One of the best games I have ever played. I can count the games that I like to replay a lot on one hand, Starfox, Halo Series, Mass Effect Series and now I can add Armored Core to this list. It's almost like an itch that can't be scratched.

Imagine in today's society, a game where there are no micro-transactions, no special parts/weapons locked behind some form of paywall, no Story/Multiplayer Expansion Packs that you have to worry about buying. Where everything is unlockable, just by playing the game.

Sounds like a actual complete game. Sounds too good to be true.

Welcome to Armored Core VI.

I've got a job for you, 621. But while you're out there, make sure to enjoy the show and don't forget to smile!

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This game knows where it's at. It doesn't try to do something which it shouldn't. It does not have unnecessary bloat and its core gameplay is solid. Story is interesting. There is plenty of content in a campaign and newgame+. Combat is exciting and deep enough to remain interesting. Game runs well and it does something unique. While some people might not like it, because it isn't a game which they want, it's their problem for trying to project what this game should be rather than what it is. And it's great for what it is.

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When I was a child, we went to resort where there arcade machines. You could hop into one and play with giant mechs. It was a game in an arena, fighting other mechs. It was a fast paced game where you could fly, dodge missiles and had a lot of weapons to choose from. From that day onwards I kept looking what this game was, but I couldn't ever find it. However, this is the next best thing. It plays exactly like I remember with my nostalgia glasses and is everything what a newly made game should be. When a game manages to meet expectations of your nostalgia warped brain, you know it's good.

Game has few things which I wished that it would be better. Mostly it stems from it being a simple game, not trying to do anything fancy. Simple is good, it gets a job done, but it doesn't excite you. By not reaching for the stars, you never get into being something special for gamers. Something like Half Life, Supreme Commander, Warcraft 3, they all tried to do something very ambitious and succeeded in that. This game lacks that ambition to try and to fail and thus merely settles with being good at what it does.

Utilitarian Graphics
• Graphics in this game does the job. They are simple and can effortessly draw long distances without any frame drops. However, game is stuck at around 90 FPS while I believe 120 FPS is an engine limit. If you look up close, models are simple and nothing in it look really good. They are very practical. They don't look ugly and run great. It perfectly fits what this game tries to accomplish. However, it left me wanting a better engine. Since this game is very fast paced, you really want a lot more FPS. When in close quarters fighting, your skill is hardcapped by 120 FPS which this game gives you and image tends to blur during quick movement. In addition, some high and demanding quality settings would be nice. Demanding AA models, RT effects, higher quality, less grainy textures would be nice. Sadly, Christmas is already over.
  
  Lack of Scale
  
• What developers failed to do is to impart sense of scale. You are commanding a giant mech, but you don't feel the scale of it. It could be just a regular dude in an undersized environment for all what matters. This problem happens, because game struggles to establish relative environmental clues to help ground the player to the scale of an entire thing. Here is a nice example, can you tell how big those trucks are from this video? These trucks can be remotely controlled, but how can you tell if they are real or not?
  
  https://youtube.com/shorts/sdzMCJuQVV4?si=wrbHRKu8k_ZW4CsG
  
  This is the effect this game suffers from. Since developers just oversized everything around you, you don't feel any bigger, because environments are massive. The scale of normal objects are out of whack and you struggle to imagine what a normal sized human would do in an environment like this. It doesn't seem at all designed for their use. This issue is purely one born out of lack of talent as developers needed to keep into account scale at every stage of development. To construct environments first in mind of a normal human which you don't see and then add mechs on top of it. However, they focused on gameplay first and as a result, while gameplay is great, immersion suffers. It doesn't feel like a real world. Some jank in the game is necessary in order to establish some greater things like atmosphere and immersion.
  https://youtu.be/sBzXzlvonWQ
  Technical Issues
  
• I'm mister fancy pants and in those pants I have 7800X3D. Sadly, AMD processors have or had a flaw which would cause game to freeze up while main processor gets overloaded with work. This would happen randomly and only its main core would get to 100% usage. Strangely, it would happen only once per game launch and you could wait it out in a menu and it will be a smooth sailing afterwards. It would also never crash the game no matter how unresponsive it would get.

The oxymoron here is trying to improve what you already consider as a perfect game. To me, a perfect game is something which knows where it's at. It's a product which sets up to do 1 thing and does that one thing really well. It isn't about how many features it has, how big its budget is, how many flashy things developers can give you. Everything works within limitations of its budget, time, talent. Even the best games in existence are not perfect. Nothing ever is perfect, that is inherent humankind flaw. We have words with meanings which have no real practical application. To many "Perfect" is something which can never be achieved nor exists.

Philosophical lecturing aside, what would make this game even better for me is more depth. Game melts like a candy in your mouth when you play it. However, there isn't a lot of motivation to replay it. Sure, there are different builds to try it out and you can pick few different missions for different endings. All those things are good, but they don't make me want to replay the whole thing again. I want an expansion which would add variety in replaying campaign. New lines, new 'mutators' for enemies. I also want more in depth customization. I want to see more stats in character creation screen, more in depth meta. I also want a new game mode which would focus on replayability where all new items could me unlocked via grinding and challenges. In other words, for this game to really reach my all time classic status, it needs to dig deep and make its existing pool a lot deeper with the emphasis on replayability. As it stands now, it was a nice candy while you were eating it, but you don't want to go for seconds. Campaign is rather lengthy and grindy without providing narrative rich experience of classical single player games. It also doesn't provide enough of a challenge and depth for you to repeat everything over and over again. This is why it never got huge player counts like a Dark Souls game. Players would complete the campaign and be done with it as there is very little that makes people want to replay it.

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...and now I'm sad. It was a great game while it lasted. However, it's a game which doesn't do enough to incentivise me playing it again. It stands in an awkard area where it isn't exactly a classical single player campaign like Max Payne 2 with high concentration of narrative driven content nor it's a grind, lifestyle type games like Elden Ring where you are expected to spend dozens of hours just grinding. It's a dragged out single player game with light story elements most of the time. It would be perfect for replaying multiple times, but game doesn't offer you enough for you to want to replay it.

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