Armored Core VI is not a Souls game. The developers said it, the journalists said it, your mom said it, and the ducks in the backyard are already saying it too. It’s a fact that you simply have to accept, and from FromSoftware’s perspective, the stubborn belief of the players will be the biggest problem. However, this does not mean that DNA from Dark Souls does not leak from the high-octane robotic action, and as you can imagine, the famous sense of detail and ambient narration of the authors is also present in the novel with the biblical subtitle Fires of Rubicon. Although the mechanical action genre is generally considered an outsider in Europe, you might want to pay attention because there’s more than action under the steel frame.
The fires of the Rubicon are punishing
While we’re swapping out swords, shields, and spells for plasma rifles, laser blades, and rocket launchers this time around, one thing that remains in the blood of Armored Core stands out, and that’s difficulty! Fires of Rubicon is truly hardcore, and its intensity, speed and ferocity can be equal to, for example, Sekiru, which brought an unprecedented portion of freshness and relentless pressure to the soul game genre. However, multiply the speed of Sekira by three times and imagine that you have full control of horizontal and vertical movement and 4 weapons at the same time! We are talking about a really impressive and challenging game, which especially in one-on-one battles looks stunning, overflowing with juicy effects, but still not overly enveloping. In many ways of presentation, Fires of Rubicon could be described as simple, in a good way and a bad way.
The main character of the game is not the mercenary with the designation 621, with whom you indirectly control the mecha, it is not your client Walter, and not even other mercenary factions or corporations vying for control of the mining of the newly discovered substance Coral on the planet Rubicon. It’s your mech, complete with all possible upgrades and an enormous amount of configuration options to develop the robot. As you progress through the game and explore the levels, you’ll unlock dozens of parts and weapons to equip each of the 12 slots, from weapon modules including colossal pistols and bazookas to body and drive parts. A small nimble mech that can’t hold a heavy arsenal, but doesn’t burn that much energy, can be turned into a fat robo-pig with a few button presses, which needs belts and can use the heaviest weapons in exchange for the loss of flexibility.
It is precisely the remnant of the legendary souls, a manifestation of the unique thinking of the game designers at FromSoftware, who are able to design a complex but surprisingly easy-to-understand system, which you not only have to master, but you will be happy to mess around in your robo-builds. There really isn’t a bad part or weapon, just the wrong place and situation, and it’s already clear that you’ll come across some really refined builds, especially in arena battles with other players, that are also easily expandable in the future. The entire mecha building system takes into account several basic rules that you will understand intuitively through natural gameplay. First, do you want speed or durability? Heavier machines consume more energy, so it’s easy to overwhelm them with hits and paralyze them for a while, for example. What if you want to mount a new set of heavy rocket launchers on your back? For example, focus on stiffer legs that can support the heavier upper part of the machine.
Modular and dangerous
Are you fixated on energy weapons and quick boosts around the arenas? Thus, you can use a better battery or a lighter torso. The build system is surprisingly intuitive despite the thousands of different functional combinations that aren’t just about extremes, but about carefully finding a delicate balance that suits your playstyle – despite the fact that the action in Armored Core VI is extremely aggressive, the game can also be played defensively. However, it is the action where all your decisions are validated, and which, although it relies heavily on shooting and generally longer-range conflict, also relies on close-range physical encounters. It’s the dynamics of the action, perfectly reminiscent of the already mentioned Sekiro in its intensity, where you have to perfectly consider your steps in order to put enough pressure on the enemy, but not waste too much of your energy.
BALTEUS, Destroyer of Controllers
Each of you will encounter a fight that punishes you to the point where you throw the controller and delete the game from your disc, only to enthusiastically reinstall it 10 minutes later. In my case, it’s a battle with an autonomous robot codenamed BALTEUS, with biblically accurate rockets! By the time you run into him, you still have very limited equipment, so you have to win with your wits and patience. BALTEUS very aggressively punishes players who dare to approach with his shotgun and from a distance he showers you with volleys of rockets. In the second phase, he’ll add a flamethrower to it all! Show off your experience.
While chopping down regular pawns gets rather boring after a while, the game absolutely shines in the intense 1v1 battles and especially the boss battles that can in many cases equal even the strongest experiences of games from FromSoftware. The combination of rich effects, extreme speed and successful arenas creates even futuristic romantic scenes that will keep you on your toes. Armored Core VI is not only for this reason one of the most difficult games from the stable of hardcore developers, and it is the dynamics of the combat system that contains elements of souls games, which the creators managed to get into the game very sensitively and with its own unique identity for robotic action. But! There are actually fewer boss fights, and a number of missions are really filled with fights with mechs who use the same system and equipment as you, only in often really wild combinations. And it is precisely this situation that forces you to constantly optimize your build to find the enemy’s weakness.
I will describe a practical situation. You are playing a mission with a big boss at the end for the first time. After 2 minutes, the boss will crush you in such a way that you will start calling your mom with tears in your eyes. This is repeated about three times. But then you start to notice that the boss uses special cover that reflects all your projectile hits. Thus, the first optimization leads to the exchange of weapons with explosive or energetic ones. So when you start to take down the enemy in real terms, you will find that you, for a change, do not have enough resistance and every third hit paralyzes you, so you set out to strengthen your legs, arms or even your body. After a bit of stalking, you finally get halfway through the fight where the boss starts flying and you die again. The next path then leads to, for example, improving the drive so that you can move around the arena faster and manage to avoid all the ballast around you. The stage is permanently covered with lasers, rockets, projectiles and electricity, and everything looks like the craziest arcade machines.
Age of oil and rust
Fortunately, you can change parts even after death during a mission, so finding holes in the configuration and then patching them up is very quick, unfortunately you can’t buy new parts in this situation. The difficulty thus lies in your sensory overload also due to the fact that you can control up to 4 weapons at the same time. If you’ve ever wondered how it’s possible that the drummers of speed metal bands on steroids can control all their limbs asynchronously, you’ll get a taste of their own medicine in Armored Core VI. However, frustration often stems from many unresolved points, and I myself have not been so upset with a game for a long time as in this case, because, for example, the camera can be extremely chaotic and bad. Despite being able to focus on an enemy, the constant and hectic changes in movement result in absolute crippling for the camera, which often refuses to cooperate. Giant robot fights in tight corridors in particular are extremely fatal in this context and more frustrating than fun.
In addition, the levels are quite fragmented, and when you’re moving around the city, for example, it’s easy to keep getting stuck on little things. And when you combine all three aspects together, i.e. the sensory overload, the volatile camera and the fragmentation of the levels, you realize that the action sequences can be as fulfilling as they are punishing. Especially at the beginning, the encounters are really uncompromising, but luckily the situation improves over time with a lot of alternative parts that can squeeze more juice out of your mech. However, Armored Core is not only action, but also tells the story of a world that is slowly being eaten away by a newly discovered energy that was supposed to take humanity to the next level, but instead contaminated the planet Rubicon 3 and the adjacent star system. A fire that perfectly consumes everything in its reach? There are more certain comparisons to the Dark Souls series, a certain form of filth and destruction appears in the story of the mercenary with the number 621.
Polished metal alternates with rust, and instead of blood, imagine gushing oil. The contours of the world feel like a bleak dystopia, and despite the arcade-like frantic nature of the game, the narrative is sensitively woven into the game’s progression.
Polished metal alternates with rust, and instead of blood, imagine gushing oil. The contours of the world feel like a bleak dystopia, and despite the arcade-like frantic nature of the game, the narrative is sensitively woven into the game’s progression. You won’t meet many living characters in person, but someone is constantly talking to you and explaining the events of the world around you, while the final outcome and direction of the story is probably more sophisticated than you would expect in this genre. Unfortunately, the first chapter of the game is relatively sterile, taking place for extended periods of time in cold industrial complexes and failing to sell the depravity of the world out there very well. In particular, the scenes where you see the sky engulfed in flames while jumping from one creaking structure to another feel particularly powerful, but it should be noted that the creators recycle a number of arenas across several dozen missions, and even if the setting changes completely, many levels look identical in nature and in general, the missions taking place in interiors are among the weaker ones.
A unique mix of moods
In a world of colossal open-world games, however, the game structure is a breath of fresh air from the good old days. Because you move between missions through the menu, which serves as a personal hangar, there is no open map in the game, so every session is wasted on the game, and it is even easier for the player to plan each session and better cut the time spent with it, while the missions they usually don’t take more than half an hour. That is, in the event that you don’t get stuck with the boss for a day and a half, which may or may not have happened to me, erm… Despite the uniform gameplay, the creators of the missions make the content of the missions different, either with a story context that expands the background of the world, or with individual tasks. Sometimes you have to protect a specific object or, for example, occupy stations accompanied by allied mechs. Although the authors manage to spin the content quickly, the side missions in particular are not given nearly as much care as the main ones, which explain the conspiracy and even the biblical prophecy of the world ending in the heat of the flames erupting from the bowels of the Rubicon.
Enjoy your lunch break
Want to take a break from the campaign? For example, jump into the arena where you can test your build against another mech that uses the same parts as you, but often with some funny overlap. You’ll be rewarded with points that can be invested in skill development, but you’ll also get a blueprint of the defeated mech so you can instantly copy its configuration. However, the absolute most intense fun is provided by the NEST mode, where you compete with other players.
As far as the audiovisual presentation is concerned, Armored Core VI offers a contrasting view of the sensational design of the robots and the below-average technical quality of the environment and various ambient objects. The weather effects and lighting work great, but it’s the sharply cut industrial edges of the abandoned factories that feel technically outdated. The aesthetics of the world and the visual style cover a lot of things, but you will notice weak points at practically every corner. The soundtrack, music and dubbing, on the other hand, are sensational and without practical flaws. The voices of the other operators talking to you add to the atmosphere nicely, and the music has a hint of an industrial post-apocalyptic world. And what to say in conclusion? No, despite the cohesive elements, Armored Core is not a Souls game, but you will definitely experience a very similar feeling while playing it.
2023-08-23 15:01:04
#Recenze #Armored #Core #Fires #Rubicon #Vortex
