2023-08-26 17:50:00
Do you love mechas and From Software? You are intrigued by their new Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon but you are afraid of not understanding anything? Don’t panic, we’ll explain everything to you, starting with why it’s not necessary to have played the other games in this saga.
For a long time restricted to a certain well-informed niche, mechas are taking more and more space in the Western collective imagination. Pacific Rim obviously not for nothing, but the growing popularity of manga is obviously the main cause: everyone in 2023 has heard of it Neon Genesis Evangelionand even Netflix has stepped up with the superb Knights of Sidonia. Of course, the most supremely enjoyable extension of all this would be video games.
Strangely, there aren’t that many options. Titanfall ? Excellent, but dead and buried. Into The Breach ? Very good too, but not an action game. No, in fact, for the players of 2023, there is no choice: if you want mecha, you’ll have to get the dreaded Armored Core with Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Except that behind its formidable reputation as an infamous brothel and its sixteen games that mix sequels and reboots, hides an exciting universe that is easy to access, as long as we have integrated the simple principle of generations. And there are even two huge video game titles that any specialist must have done.
ARMORED CORE IS NOT SO HARDCORE
In the shadow of video game history sleeps a legend just waiting to be awakened: Armored Core. A series of video games on dantesque mecha fights initiated by From Software in 1997, when the studio was not yet the golden monster that gave birth to Elder Ring, Dark Souls and others Bloodborne.
From Software is at that time still a minor studio which only has in the rearview mirror the first three King’s Field, a series of medieval dark fantasy RPGs that met with little success. Encouraged, the team decides to embark on a whole new story with Armored Core.
Armored Core, the origins (yes it stings a bit)
The principle is simple: we set a futuristic post-apo dystopian setting and we offer the player to complete missions with his big mecha of death that kills. Except that From Software adds THE cherry that makesArmored Core a unique cake: the mech is 100% customizable with options of a gigantic variety, and must be adjusted according to the missions.
Do I take inverted legs to jump higher, or do I go into quad mode to absorb the recoil of my heavy weapons? Do I put on a head with heavy protection, even if it means no longer having a radar or missile detector? Etc.
A typical customization screen (don’t panic)
generations Armored Core
Little known outside of Japan due to the total lack of marketing (or even game release), Armored Core nevertheless remained From Software’s flagship for 15 years, until the Souls turn everything upside down and put From Software in the big leagues. Each generation has obviously been more or less successful, but Armored Core has always enjoyed a good popularity rating in the archipelago of the rising sun and in the hearts of connoisseurs.
And yes, we are talking about generation, because Armored Core works on this principle: each encrypted entry is a new beginning for the series, a more or less deep reboot of the story and the gameplay.
Which explains why Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is numbered 6 although it is the 16th game: the number 6 of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon indicates its generation number, not its place in a sequence. And since this is the first entry of this new generation, and gen 6 is a complete reboot, you absolutely do not need to play any previous opus to follow the story. Owl isn’t it?
However, before leaving to play, we can only encourage you to play at least a (small) part of the previous games. And when we say encourage, we look at you with wild eyes and drooling just thinking about gen 4.
Crazy eyes we tell you, play Armored Core 4 damn it!
BEFORE FIRES OF RUBICON: GEN 4 & 3
Made of Armored Core 4 et Armored Core: For Answerreleased on PS3 and Xbox 360, generation 4 was made by Saint Hidetaka Miyazaki, future creator of a whole video game genre with Dark Souls, Bloodborne, An axe, Demon’s Souls et Elder Ring. And with his first two achievements, the novice Hidetaka Miyazaki already dropped two atomic bombs.
The masterpiece Armored Core 4 and its direct sequel, the turbo masterpiece Armored Core: For Answercompose one of the most disillusioned and melancholy war tales that video games have ever produced. In the near future, on an Earth devastated by the looting of natural resources and various ecological disasters, the governments of the world have been overthrown by a few giga corporations, which are waging a constant war by interposed mechas. Humans are confined to the few remaining livable spaces managed by the corporations, which put them to forced labor and oversee the redistribution of resources. But the dystopian nightmare is not complete.
The huge Spirit of the Motherwill, an image you can hear (and aim for the size of the thing a bit)
All of this is in vain because of the Kojima Particles, a super-powerful, but also extremely radioactive new source of energy. Lethal pollution emissions, especially from mecha enginescause the more humans fight, the more the player plays to liberate the peoples, and the more uninhabitable Earth becomes. A gloomy irony which holds up a strange mirror to our time, and of which none of the three possible outcomes is really positive.
On the gameplay side, Hidetaka Miyazaki is also revolutionizing the formula Armored Core by introducing a whole host of innovations in customization, but above all by radically changing the philosophy of previous generations. This is placed under the sign of speed and constant movement, immobile standstill being synonymous with a death sentence. Don’t be fooled by their age: the PS3 graphics still hold up and the speed of the game could well burn you some synapses. In addition, the soundtrack is SUBLIME (try to listen Spirit of the Motherwill or Someone is Always Moving on the Surface without crying to see).
A mission you’ll remember for the rest of your life if you unlock the third ending
For retrogaming adventurers, we can only warmly recommend generation 3 made up of Armored Core 3, Silent Line: Armored Coreand its direct sequel, generation 3.5 with Armored Core: Nexus et Armored Core: Last Raven. Released on PlayStation 2, these two generations offer a great story, again far from martial clichés and punctuated by multiple twists, treated with a harshness that still hurts today (the nihilistic end of Silent Line must haunt the brains of many gamers). The gameplay is also the most refined of all offered by the old-school generations ofArmored Core.
Plus, the difficulty of gen 3 is quite digestible if you don’t mind old-school controls.
GEN 1, 2 and 5: Disenchanted Generations
But what about generations 1, 2 and 5 then? Are they to be banned? Let’s say their interest in the 2023 player is less.
For generations 1 and 2, you really have to be a retrogaming archaeologist, a pro player who likes to suffer, a die-hard From Software fan, or all three at the same time. Guided by stories that could not be more vague (and again, for some opuses we should talk more about context than history) and of a particularly high difficulty, generations 1 and 2 are aimed above all at hardcore gamers and completers of all stripes.
Come on, we wish you a lot of courage for generation 2, the hardest of all
Which does not mean that they are unplayable, far from it. They each have their charm and their share of highlights, whether it’s an epic and exhausting duel against a recurring antagonist, or even heartfelt jokes typical of From Software humor (memory of this confrontation against a mecha pilot so addicted to the sound of bullets that it is possible to win by letting him shoot in the void until he has no more ammunition). Simply, get ready to play to dive into a world of combat/platforming without a joystick.
Attention, here is the generation 5
Finally, generation 5, made up of Armored Core V et Armored Core: Verdict Day. If it had more critical and commercial success than the 4, it constitutes in our opinion a clear artistic step back. With gameplay as clumsy as its martial soundtrack, and an orientation towards Western multiplayer, Generation 5 lets itself fall into heavy militarism. A heaviness that is ironically reflected in the weight of the first software: poorly optimized, it causes a lot of slowdowns, especially when many elements are displayed (which, moreover, further accentuates the need to play as static as possible, to avoid to put his console on his knees).
Certainly Verdict Day catches up well with a story that’s not too badly put together, boosted performance in the service of more airy gameplay, and a remarkable end boss. But overall, this generation offers a neglected narrative due to the priority given to multiplayer, as well as a messy gameplay experience. In addition, the heart of the gameplay of generation 5 revolves around a damage system on the model of rock-paper-scissors, which is boring and above all incredibly reductive compared to the diversity of builds that can (should) offer a Armored Core.
Armored Core 6, which looks so good
Fortunately, however, there is every reason to believe that Gen 6 will be better than ever. More leaning towards space sci-fi than earthly post-apo, but retaining the key ecological themes ofArmored Corethe story ofArmored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon plot. In addition, the various presentation videos and other trailers have already revealed several magnificent sets, huge to drop your jaw. As long as the gameplay has learned the lessons of the past, that it finds a little of the ultra-nervousness of generation 4 while reworking the messed up tactical aspect of generation 5, and we will have one of the best games of the game. ‘year.
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