Armored Core VI: YOU DIED in a giant robot

I can honestly say I’ve never met a game that made me this blindingly angry.

Whewwww, I did it, by the hair of my chin. The old step away, come back and win on the third attempt. Ended up using pulse gun + machine gun and two laser cannons, with the tank build.

If anyone's interested (accidentally included the penultimate attempt in there too)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQopZLKKJ6I

That looks utterly batshit.

How do you reload? Is there tons of ammo?

I can honestly say I’ve never met a game that made me this blindingly angry.

That's still Fall Guys for me.

That vid really makes me want this Jordan

Reloading is automatic, although you can do it manually (like inbetween engagements). And the energy weapons don't reload, but overheat and need a cool down.

Oh and ammo hasn't really been a problem, I've gotten low but it's usually near the end of a mission or before a resupply checkpoint. Except when I tried using handguns, those ran out of ammo right away and I had to finish the mission by punching things. But I think even the description tells you they're meant to be a backup weapon.

Sometimes you just have to step away. Beat the boss I was raging against. Two heavy spider boys duking it out. Ran out of ammo for my shoulder grenade launchers at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaCitRUKds

That’s kinda on the slow end of gameplay though, most of the time it looks like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHsaUZjufNQ

The one on one mech sorties are kinda my favorite, might dig the pvp in this whenever I feel ready to open it up.

Same, and I also prefer a light build when not fighting bosses with a million hp. Currently experimenting with the laser handguns.

I’m a big fan of the sword. Need to try out the other melee weapons.

Jordan and Dog Latin, I’m sending you ps friend requests. My ps name is the same as an old ilxor’s screen name, but we are not the same people.

Do you have trouble aiming the assault boost sometimes? I have trouble aiming the assault boost sometimes (even with hard lock?) and go careening off, so I've been a little leery about melee. I should mess around with it more though.

I still haven’t mastered the assault boost. And different boost attachments seem to alter the timings.

With the Edge controller I re-mapped things and took the assault boost off of the the left stick click (which I always accidentally hit) and onto a back pedal. Much better.

But yeah, I can’t say I know the ins-and-outs of how assault boost works yet. I love it, but it definitely feels a little chaotic.

I thought the Iron Pineapple review was good. It's coming from the perspective of someone that loves all the Souls games but who has never played an AC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM1MzSzMus8

If there's a criticism I have of his review, it's that reading between the lines some of it boils down to "play the game blind to get the best experience." Which of course a lot of people say/said about all the Souls games, advice I mostly disagree with; those games are long and challenging, and in some cases imo literally impossible, or at least significantly more confusing/challenging, without looking stuff up. Here, though, I guess I see where he's coming from. This looks faster and shorter than the usual Souls games, so he's saying give in to the rush of battle and enjoy the experimentation, as as you do that the complexity because more second nature and the battle become more fun. Fair enough. I suppose that's another way of saying that losing in this game is maybe more fun than it is in the Souls games. Would any of you agree?

I'd agree with that, because getting back into the action is so fast, and you can retry with a different build from checkpoint. So far it's just been that one boss that's given me trouble though.

I'm heartened to see that people are beating it with a variety of different load outs:

For those of you who got Armored Core 6, have you beaten the final boss of chapter 1, and if so, how many attempts did it take? pic.twitter.com/SCPf32ezLK

— Iron Pineapple (@IronPineapple_) August 25, 2023

With Armored Core and the Souls games in general, I 100% approve of looking things up. Just makes your life significantly easier. And it’s kinda fun in its own way. Remember my brother and I texting hot tips to each other when Dark Souls 1 came out. Like sharing the arcane knowledge found in a Nintendo Power magazine during recess.

I have spent hours on some of these bosses and it went from fun/learning to utter annoyance and anger. After looking stuff up I’d clear it in a few tries.

To each their own, but no shame in doing research.

And if one wanted to go full fantasy, that's how one would approach a battle, too, not by rushing in but by taking the time to see what you need to equip based on intelligence.

as someone who gets the "no spoilers" thing and indeed prefers to go in blind regarding endings, npc questlines etc, the "don't look stuff up/don't ask for help/don't summon" gatekeeping can fuck off, the souls games in particular were clearly designed to encourage communal-arcade-notebook info sharing but even if they weren't who cares, play how you want to

sickos.jpeg:

the 2020s in gaming really are on some level absolute vindication for sickos who loved shit everyone said was terrible ten years ago https://t.co/KzQZdkpjTU

— Julie Muncy (@juliemuncy23) August 26, 2023

wondering if EDF's time will ever come?

“the souls games in particular were clearly designed to encourage communal-arcade-notebook info sharing”

100%, that’s how I’ve always seen it.

Whoa, beat Sea Spider on the 3rd try thanks to circa's tip about using quad legs (and the heaviest weapons I could find, two bazookas, a grenade launcher, and a big missile launcher).

Nice! That guy has like a billion hit points and some nasty ground moves, so staying in the air with heavy artillery really does seem like the best way to do it. It’s tempting to unload when he’s staggered, but I found prioritizing getting your boost meter charged during that window to be the way to go. Gotta stay airborne.

I'm impressed that by all accounts this game runs pretty great out of the box. What do you expect, or hope, From to offer in the way of inevitable patches and tweaks?

I saw some twitter thread about how running the PS4 version on PS5 has a better frame rate etc, but everything seems just fine with the PS5 version.

Really what I (and a lot of people apparently) want is better & easier matchmaking for pvp. I tried the online arena for the first time yesterday and it felt very old school PC -- people create rooms with their own parameters (time, map, number of people in the room, whether winner or loser rotates, etc) and you try to get into them and get into a match. At first I ended up in a room with 10 people and was spectating while other people played, with no option to exit or leave the room during combat. It's not that big of a deal, but it would be nice to have an option to just hop into a random 1v1 without all the hullabaloo.

(I actually won my first match, was about to win the second one when they quit, resulting in a draw, then got absolutely shredded by someone with an endgame build who also knew what they were doing).

Other than that, idk? I do wonder if they're going to nerf some of the bosses that people have been complaining about, but I kind of hope they don't.

Btw that quad build I made for Sea Spider came in handy to pull out for the end of the 'Steal the Survey Data' mission, with all those reinforcement mechs you need to fight. I've started replaying more missions so that I don't have to sell parts, it's better to keep multiple builds ready to go if I want to switch to them from a checkpoint.

finally beat balteus, double pulse guns/double laser cannons, as lightweight as possible. took a long time!!!!!

BLIFIL on psn hit me up

Hell yeah. How lightweight were you able to go with those cannons -- biped legs?

all nachtreiser everything except for legs which were melander c3. needed the big heavy generator for the lasers.

i tried a tank configuration but the extra HP didn't make up for having to eat the flamethrower sword every time

lol apparently someone just beat the game with no weapons, just punches.

Same guy who beat all the Souls games with a broken straight sword, lol

Okay so I finally got to play this tonight after a few days away. Managed to beat the helicopter after 8 or 9 goes, but it felt like luck more than anything else.

Then I spent WAY too long customising my mech to make it look cool. So much fun, even if the decal system is fiddly and annoying as anything.

Still got to get the hang of a few controls. There's a lot to learn, and often I feel like I need more fingers than it requires

I beat this and will roll through NG+1.

Had a lot of fun, but I have to say… wtf is up with the balancing in this? Once you find the right build (or 3) it’s a cakewalk. I beat a lot of these end-game bosses on the first try. 2-3 attempts at most.

Balteus seems to be the actual boss of the game as far as difficulty is concerned and he’s at the end of Ch 1.

I haven't had a lot of time to play so I'm still on chapter 3, near the end I think. The arena version of Carla was nearly as hard as Balteus, I had to break out the tank. What main build did you settle on?

Zimmerman shotguns and Songbird shoulder grenade launchers are just unbeatable. I’d switch out the shotguns for Gatling guns depending on the situation. Forget the name, but once I found the heavy duty reverse joint legs I stuck with them for most of it. The wheelchair tank legs also good. The needle shoulder cannons you get for worm boss also handy for other bosses. Flame throwers come in handy occasionally for small levels with swarms of small guys.

Can coast with that.

Had a lot of fun, but I have to say… wtf is up with the balancing in this? Once you find the right build (or 3) it’s a cakewalk. I beat a lot of these end-game bosses on the first try. 2-3 attempts at most. Balteus seems to be the actual boss of the game as far as difficulty is concerned and he’s at the end of Ch 1.

This is all more or less the distillation of the just-posted (non gag) Dunkey review.

I thought that was overstating things a bit, most missions are a slice of pie but I've gotten some decent challenge from some of the AC mini-bosses, especially when they throw more than one at a time at you. And it's still fun when it's easy.

My current favorite build is the chicken legs, dual laser handguns, and a Songbird + 10 missile launcher on the back. Still haven't gotten the hang of melee - it's a lot to switch weapons and properly boost within range all during the two seconds your opponent is staggered.

I kinda don’t like that Dunkey dude, but he’s partially right in that review.

NG+ is even easier because enemies aren’t buffed and you have a full kit at your disposal + all your knowledge gained. They mix up some missions which is fun, but nothing that will make you sweat.

I hope they release a good grip of DLC (in true AC fashion, before it was d/l’able) because the core combat is really good and I feel like you could do so much more with it.

Apparently NG++ has a ton of new missions, which is kinda crazy? But I guess that's their Lake of Ash in this game.

I've been playing with a rapid fire build, dual machine guns + gatling guns where you keep alternating between them and never have to stop firing. It's not great against human opponents, but it just melts ACs in the arena and in missions.

After being on the receiving end of flamethrowers and realizing how annoying it is not to be able to see anything, I made an annoying pvp build with double flamethrowers and double vertical plasma missiles, lol. Some people are flummoxed by it and melt down, but it's useless against some builds. Part of the problem is that I can barely see what they're doing through the flames, so it's harder to dodge some melee/bazooka/etc attacks.

I finished playthrough #1, now ripping through ng+. There was a particularly epic fight against redacted late game boss, where I ran out of ammo for the first time and ended up punching it to death, with my cannon falling off after firing the final shot, crazy.

Nice. I played about 2/3 of NG+ and then Baldur's Gate came out so I haven't played in a while. Will probably go back.

New patch just dropped and it looks like they nerfed Balteus and 2 other roadblock bosses. Buffed a few weapons too.

Ohhh, I did just steamroll Balteus in ng+ before going to work and I thought it was just because of my endgame build. Oh well, I'm kinda glad I beat it pre-patch (similar to pre-nerf Radahn).

Can someone explain how the scan thing works? I recently did the level with the undercover mechs that seem to hide themselves inside walls. I'm scanning, but it's not really clear what the scanner really is meant to be showing.

You mean the one with the stealth mechs that are invisible at range and can seemingly teleport in the first part of the stage? That's a bit of a weird one-off, it tells you to use your scanner to find them initially, but I don't think it works in the boss fight when they're clinging high up on the walls.

I found the scanner to generally be of limited utility, it's best in the enclosed hallway/tunnel levels to see if an enemy mech is around the corner, or hiding on the ceiling before you drop down somewhere. Not sure if it actually highlights the chests where you find parts, but I don't think it ever helped me find one.

Oh I think scanning might also highlight any mission targets, ie when you have to destroy some inanimate object? Not entirely sure if it's necessary or not.

xp, yeah that's it. the scanner didn't seem to help at all. It was mega confusing. The only way to spot them was to just haphazardly shoot in the rough direction the lazers were firing from until I got a lock

Haha yeah, I would go to the wall they were shooting from and try to jump up directly below them like an excited dog (I think I eventually switched to quad legs on my first playthrough to get up there more easily). Definitely died a lot, it was fun to blow through it in ng+.