiles until I was at the very end!), it was very much a fight against an AI who had infinite energy, infinite ammo, and seemingly infinite Primal Armor, it felt like it was less about skill and more about luck at that point.

And there were times I missed the optional parts when I kept getting stunlocked by rockets and missiles to the point where I absolutely started hating the game. At least the Souls games, where stunlocks on players is king, gave you a quick out! In Armored Core, you'd still be left hanging on slivers of HP that, for some reason, the missiles can't quite breach thanks to your PA but you still get stunlocked anyway.

But when the game had its high points, it was a brief glimpse at how perfect it could've been, barely getting by on whatever was left of your armor but managing to complete the mission anyhow or zipping by lasers from an Arms Fort only to put it to a swift end with a strike from your MOONLIGHT laser blade.

But, in the end, I don't have a very high opinion of Armored Core 4. Had I played it first instead of Armored Core 1, I might've appreciated it much more but playing it after finishing up the first three numbered games just made me appreciate the slower combat so much more, although that one had issues as well.

That is not to say that Armored Core 4 and For Answer is bad. There's a lot of things I genuinely like about it. I just don't think or don't know if it's even a good fit for me. I like the high-speed gameplay but at the same time, dealing with enemies that are essentially hopping around like they're playing a match of Quake 3 Arena is exhausting. (which is ironic because that's most of the arena opponents in 2nd and 3rd gen arenas)

#kieuecaprie gaming

0 notes