Originally Posted April 24th, 2012
With Dark Souls 3, From Software’s Latest in the Souls series of games, just around the corner, I decided to go with a review of one of their other franchises. Armored Core V is a Eastern Style Mech game, and looking back, I actually really enjoyed it and am hoping there’s more on the way. Armored Core Verdict Day was the last entry in the franchise back in 2013, so maybe after Dark Souls 3 is out of the way, From can go back to being the king of Mech games again. Hell, give me another Chromehounds and they’d get all my money.
Giant Robots. It’s obvious that From Software has a great love for them, especially the Mech variety.Armoured Core Vis their latest entry into the franchise, and it does some extremely interesting things in terms of the way its set out and played with other people. The general mechanics of the game itself are very similar to that of the earlier games in the franchise, but the way you go about missions is almost like playing Chromehounds again.
The story is a little hard to follow at the same time as feeling like a backdrop, rather than the main point, playing this game alone can be good fun. Although this isn’t the way it is designed: while there are a huge amount of missions that are extremely easy to play solo, the idea of the game is that you create your own team (or hire Mercenaries) to complete missions together. This includes taking over and defending territory. It works rather well, and has a lot of good incentives to build up a team of friends or even put yourself out there as a Mercenary to help other people out anonymously.
This AC has four legs and a giant cannon… thing.
Mission locations feel varied, though objectives tend to be variations of “kill everything hostile” in the area. It’s slightly repetitive, but doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at all, as the enemy variety is large and fighting other Armored Core units in particular, can be very hectic and challenging.
Thankfully, with each mission being on the short side, load times are extremely fast, meaning you can be in and out of missions without much hassle, leaving plenty of time to do a good number of missions in any play session. It also means people who lean towards playing games in short bursts can pick up this game and feel very satisfied after playing a couple of missions and logging off.
The HUD looks complicated, but you get used to it.
As per the usual for From Software, there is a mind-blowing amount of customisation. You can change almost every aspect of your robot to your standards. Fast and manoeuvrable, slow and powerful, it really depends on whatever you decide to put on it. It takes a little getting used to and is definitely overwhelming at first glance, but it doesn’t stay that way for very long.
A good time all around, any fan of Mech games should pick this up without hesitation. Even people who have a fleeting interest should have a lot to find interesting here, especially if they get a good group of friends together to play with. Armoured Core V just proves that the Mech genre is still capable of producing good, unique games.
Sitoxic Gaming 