We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Armored Core for well over ten years, and many longtime fans eventually started to wonder if we might ever see another, what with FromSoftware finding success with Dark Souls. Life is good though, because we’ve been blessed with a new game in the series, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, and it’s safe to say this one is a winner.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
Developer: FromSoftware Inc.
Price: $59.99
Platform: PC / PS / Xbox
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Armored Core 6 opens on the planet Rubicon 3, where a resource called coral was discovered and every corporation in the star system is giddily fighting their way to claim it. The problem is, the last time coral was fought over, it caused a cataclysmic event that not only burned an entire planet but its star system as well. It’s all pretty by the numbers, and the twists that do come you see coming a mile away, but it’s serviceable enough to keep you entertained between missions of smashing other mechs and outfitting yours with fancy new guns.
If you’ve never had a chance to play an Armored Core game, the best way I could describe it is to imagine if you took the required aggressive play of something like Sekiro, jacked the speed up, and also you’re in a highly customizable mech. The series is brutal, but in a fair way because most difficult encounters can become hilariously trivial if you have the right setup on your armored core; the trick is figuring out what you need for any given fight. Got an enemy that can fly up higher than you and their weak spot is on their top half? Swap out your shoulder weapons for some vertical missile launchers that shoot up and down, perfect for a goon who’s trying to keep away from above. Did you run into a guy who’s killing you in a few shots with these powerful weapons but you notice they’re a bit slow on turning? Lighten up your armored core so they weigh next to nothing, and while you might have less health because of it you’re hopefully fast enough to not get hit so you can play behind their back. It’s a game series built around reading the room and adjusting accordingly. If you can’t do that then you’re going to quickly hit a wall that the game won’t let you brute force your way through.
The amount of customization options for your armored core is overwhelming at times, and sometimes exhilarating. Wanna toss some tank treads on your armored core and kit it out with dual machine guns and some big “fuck you” shoulder cannons? Go ahead man. You’ve got two arm weapons, two shoulder ones, your armored core’s head, body, arms, legs, generator, boosters, fire control system, and expansion slots. All of these parts flow into each other since you might have a gun that needs a lot of energy to fire which means you need a bigger generator, but that might make you too heavy and thus require bigger (and slower) legs which then affects your mobility. Frankly, it’s a lot and the game does a serviceable job of explaining all the different aspects of each part, but there’s definitely still a bit of “I might need to watch a YouTube video to understand all this” to the game. It’s a magical moment when it all clicks, however, as you get creamed in a tough fight and know exactly what parts you need to swap out and come back into that fight victorious.
Variety is the spice of life in the world of Armored Core, as FromSoftware did a good job of never keeping you bored between missions in the game. You’re always doing something different whether it’s taking out a squad of mechs, or maybe making your way through a facility to hack into a computer, and most of these missions last anywhere from a brisk five minutes to upwards of half an hour. Between that are these fights against bosses that are pure spectacle that sometimes even dwarf your armored core in size. They’re “put up or shut up” moments in the game that regularly come in to skill-check you to see if you’re staying fresh and understanding how the game works. Again, finding the right loadout can make most of these fights laughably easy, but figuring that out is part of the game’s puzzle.
If you’re still hankering for more metal-on-metal action, then you’ve got competitive multiplayer to keep you sated, along with the Arena mode. Here you’ll be able to fight against virtual representations of fallen armored core pilots that become increasingly more difficult. This mode is a great way to get practice against future boss fights or even multiplayer since (while you won’t face an Arena pilot in the campaign), it’s good practice against a wide variety of armored core types that force you to think strategically about how you’re tackling a fight. It also has the benefit of not requiring you to run through an entire mission just to get practice on a particular type of armored core pilot.
The Final Word
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon easily has some of the series’ best highs, and is a proper return to form for the franchise.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
