Armored Core -- From Software's other series

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Any fans out there?

I've been playing through the whole series again recently; in fact, this is one of those series which I play through every couple of years or so, having played and obsessed over the games in childhood.

For those not in the know, this is a series of arcade-style mecha games defined by a heavy amount of customisation. Every game in the series includes an extensive series of parts affecting a list of variables which grew as the series went on, and the urge to balance all of these variables tickled a particular autistic itch of mine!

Lately I've been working on fully completing For Answer, which is probably my favourite game in the series, speeding up the gameplay without fundamentally changing what I liked about previous games. Of note is that this, and its predecessor Armored Core 4, were directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki of Souls and Bloodborne fame.

I have yet to play Verdict Day after not particularly enjoying 5, but it is loaded onto my PS3 and I will have to play it eventually. The online elements do more to remind me of the loss of Chromehounds than anything else, but that's another story.

I really liked the series up through number 3, I think it was. Or was it 2? I think it was 3.

At 4, this turned to hate.

I dont remember why.

And 5 was *really* bad, if that's the online-focused one as I'm remembering it is. I sold that one back to the store very quickly.

But at this point I just consider it irrelevant. I didnt bother with the series after that one. Yet another old series that somehow changed too much and is basically dead to me. Though, honestly, that's what I expect from that side of the industry these days, so it's not like it came as any sort of surprise.

2 is the one that was set on Mars after the events of the first game and its sequels. 3 was an entirely new arc in which the corporations and mankind in general existed underground under the control of an AI called The Controller. Admittedly, nobody plays these games for the story, but the settings were distinct so maybe you'll remember which was which.

5 was the online-focused one. It was bad. They replaced upwards boosting with wall-jumping and introduced the same online elements they tried in Chromehounds.

When did you try 4? When I was young I played 1, 2, Another Age and 3, then took a break until 4. I kind of wish you could say what you hated about 4 because I love how they threw out what I didn't like while retaining what I did like, it wasn't perfect but it was a step forward in every way and 5 wrecked that.

As an ostensibly fully-developed adult I have finished all of the expansions and other games too. Nexus and Last Raven are noteworthy because that is when they added the dual-stick FPS-style controls. Nexus is generally considered to have excessive heat (introduced in 2 but way worse here) whereas Last Raven is BRUTAL and has a heavily diverging mission tree. I like Last Raven a lot but I'll probably never complete every mission or get every ending.

I tried number 4 pretty much right after it came out, which is much too long ago for me to remember much about it. I just remember I couldnt stand it. Granted 5 was still worse, but yeah, hated it.

Too long ago though. Had the 360 version, and nowadays, well.... probably havent touched the 360 in like 2 years. Bloody useless thing really. Though it's a Japanese unit anyway, got rid of the other one.