Armored Core VI is one of those games you have to play to understand why people are loving it because there’s a lot of things apart from the graphics that you can’t fully appreciate just watching until you actually play it yourself. Armored Core VI – Fires of Rubicon is a game by the developers from FromSoftware who have garnered wide acclaim for their top quality games such as Dark Souls, Elden Ring and Bloodborne.
The last time I played an Armored Core game was back on the original Playstation and the Playstation 2. Though I only vaguely recall some of my gameplay experience from 2 decades ago, the long history of the franchise is something to note in video game history with its 23 games across multiple generations of platforms. This Armored Core we’re reviewing in this video actually came out 11 years after its last installment, so it was definitely a pleasant surprise to see Armored Core again.
Settings and Accessibility
Starting off with settings and accessibility because that’s how I like to roll around here, given that it is a FromSoftware game, the very first thing I had to check was if the game felt good to play on mouse and keyboard. For the life of me, I felt incredibly uncomfortable in other FromSoftware games like Sekiro, Dark Souls 3 and even Elden Ring if I wasn’t playing on a controller so I am extremely pleased to say that the controls for Armored Core VI feels really good for mouse and keyboard. There have been some people who have argued that it is in fact better to play on mouse and keyboard if you want to optimize but I think after trying it on controller as well, it comes down to preference a lot more when compared to other FromSoftware games in my opinion.
The settings are pretty straightforward and what you’d expect for tweaking things like graphics, camera movement and motion blur. There are definitely some things to adjust potentially like maintaining target assist but again that comes down to preference as you play the game later on. I would also say it’s very easy to miss out on some of the game’s soundtrack in a lot of encounters due to the constant barrage of weapon audio effects and very rarely dialogue so if you want to notice the music of the game more I would recommend turning it up. You have the ability to turn on Japanese or English voices and subtitles which is nice to see.
As far as accessibility goes for example there is no color blind mode for Armored Core VI but on the plus side the ingame subtitles are big enough that you don’t really need to adjust the subtitle size although that could have been nice as an option as well.
User Interface and User Experience
The User Interface and the User Experience are pretty straightforward and well done for the experience of even a player who may not be familiar with the Armored Core franchise and the game actually takes a lot of steps with incentives for you to do combat tutorials and practice so that you get even more intimate with the game. While initially I would have liked certain components of the Heads Up Display to maybe have different or more distinguished colors, the ordered yet chaotic combat system made it so that didn’t ultimately matter.
Music and Audio
The music for Armored Core VI when it comes to the boss or important encounters is pretty good and can get you in the moment. There are also character entrances, or the less corny dialogue by some characters accompanied by the game’s music at the right moments that can definitely hype you up for what’s to come next. All in all, I would say the music for Armored Core VI is good but not the greatest. I felt like the audio engineering could have been better in some parts of the playthrough where either the dialogue or the music got drowned out by one another but that’s a really minor thing in the end. The voice acting for the game was decent as well especially during the message scenes. I would say that the audio for the movement such as your AC’s thrusters, combat effects and weapons were really really well done and that just like any other action, shooter or even MMO game out there contributes heavily to the tactile feel of what you’re doing in the game.
Graphics, Art and Environment
The graphics and art are the very first thing I feel like you will notice about Armored Core VI whether you’re playing the game or watching someone play the game. The ACs, the weapon effects, the details of the explosions, the scraping of your AC’s metal feet against snow or rocks are just so well presented. There are just so many little details especially with the visual movement of your AC that adds to a fun and engaging experience of the game. There are some really wonderfully made mission levels that just immerse you thoroughly in what’s going on at the moment. Almost all of the level layouts make sense so this
When I’m examining the environment for a game like this, usually the environment fulfills two purposes, the first being the aesthetic value which is decently fulfilled in Armored Core VI. There are definitely environments or levels where you go “woah this is effing amazing” and the second purpose is to have the environment work for combat. Surprisingly despite piloting a death machine mech, there aren’t too many environmental assets that you can destroy or take advantage of but that’s okay as the layout of the environment often contributes to the difficulty of a fight. There are fights in environments where it feels like you have no room or have just enough room which make the fight you’re engaging in a bit more difficult depending on the boss or encounter and I think this part was well done because for example while I might have had a really easy time beating Carla in the open Arena simulation, I had a really hard time with her in the actual mission on the same AC loadout that I beat her simulation on due to the surrounding environment and the addition of another participant.
Combat and Gameplay
A lot of the combat’s appeal, at least to me, was in the movement and how seamless or integrated it felt to me as a player. It’s hard to explain and some people have thought me crazy when I’ve said this but there are some games where you can just feel what you’re doing. You can feel you making a mistake as you do so, you can feel what you’re about to hit, get hit by and when. For me there are very few games where I can say the combat feels so good and smooth I feel like I could close my eyes and just feel the game and what’s happening around my character and Armored Core VI is absolutely one of those few games. The movement is the very first thing I noticed and it just felt so freaking good to turn, boost, dodge, jump and that really factored into how much I enjoyed playing the game. The other aspects of combat such as the feel of the guns, blades, and shoulder weapons feel great too but the movement is just chef’s kiss and immediately drew me in so if you’ve ever wanted to play a Gundam game or a game that involves a very versatile mech piloting experience more than something like Titanfall 2, this is the game for you if you want to scratch that mech itch because I don’t think it gets better than this.
Of course, tied in with the gameplay and combat system of Armored Core is the ability to customize your mech or AC which can help a lot with specific missions and boss fights. While you can basically go through 90% of the missions with the exact same loadout, I feel like you’re severely limiting your enjoyment by not experimenting with other weapons or stats given by the various body, internal or weapon pieces. I really enjoy the amount of customizing you can do with your mech considering it’s essentially your character. You can straight up make things look like the old Gundam models if you were into Gundam like myself. The variety of colors and ability to position various decal are really nice touches when you can also affect the sheen or weathered patterns for your AC. This is definitely one big part of the game that you want to take some time to understand and play around with for at least a couple hours total.
Story, Difficulty and Length
For the story of Armored Core VI, it might be a little mystifying or confusing to people who are playing this as their first Armored Core game or if you’re like me you haven’t played an Armored Core game since 2 decades ago and you just haven’t kept up with it. There are of course things you can find in the game such as data text on fallen mechs or other locations that are obvious or not so obvious. The story of the game is often presented through tooltips as well on weapons, on the Arena opponents, the cutscenes, the dialogue and of course those messages you can listen in on after almost every mission is complete. It’s fairly easy to piece together what might be going on although just like any other FromSoftware game, it will take a bit more digging to find a lot more about the exact lore and what horrible thing you or other characters actually may have unknowingly done.
In terms of the story and length, I will say it took me about 17 hours for my first playthrough completion and that’s with doing the entire Arena from F to S Tier and playing around with the customization of my AC and dabbling momentarily in PvP. There is of course a New Game+ that allows you to essentially go through the game for different outcomes for specific missions and of course a different game ending as opposed to the one you may have gotten in the first playthrough. Then there’s a New Game++ which does the same thing but with more new content and story so it’s definitely going to be worth going through two more playthroughs for you to fully enjoy the story of the game.
I feel like the length of Armored Core VI overall is actually a nice change of pace from the games I’ve been playing recently. I think there can be a balance between games that require too much time investment and games that feel sweet but too short and I think Armored Core VI actually hits this balance really well.
Now, one thing I have noticed about the difficulty of Armored Core VI is that compared to Elden Ring or Dark Souls as a Fromsoftware game in any instance, it’s really not that hard which might be surprising to a lot of people watching this video. Visually at first it can be overwhelming on some fights but once you understand what’s going on and how you can move during the more frustrating fights like Snail or the Ibis core it is so satisfying, like look at this:
Just that moment where I am chasing this boss down and the boss sees me coming and swings that huge blade at me but I accelerate and narrowly avoid by weaving under it was so god damn satisfying and there can definitely be moments like this if you provoke for it but if you want to build tanky and just nuke the hell out of a frustrating boss instead, that’s also an option without the need for a lot of grinding compared to Elden Ring.
Other than this on the difficulty, New Game+ or New Game++ does not affect the actual difficulty or scaling of your enemies go up so you will actually keep all your gear, your stats and everything and Armored Core VI is simply content to let you go absolutely wild and it’s actually a great experience. Obviously I think some people will say this is both a strength and weakness when it comes to the replayability factor of the game but kind of just speaking again when it comes to a balance just like for the length of the game, I think this was a solid balance and a lot of the replayability will come from perfecting your gameplay and missions or multiplayer.
Multiplayer
Speaking of the PvP, the matchmaking system is as simple as you can get. You can determine the region of your matchmaking in the settings and you simply look at a list of lobby rooms that you can join depending on whether those rooms are filled or not. There’s a good amount of 1v1 lobby rooms, I saw 4 or 6 player limit rooms and going in with a PvE AC setup is just not gonna do you any good so the multiplayer introduces another dimension of theorycrafting or at least AC customization. It’s definitely not a system with a few extra steps like Dark Souls or Elden Ring so it’s very very easy to just hop in and have some quick fun with the PvP.