Armoured Core

N

Nemphtis

Hunter
This franchise is frighteningly popular in Japan, unfortunately it's not as infamous in the west but mecha whores such as myself can't help but notice it on store shelves etc. There are a lot of Armoured Core games so I wanted to create a general topic to discuss the entire series, which was your favourite game and what do you think of the series overall?

I've played two Armoured Core games on the PS2 and one on the PSP. Based on my experience with these three games the first thing I noticed was the insane amount of options available to me during customisation. I thought Front Mission 3 had awesome mech customisation on the PS1 but these took it to the next level, but also gave the game a high learning curve. What generally made me sell these games after a few weeks was the inevitable truth that the action wasn't as good as the mechs we built. Now in mech games, building it is half the fun, but then I want to enjoy piloting it. Chromehounds on the Xbox 360 did an okay job with that, but with Armoured Core I didn't feel the same excitement while playing unfortunately.

To be honest I don't really have a favourite in the franchise, primarily because my memory is quite foggy on the features which kept them apart. My most memorable was probably the PSP game just because it was my most recent experience, it felt like playing a highly customisable version of Pokemon Stadium where I could build my mech, then watch it battle against others in an arena while being controlled by the A.I.

So, has anyone else played any of the AC games?
 
Lol did you just read my post in the FF forum? If you didn't thats pretty damn freaky.

Anyways ill chip in later. Just know that its one of my favourite series of all time - but i can understand that next to no-one else in the west thinks so.

EDIT: Ah so you did, a pity i was hoping for some nice psychic action there but alas no.
 
Liquid Skin said:
Lol did you just read my post in the FF forum? If you didn't thats pretty damn freaky.

Anyways ill chip in later. Just know that its one of my favourite series of all time - but i can understand that next to no-one else in the west thinks so.

EDIT: Ah so you did, a pity i was hoping for some nice psychic action there but alas no.
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I could read your mind, but then you'd get freaked out so I just read your post instead. I think it's pretty obvious why it's not as popular in the west, and I can see why that's the complete opposite in Japan. The latest Armoured Core for the 360 was an interesting move by the developers. They tried to make it more western by focussing on the action, sadly there just wasn't much on offer with the game so I avoided it. I would eat the world with joy if Zone of the Enders and Armoured Core merged into one God-like mecha game.
 
Right some sort of real reply is in order. First things first - yes i will admit that i am a total fanboy of the series, i accept that it isnt to everyone's tastes, indeed i've met very few people who actually enjoy the game aside from 2 friends who i relentlessly played it with.

Anyways one of the main reasons for said adulation was that it was one of the first games that i ever played all the way through. It was on one of the demo disks that they shipped with the PS1 back in the day (ahh the memories) and the PS1 was the first console that i actually owned - gone were the days of me craning over my brother's shoulder in order to sneak a peak at him playing something on his Amiga or Megadrive, getting brief touches of the pad for 5-10 minutes gaming tops.....Im rambling.

The game as it is stands is incredibly basic (on the one hand) and you're right to say that half the fun is building the mech, in fact i'd go as far as saying that building is a good 70% of the fun in AC. The combat system is incredibly fiddly (something they've....messed with since AC4) and the stats are at their best incredibly deep and at their worst downright confusing. So why do i like it?

I think its main appeal was that it was such a skillful game (in my mind at least) piloting the mech, firing your weapon and dodging shots didnt come naturally, you had to work at it and work at it until pressing about 4-5 buttons at once felt natural. You'll laugh at the geekiness but me and my friends actually had missile dodging lessons - one of us would have a missile mech and the other had to dodge the shots, we'd just pass the controller around till we'd got the nuances of missile dodging down to a tee. Sure you could build the baddest mech around but if you couldnt move and fire at the same time (using those fiddly L2 and R2 buttons to look up and down) you were a walking target. Its actually incredibly balanced as a game simply because controlling the damn thing is half the battle.

Onto the series.....As a whole the series hasnt changed at all to the casual eye. The most notable difference is in 4 which i have to say is my least favourite of the series. They changed the control system to a FPS style - something which really hinders the enjoyment factor for me personally as i loved clunking around, breaking fingers to reach the right buttons - now it just feels arcady. Aside from that though 4 does have its benefits, they've really brought out the different styles of weapon and spent ages balancing each of them - energy weapons in particular, now you're having to pay attention to what sort of armour the potential enemy is gonna have so you can equip your mech to counter it effectively and likewise equip the right sort of weapon defences and countermeasures to match your enemies.

Hmm this is seeming like a long post and i could literally wax lyrical for pages on the series so methinks its a good time to stop - theres a "brief" explanation for why i love the series.

Oh and i played a little bit of Chromehounds when i had my 360. Not too sure what to think. AC spoiled me on customisation so there was no chance of it beating that but i thought the combat was actually worse than AC. At least in AC you're bounding along, using boosters, watching your temp and boost gauge and dodging missiles. From the limited play i got of Chounds it just seemed like you stomped around and sniped people from miles away. Like i said ignorance probably plays a large part in this or maybe its an online thing or something.............
 
Nemphtis said:
Liquid Skin said:
Lol did you just read my post in the FF forum? If you didn't thats pretty damn freaky.

Anyways ill chip in later. Just know that its one of my favourite series of all time - but i can understand that next to no-one else in the west thinks so.

EDIT: Ah so you did, a pity i was hoping for some nice psychic action there but alas no.
Click to expand...

I could read your mind, but then you'd get freaked out so I just read your post instead. I think it's pretty obvious why it's not as popular in the west, and I can see why that's the complete opposite in Japan. The latest Armoured Core for the 360 was an interesting move by the developers. They tried to make it more western by focussing on the action, sadly there just wasn't much on offer with the game so I avoided it. I would eat the world with joy if Zone of the Enders and Armoured Core merged into one God-like mecha game.
Click to expand...

Aye i agree entirely. And dude seriously stop with the mind trickery, a ZOE AC game has been my dream for years!
 
Oh you just reminded me, I hated the controls so much. I know what you mean about having the challenge of piloting the mechs with those controls, but being forced to look up and down with the shoulder buttons was the most annoying thing during battle. I know where you're coming from with that but generally speaking people won't find a control scheme more enjoyable just because you make it harder to aim and ignore the sticks, games get rated badly and they tend to say the controls were 'broken' when such a thing happens.

However the icing on the cake for me was the actual battles, they just didn't excite me. I agree about Chromehounds, the mechs are incredibly slow where as I prefer the extremely fast-paced action from ZOE. The reason for Chromehounds being like this is basically because From Software had the western audience as their target, who seem to enjoy more realistic mechs. You're probably right in saying the customisation was more than half the fun though, seriously on the PSP game I pretty much didn't do **** but customise, I rarely bothered to battle since it was so boring to me personally.

I think this series would pick up much more in the west if they stood true to the customisation, but put a larger focus on the action without making it so repetitive. The problem with the AC on 360 was that the game simply wasn't as high quality to the other action titles on offer at the time. The team behind AC are great at customisation, but I think they need more experience in the action genre as this will prove invaluable in the future. I believe sooner or later Armoured Core will pick up in the west, it's only a matter of time until the developers hit the nail right on the head and if they advertise the game properly it will be a big franchise.
 
I've only played a fraction of this series (the first one, Master of Arena, and the third one), and i enjoyed it a lot though it took a while to get used to the controls. But i did spend a lot of the time on the garage mode, only using the campaign and the arena mode to get money for new parts. At one point on AC3 i had several saves devoted to Mecha depicting the signs of the Zodiac (or something like them). I never played AC4 unfortunatly, though i have been close to buying it on several occasions, but i've been holding out to see if this generation would bring with it a new mecha game (aside from the aforementioned Chrome Hounds). Afterall last gen brought with it the Z.O.E games.
 
BlackWolf said:
I've only played a fraction of this series (the first one, Master of Arena, and the third one), and i enjoyed it a lot though it took a while to get used to the controls. But i did spend a lot of the time on the garage mode, only using the campaign and the arena mode to get money for new parts. At one point on AC3 i had several saves devoted to Mecha depicting the signs of the Zodiac (or something like them). I never played AC4 unfortunatly, though i have been close to buying it on several occasions, but i've been holding out to see if this generation would bring with it a new mecha game (aside from the aforementioned Chrome Hounds). Afterall last gen brought with it the Z.O.E games.
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Yum ZOE. :D

All in good time we hope, all in good time. You might enjoy AC4 but im not really sure, it is very arcadey with the controls and incredibly fast - ZOE fast if not faster at points. Its a very wierd feeling after those hours of tweaking a mech when you jump into combat and everything becomes blurs within blurs.
Get it when its down to about £20-£30 and then you wont be disappointed. Course the one good thing AC4 has over the rest is online, but i only ever managed to find one opponent!
 
You know what, I think I'll add AC4 to my rental list, worst case scenario I get bored but unlock a couple of achievements for my Gamercard regardless. :]
 
Thanks for the advice about AC4. Actually i just remembered another short series of Mecha games that debuted way back in '95 (I think, may of been '94) that was acradey to play, and that was the Virtual On series. Although it lacked the custom options of AC i still had a blast playing it
 
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