Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon Review

As someone unfamiliar with the franchise, its spectacle left me in awe. I recommend it with some conditions, which I’ll go into…

I didn’t know what to expect going into AC: VI. I’ve never played an Armored Core game, or even a mech game really. I don’t particularly enjoy Fromsoft’s Souls-like formula either. But the spectacle and the METAL of ARMORED CORE drew me in from the start. On completion of the game, I could not have been more pleased.

If you’re ready for a puzzle game disguised as a high-intensity action game then AC: VI is for you. I say that because the difficulty really is determined by how you build your mech. The moment you find yourself loading into missions with the same gear as the mission prior, the game will start to become tough for you. Now, playing this way isn’t impossible. Put into different terms, it’s more a matter of how hard you’re willing to shove a wax cylinder through a square hole. Do-able. Even rewarding when it happens. But it doesn’t have to be that hard. And it’s not rocket science either. If you’re willing to spend time analyzing the gear on a basic fundamental level you’ll be fine. Lots of small enemies? Multi-lock missiles. Boss battle? Spec for a 1v1. Determine how fast you gotta move per encounter from there.

Another note about the difficulty, which is a personal belief of mine, but I want to share. I think my sucking at Soul’s games is directly linked to my expertise in AC. Battles are frenetic, conducted by split-second decision-making, and pure unbridled aggression toward the enemy. The way war is waged in AC almost directly contradicts a souls-like playstyle. There are times when battles may echo a feeling of a souls-like, where you memorize attack patterns, and go all-out after you’ve staggered your foe. But, and I can’t stress this enough: It is not soulslike, and it’s very possible that your skills in those games, will not transfer here. There have been plenty of Elden Ring enjoyers who have been ‘filtered’ out of AC’s player base to somewhat prove that. That’s why I think this and my previous paragraph are important to bring up right from the jump. Get it in your brain. Go in with proper expectations. It’s likely you won’t enjoy it otherwise.

That said, I tell you what. This is a really fun game. The dopamine really kicks in the back of your skull with all the slo-mo boss kills and explosions. Building my mech to accommodate missions, finding my favorite mech parts, and just making a mech I was comfortable using in any situation… It’s all done very well and it’s all entertaining. Domineering the arena ladder alongside the mission structure was also incredibly rewarding. Despite my own warning above, I did do some parts of the game with an “unoptimized” mech, and while in this state, I did end up beating more “difficult” bosses and missions alike. I relished those awesome victories. In a way, I chose my own difficulty by sticking with those parts during those sections but felt I was equally rewarded, despite my stubbornness.

The mission design I thought worked really well, and in a way scratched a similar itch to that of something like Ace Combat 7 (strange it shares the same concatenation, AC), where you load into an area designed around an objective, and you complete that objective and move on to the next one or whatever. Eerily similar feeling. Missions could take minutes or a whole half hour, again… depending on how you decide to play it.

The story I actually ended up enjoying, I know some people haven’t been that enthused, but the lore you get fed through missions about the planet Rubicon, the Mega-Corps, and your place as a Merc, came together well and made it all very interesting. The banter the characters have with you in their little snippets over the radio or in briefings I thought was pretty great and helped make some fun characters. I grew to appreciate its little twists and turns throughout the runtime and found the ending I got to be satisfying. The game does boast multiple endings and branching decisions so your repeat playthroughs don’t feel the same… but I’ll be honest, 2023 is not the year for me to go back and try and get those. Maybe next gaming dry spell? But I dunno! The first completion satisfied me quite a bit, so we’ll see.

By way of critique, the missions aren’t very balanced with their time which always felt jarring to me. Some missions are strictly jumping in to do a boss fight, and others can be 25 minutes of running around AND THEN you do a boss fight which is like another 20 minutes. My only other complaint is the boss fight in the ending I got. Felt impossible. Even after all I learned about the game, parts, the systems, it felt impossible to the point where I just had to cop a build I found by Googling. I completed it after several more tries with that build but still felt cheated. After everything I had been taught, the boss had a kit that was so unfair that nothing I had learned in my playtime helped me. In puzzle terms, the solution felt too specific.

Overall, I do recommend Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. I had a really fun time playing and enjoyed its spectacle missions and boss battles. Building your own mech is great, and experimenting with all the parts and finding what you like to bring on jobs is where the bread and butter of AC: VI is. If you’re prepared to do that and to accept that there’s a bit of a puzzle hidden within here, then you’re going to really vibe with this game.

Originally published 14 Sept 2023 at https://backloggd.com.