I suddenly care about Armored Core now

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And I never did care about Armored Core before. I knew it was an ancient mecha franchise that FromSoftware developed many-many years before Demon's Souls, and that was the extent of my knowledge. I am not a fan of the mecha genre — not even remotely! — my history of mecha exposure is basically two anime titles that I lowkey regret watching.

How did I happen upon Armored Core 6 then? I picked it up solely for the fact that it is a Masaru Yamamura game. And what other From Software game was he heavily involved with? Sekiro. It was Sekiro.

For no other reason than the game being vaguely connected to Sekiro via a then designer, now director, I started my Armored Core 6 adventure. I expected glorious anime mecha action and some nominal plot. From a friend I knew that completing AC6 once is just 1/3 of the game but I didn't really pay much attention to this fact until much later.

This game got me more emotional than I ever expected. With the absence of human faces, AC6 relies heavily on voice acting and mecha design. All three times I played with the original Japanese VO, but I heard that the English VO is just as good. Somehow the game about flying suits of armor outfitted with ridiculous guns managed to make me so emotionally involved with the story and characters that I chose my first ending solely based on the fact that I didn't have to fight a character that I liked a lot that way :D

Unfortunately for me, there is zero point in engaging with AC6 if you're not going to play through it three times. One playthrough won't even give you all the characters. There are two main endings in AC6; you play the first time as your heart compels you, then the second time making all opposite choices, and then the third ending will reveal itself in the third playthrough. It's pretty straightforward.

Usually I do not replay games. Even my most beloved games I replay very rarely and those playthroughs are never back-to-back. I don't play roguelikes (unless it's Hades) for the exact same reason: I just don't like doing the same things over and over again. To my utter despair, truly finishing AC6 involved doing a whole bunch of missions over and over again with no changes. It's not every time you can choose another mission: many of them are the same throughout the whole thing. Sure, on your subsequent playthroughs you just blast through, and it takes just a few minutes to complete a sortie you've already done, but still I was dying inside. Maybe I should've waited a bit instead of just playing AC6 for hours jumping from playthrough to playthrough, causing all missions to meld together in my mind into endlessly falling down the shaft to destroy Nepenthes...

AC6 encourages experimentation and trying out different builds, as it should, but I was able to dodge all of that and complete all 3 playthroughs with the exact same lightweight build. Does it sound boring? Maybe. But I do appreciate when games just let me be, not forcing me to reassemble my build because only one specific thing works against this particular boss. Of course, I had variations: some bosses were too agile for me to just grind them in melee, or had too much firepower, and I was too fragile of a flower. I switched things around, but it was just guns and maybe a shoulder unit. Now that I think about it, it speaks more in favor of AC6, doesn't it? Many builds are roughly equally effective, so whether you are a glass canon, a literal tank with no mobility but with a giant health pool, or something in between, you can just keep playing however you like and still have a chance against any boss. Weirdly enough, I'd recommend AC6 to anyone. It doesn't really matter if you haven't played an AC game before, or if you're not a mecha fan. I am honestly amazed how much I enjoyed Fires of Rubicon while being none of those things. Which reminds me — again — how important it is to revisit the videogame genres you once thought uninteresting and just try things out. It's super fun to just skate around in your AC; the combat is snappy, weapons feel powerful, the feeling of weight is translated very well into your AC's moveset. You can have a load of fun during missions and then get heartache from dialogues and cutscenes, isn't that a perfect videogame experience? :D

So yeah, just a quick update that I suddenly care about Armored Core now. If FromSoftware does an AC7 or something, I'll play it. Let me know if you've tried any Armored Core game and how you feel about the newest installment.

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