Always good to chat with you. As lots of folks have pointed out my expertise mainly lies in 5/VD, I remember bits and pieces of the 4th generation but I didn't go super hard back then. I'll have to try and emulate some of the earlier gens before launch for sure based on how much folks are talking them up.
AC3 and AC: Last Raven capture the last gens nicely since AC3 is more of a remake of AC1 with better everything and Last Raven expands on AC3 and is brutal. ACFA is a given as it is usually top 3 AC games of all time.
@@MyPronounsHeWhore if you love the older games, don’t expect to like the newer ones tbh. 4 and 4FA are great titles but very VERY different from all the other titles (if you like the idea of combat feeling floaty, mostly airborne, and like permanently overboosting all the time, in any direction, then you’d like 4th gen. Avg speed is 1,000kmh+ at end game). Also, 5 and 5VD are pretty much only online pvp only, with almost 0 story sadly. Also, they were made by the B team of Armored Core (I don’t say that as insult, just truth. The team that made 5/VD also made AC Ninebreaker, and none of them really worked on or played ANY of the other 13 games in the series., as they were the ‘side team’. If you realllllly loved AC Nine Breaker, then you might like 5/VD. I honestly think Nine breaker has more story than 5 and VD put together, which is sad story wise.). The other reason that 5/VD was made by the B team, was that over 80% of the AC staff quit Fromsoft after AC4 For Answer released, and is also why we haven’t had an AC titles in the last decade.
No offense to Cowboy, but his expertise is clearly focused on AC5 and Verdict Day. There were several details he got wrong that ranged from 4 and For Answer's difficulty changing missions dramatically all the way back to how corporate allegiance and Human Plus worked in the first Armored Core. He got enough right to communicate his points, but there's more to research and discuss about this franchise.
One of the things he missed is that there were hidden parts in the older games that you could find on the ground and pick up. Also, there were difficulty options for the PS2 games, however the only thing they seem to change is the size of the lock box.
Yeah AC4 (not For Answer) had a slightly slower movement speed than FA and in both you could skate on the ground as well, with much nicer and more intuitive movement than in AC5 and Verdict Day. The main difference between AC4 and ACFA is that generator capacity in For Answer was ludicrous so chain-boosting became spammy. AC4 had lower generator capacity so if you'd have to hit the ground and then skate around while waiting for your boost energy to recharge. However, you could also walk just by letting go of the left trigger.
There was a difficulty setting for AC4, but there were only three options of difficulty, and they didn’t change the type of enemies that spawned. Cowboy is correct on about 85% of the statements he made on earlier games. AC4 and especially For Answer were extremely fast paced. Light Mechs were THE meta for the entire lifespan of the games. If you tried using a tank chassis or some of the bulky-weighted setups, you had no chance of hitting anyone or anything. Melee always was so gimmicky in 4, FA, and 5. If you tried using dual energy blades, you basically dug your own grave. The medium range blades didn’t insta-kill and the difficulty of hitting an enemy that close made the risk/reward not in your favor, and the only insta-gib blade was a stab motion not a sweep motion so you had to have balls-to-the-walls prediction on top of insane dodging skills. The ONLY benefit to blades was that they had infinite use and could be equipped as a sidearm if your hand/arm weapons purged.
@Furrrvle TDO Armored Core 4 was released back in, what, 2008? The earlier AC’s on the Ps2 was somewhat popular but not in the US. Armored core 4 is where I would say most people got their toes into the water, and I’d say anyone who kept up with the franchise from then on is considered a “veteran”. That’s like saying that Call of duty veterans aren’t true fans unless they played Cod 1-3…
@@jacobmcguire106 As a competitive AC4 and AC4A player, everything you wrote is completely untrue. Mid-weight mechs (which is what you see if you watch that 3 v 3 Japan vs USA match) were the meta, quad-legged mechs were meta for blades since your choice of legs altered the melee attack swing and quad-leggers would stab forward instead of slash, and lightweight frames were gimmicky for casual players who just wanted to see how fast they could go for shits and giggles. In AC4, you could get away with a fairly light mid-weight frame and dual-wield motorcobra machine guns if you were good, but those'd run out of ammo fast. In AC4A, you couldn't do that anymore because the armor punch-through of the motorcobras was nerfed into the ground and they became borderline unusable in competitive play. Dearborne missiles were king in most cases. Dual energy blades were the meta for blades matches. Eltanin blades were preferred over the moonlight because they swung faster and the blade was longer. Moonlight was more powerful but had longer startup frames and longer recovery frames, so in most cases it looked flashy but you'd have to get lucky while the Eltanin was more reliable. Lastly, for easy hard mode S-rank clears for both unlocks and that final FRS memory point, the preferred builds are either dual blades builds for close range, or really heavy tanks with the rocket launcher arms and the back-mounted grenade launchers for nuking the high holy hell out of the opposition as quickly as possible. So yeah, you're 100% wrong there, buddy.
There was limited exploration in ACs 1 and 2. Hidden weapons/parts were very common. The Karasawa was a hidden weapon. The very first live mission in AC1 has a hidden part if you turn completely around and jump outside of the mission boundary. I can see scavenging being a thing. I actually like the concept of being dropped into a mission zone and having some exploration
@@joshuawilliams8252 Yes, AC3 - Last Raven all had hidden parts you could find...just like how every game from AC3 through Last Raven all take place within the same universe/world. Only that Nexus takes place about half a century after Silent Line but it's still within the same overarching story.
IMPORTANT FYI: The emphasis on damage types (Physical / Thermal / Chemical) is specific to 5th generation Armored Core *only* and was largely an artifact of trying to drive home the need for team play and squad roles. Previous games only had physical and energy damage differentiation at most and didn't place a heavy emphasis on switching to the correct damage type to solve the problem; instead you were customizing your mech to find the right mix of firepower, range, defense, and mobility to address the needs of the mission, and/or how you wanted to play. 5th generation is probably the least popular generation and is regarded as a far departure from earlier generations. Miyazaki was also primarily involved with generation 4. Also of note is that generation 4 gave you more freedom to play how you wanted than did other generations, so if generation 6 shapes out like 4, what cowboy is saying about you not being able to take your "claymore" to the end of the game is much less applicable, if its like 4, you CAN bring whatever weapons you want to the end of the game, but some missions will be harder than others and if you don't experiment it may not be immediately apparent what sort of playstyle you're locking yourself into and how that may be limiting you. Cowboy seems to primarily be basing his information on the series' gameplay loop on the 5th generation specifically.
There's a few things to note. Difficulty selection has existed, but I remember it generally being pretty limited. I don't remember which games have it, but AC3 in particular I know does. I don't know what it does exactly, but I don't recall it giving you anything different at the very least. 4 and 4A both had 'hard mode', which was structured more as an alternate version of the mission rather than a simple hard difficulty where enemies did more damage and all that. It would add modifiers, like no primal armor, or allies would drop out, attack you instead, you get ambushed or the plan doesn't go as expected, etc. But there were times when it was pretty much identical in structure between difficulties. As part of the difficulty talk, there was human plus, which I'm honestly surprised that Cowboy didn't know much about. Maybe he just forgot, it happens. Whatever the case, it's a cool implementation and worth reading about. In gen 1 and I believe 2 (I'm playing through them again, so I'll find out soon enough) going too far into debt basically just meant that you were sent off to have experiments done on you. Which in the process reset the game, keeping all parts and builds (but reset money naturally), along with a new ability that you could not get any other way. To get all the abilities you had to go through the process 6 or so times, but you'd get things like better energy, a permanent radar function, laser blade beams, and being able to use cannons without readying. So that was the easy mode, but to be honest it didn't make it _that_ much easier unless you knew what you were doing; resetting the game with more gear sooner did help too. 3 and Silent line had human plus in the form of OP-Intensify, which was an optional part you got as a reward-- so not as much an easy mode in the same sense, especially since it's function, while similar in a way, was quite different. Nexus up to Last Raven I don't think had it as an obtainable thing. 4 and 4A had regulations which had a similar concept I guess. But each regulation tended to greatly alter how AC's performed. An AC may work on one regulation, but not others; such as one regulation giving unlimited energy. 5 and VD, I honestly don't even remember if they had anything. So the series has had harder difficulty options and even easier ones in the form of human plus, but it was never consistent across all of them. Gen 2 also had the limiter release function, but that was more strategic as it could make a section easier, but also much harder or more annoying if timed wrong. There were hidden parts in gens 1, 2 & 3, but I think near the end of gen 3 might've stopped doing it, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. gen 4 and gen 5 I don't think do, which is why Cowboy doesn't seem to recall it. In fact, the way you got the Karasawa in the original was by finding it in the corner in some room with oil drums. So I think that a scavenge system could work without using a weight system. When you find a hidden part and interact with it, it just disappears and says "part acquired". So maybe they could do the same with AC6. Though I feel like it would probably stick to hidden parts at most. If you can 'scavenge', I imagine the parts would be tallied and added after the mission is over. Maybe you could mark parts for pickup, but who knows. Just that there are options to make such a system work without using a literal backpack with added weight and inventory mechanics specifically for it. Though I'm unsure if I'm for or against the idea regardless of how it's done. I'd have to see it in action either way. Great talk, though, just hearing people talk about Armored Core, what it was, and what it could be, is almost like a dream. I've never heard so much discussion until now, not in the West. I super hope that custom emblems return and that they let me draw it rather than use shapes like Forza. Don't get me wrong, that works well, but I would love if I could import images (which is wishful thinking), or if it had support to at least use a mouse with decent control. Which interestingly enough, at least one of the games in Gen 3 has mouse support for emblem making (I only tried one game). It's terrible and not worth using because the cursor moves at the same speed regardless of how fast you're really moving it, but the idea is cool. And sure, you could put naughty images on emblems, but you could always do that and no, I don't think that only happens in the West exclusively. 4 and 4A was limited, but 5 and VD gave you the tools to make anything. And I hope that they let us at least place emblems onto the mechs. Something closer to forza in functionality and quality would be better, but I remember giving my AC's in 4 some cool designs that you could not do normally-- it was janky with the placement, but it was cool. Give us a way to report bad emblems, don't be too heavy handed in removing ones that shouldn't be, and I don't think it'll be an issue and if it is, then people are looking for something to be upset about-- rather, I can already see the Kotaku and IGN articles in my head. Well, sorry for the wall of text, like I said, I'm super excited and could talk for ages about Armored Core even if I'm not good at doing it. Most of Cowboy's expertise seems to be AC5, which honestly I just like to see someone talk about how fun AC5 is. I think all of the games are good in their own ways between gens 3, 4 & 5 (gens 1, 2 & 3 being essentially the same with Last Raven being the best imo). AC5 tends to get the short end by some, but it's still good overall and boy was the ending to VD hype. AC6 releasing early 2023 and not late 2023 would be exciting. I really just want to see some gameplay already; it's hard to sit still. Hopefully by the end of January we will, because if we happen to be near release, I feel like they'd want to show people what the game is about sooner than later. I don't know if there are any gaming events in the next 2 or 3 months that they would show it off at, or if it will be a shadow drop on RUclips or something. Whatever happens, I'm sure From Soft can pull it off and I absolutely can not wait!
So, AC2-For Answer all have difficulty settings, it’s not explained but here’s what it does: ‘Normal’ is actually easy mode, giving: Larger FCS total reticle Slightly weaker MTs, and almost ALL Ac battles have enemy ACs spawn at half health or less. Less deductions from Ammo and repairs, so a little more cash income That’s it really, mostly the AC battles are half as easy as they should be on Normal. That being said, I highly recommend players play on ‘Hard’ since that is the actual normal, with ‘Normal’ being easy mode.
In some time of the previous games you could find parts in some missions as well as parts for your performance or meeting certain hidden objectives in a mission.
DaemonXmachina is nice for some fun and for a soft intro to mech games AC is definitively a league above but i think it can be kinda hard to breach the series The variety in AC is just insane Still gotta respect DxM for actually making a mech game during a mech game draught
EDIT: After watching this properly yeah damn these two need to play the earlier gens. Also human plus/op-intensify dont give more money... thats not a thing? Your progressively unlock extra abilities like better cooling, be able to go overweight, use shoulder weapons without kneeling for bipedal builds etc etc. AC5 and Verdict day are likely going to have a fairly low amount of influence over AC6. From Soft know that AC5 was divisive and brought the series to a stop. In fact I expect 3rd and 4th gen will be the biggest influence. I wish more of these people spoke about 3rd gen as it's the biggest generation of all... The majority of the franchise was on the PS2.
@@dralakba-dusk31 I keep hearing the best of both worlds is 3/Ravens mechanics and gameplay with 4/Answers big bombastic boss battles. I didn't play much of 4 or Verdict Day but I kind of hope MTs can be a little threatening again.
From the trailer tho. The mechs are WAY closer to AC5 ones. Okay Ive checked the trailer video again and I guess its more like a mix of AC4 and 5 it has side boosters of 4 and the thrust vectors of 5. Yeah my best bet is they will feel more like in between AC4-5 to pilot. The weapons shown are a mix of AC 5 and 4 ones. although I like flying in AC 3-1 games. I hope they let us fly again unlike AC5. But I like AC5 overboost best among all the generations so I hope they keep that.
@@breaklpoint1008 Check again. those mech parts in the ACVI trailer is closer to Gen1-3, specifically Emeraude and Zio parts from 2nd gen and the parts from 1st gen, Crest and Mirage from 3rd Gen. 4A's mech design is closer to Evangelion's Angels, While 5/Vday mech designs are closer to Front Mission.
AC3 as the base with influnce from 4 and a few things from 5. That is my dream version of AC6. AC3 as a base is great because it was really trying to realize what AC1 and AC2 were trying to do. Mechanics, controls and design experience has come so far. Grabbing this on steam for glorious m+kb.
The stake driver weapon (pilebunker) has been in the franchise for a while, they’re often called parrying blades in armored core, personal favorite is the kiku from For Answer
Interesting thing not many know about, but you can actually parry with it. Has to be a Sword in shield setup, but there was ‘parrying’ with the parry blade all the way back in the start of 3rd gen, AC3.
@@CrimsonKamina Trailers for the AC games should NEVER be used to judge gameplay, or things we can do in game lol. They show off the atmosphere, some parts visually, and the graphics. Other than that, almost every single AC trailer and intro has the ACs fighting in ways that aren’t possible in game, with impossible movement, and even most of the weps/guns shown do things and shoot in ways that are completely impossible in game.
@@draysmusicalshtposts6340 Lol right? Made us think we were gonna get our first Gunblade in the AC series. Or 5th gen, when they said we were gonna get transforming body parts in an interview, after the trailer that had a head transformation like we see in AC6 trailer. Or 3rd gen, when they had an AC with Micro missiles in the ‘inside’ part, in the shoulders, that worked with shoulder extensions. Or 2nd and 3rd gens when they had destructible limbs in every trailer. Tbf, we did finally get those with Last Raven, but the hit boxes were coded by a 12yo xD
DxM is very AC like (having been made by former AC dev), but the removal of internal parts and the integration of the corresponding abilities into other body parts hurt a lot of customization. For example, in AC I always preferred the sideways (rectangular) target lock box vs the wide, narrow or vertical lock boxes. In DxM you are limited to a small number of heads if you want that. In AC it is a separate internal part leaving you to choose whatever head you want. They did the same with boosters too, integrating them into cores and legs, limiting selection to only a few parts. It is a big reason why AC vets were dissappointed by the customization in DxM.
1:12:29 I feel the same way, especially with Monster Hunter these days. Even though back in the older games you could still gather ingredients to craft most of what you needed, but it was harder back then. You needed more ingredients to craft, you could fail crafting (I don't think i've failed a craft since World in either Worldborne or Risebreak), granted you weren't as fast as you are in 5th gen so that was precious time you had to debate wasting to get more potions. Now you don't have to buy or make pick axes, bug nets, or harpoons in Tri/3U, hell they dont even take up a slot in your invetory. Now you can eat multiple times in 1 hunt, you can visit a tent and fill up on items infinitely, you can swap sets as much as you want. Now I wouldn't have as much of a gripe with it if it was limited, like only being able to grab a handful of items and thats it, or being able to swap to one other select set that you've selected as a secondary thats sitting in the tent. Then theres the tent fast travel.
I don't see why any of these quality of life improvements are a bad thing (I first played monster hunter portable third psp english fan patch) like the only one that could be argued to make the game noticeably easier is being able to restock potions and bombs and knives and stuff at the tent infinitely and even then if I'm going back to the tent over and over without dying (because dying too much auto fails anyway) I'll run out of time if I'm taking so much damage or doing so little damage that I need to do that. like the only hunts where I would've needed to stock up that many times (haven't played rise, only played a bit of winter expansion) were like the super hard high ranks in world that were that blue fire dragon and the mating pair with AOE insta kill explosion, and I wouldn't have been able to refill items that many times anyway cause I lost to dying too much
@@hornylink A lot of them remove from the soul of the game. It's Monster Hunter, not Monster Slayer. It's meant to be a little more methodical, making you be more cautious when you played, having you prep for the hunt.
Your FCS determines the size and lock range of the reticle, anything in the reticle is auto targeted. That's how aiming works. The FCS has an indicator sound as well which lets you know you've acquired a target and start firing before the camera catches up with the movement. This is what allows for the fast gunplay and movements in versus combat.
I feel like they removed a lot of those nuances to fcs in gen 4 or is it just me? They def removed the box, but maybe the sound is just so subtle I couldn't hear it?
@@nightfox6738 yeah could work diffrent since Scanmode is pretty much confirmed in the trailer... Not sure how to feel about it but ...i liked 5 and verdict day....tough it was kinda bad in the single player mode, i hope they stack Armored Core 6 up with all the glory of past games like they did with elden ring, pulling from the best of souls.
Some interesting takes. It is however nice to see a 5th Gen player being interviewed for a change! Some stated stuff was a bit off but nothing too severe I'd say. 18:20 - So this is where 4/FA differs alot from previous games. In AC3 and older (and V/VD) you have a lock box that you have to place over a target to get a lock on and it's a fixed size. 4th Gen revised this to be more automatic. So in effect your entire screen is your lock box, and as long as your opponent isn't too far off or at an odd angle, you will get a "lock" on your opponent. 22:22 - lol 24:08 - Funny enough, there is fan game based on AC which is similar in framework to V/VD which has it's own take on this (It's called MachineClad). When you are in the air, you can do a small boost upward (almost like a small high boost) and takes a lot of energy. It's so obvious when you see it but I think they may have been something they could have implemented in 5th Gen. 28:10 - 5th Gen as a whole showed just how good the multiplayer piece of AC could be even with how flawed it was in execution. I've been of the opinion that a human on the other end piloting their own custom AC and bringing their own unique experience is 100x more interesting and fun than any AI Fromsoftware has been able to make in any Armored Core game. 31:46 - Correct. Because the missions were longer in V, they gave you a resupply drop where you could basically go into the garage change parts, etc. 31:51 - Not quite right. V was 99% PVP, but Verdict Day did offer a much more robust and fun singleplayer, along with hardcore modes (basically play through the game from scratch with added conditions to make the playthrough harder). Missions we're overall better and unlock V, VD threw in some nice curveballs where missions play heavily into mechanics (there's one missions where you fight two ACs. Once is a shield AC meant to soak up damage and divert your attention, and the other was a long range tank that sniped you). 32:14 - Confirmed there are no difficulty options for V/VD. Some of the older games did though (AC1/2 I think?) 32:32 - It did not modify difficulty. H+ just gave you more abilities for your AC (increased generator capacity, increased regen, can use back weapons on non tank and quads). You just had to go into 50,000k debt to unlock it, and then do it repeatedly to unlock the HUMAN+ abilities. 35:42 - Yes, it would influence the parts you unlock, but what degree varies from game to game. In later games (technically you have an initial choice in 4/FA but nothing afterwards) it didn't matter at all. 38:20 - Gameplay loop is as follows: Do Mission -> Improve AC -> Do Missions -> Improve AC. For some games you'd also throw in Arena. 40:08 - I think counter picks is quite the right word here. "Improving" to best meet the players (and the mission's need) would be more accurate. 41:08 - Armored Core is basically played in the garage 50% of the time 47:11 - If you use a cannon weapon, your AC kneels on the ground and that knee shield unfolds and increases your defenses. 48:50 - In retrospect, I don't remember alot of dicks on builds. Certainly alot of anime girls. 52:51 - Cannon weapons cannot be stored on the shoulders. You had to purge them to use your other back weapons 53:09 - Parts damage was in LR (and its predecessor weapons destruction was in SL), and quite frankly I don't it was that good. Probably one of the simulation/realism aspects From added to late 3rd Gen AC that was not great. 53:55 - The closes thing is probably the I01M-URCHIN (aka MWI-MD/40). It was a shoulder part that shot out a group of sticky mines that would explode upon contact. Much smaller scale and used more for defensive play. 54:11 - Ah, good ol memories of 1.01 ACV. 1:03:36 - Previous AC games had chock full of hidden parts. Sometimes in plain sight, but many you had to hunt for them.
when you started talking about negative balance, it reminds me of AC 1 and 2. There was a pity point early game if you had a super negative balance and failed so many times, i think negative million or more, but the game would give you the most powerful radar and the Karasawa energy rifle for free, but if you didnt get out of debt after that it was game over. And in the first gen of the games there were definitely items you could loot from the environment. you could even fail a mission, but get one of the best radars in the game. the mission was to protect the radar, but you can steal it instead.
I don't remember the 'pity' thing at all from what you're describing, going a whole million probably would never happen. I recall that if you go under by 50K it straight up resets the game mission progress to the start, but with your gear and builds intact, as well as a new ability. And you could repeat that a number of times to get many abilities. Also, I do remember that mission where you could steal that radar in the original. In fact, there have been a number of missions in the AC series that let you do that, but the idea that one of the best radars you got by stealing it during a mission was silly but a fun detail. Did mean that you couldn't have all the items without having a failure, but that's a minor problem to me.
@@lethauntic I found what i was thinking about, and it was the Human Plus upgrades in the first AC game on PS1. There are a total of 10 human plus upgrades that a player can obtain for negative debt incurred during game play. Amassing a debt of -50,000 credits or greater will result in a cut scene in which it is implied you have been selected to become a human plus pilot. Once the cut scene is over the game will restart with all missions undone, your credits at zero and you will have any parts in your garage that you purchased before reaching the debt limit. This can be done 8 times for a total of 8 upgrades. Each time the cut scene is the same so keep count. Once the game is completed with all missions done and all parts collected 2 more upgrades will become available.
Also fun fact in ac1 if you go to far in debt you end up dead and used as an expire ment to be brought back as a human plus, the game completely starts over but you got a new ability and this can happen multiple times and you get new abiltes
There was an interview with Miyazaki back around the time dark souls 3 dropped and he was asked what he would like to do. He said then he wanted to take armored core back to the core of the game elements because he didn't particularly like the direction it had gone. I took that to mean he wanted it to feel more like the 1-3 days.
This was hilarious; great to see the two of you talking through this in such an informative and also funny way. Can't wait for ACVI to drop, but if it's in March I don't know if I'll have time to squeeze it in right away between all the other games coming out-- it feels like almost every game coming out in 2023 that I'm interested in is dropping between February and March. Utter craziness. Cheers!
The thing is, at the END of DxM, it's closer to Armored Core. One of the things about Armored Core is that you can just start buying parts from minute 1 to make the mech you WANT to pilot. DxM, on top of feeling different in gameplay, gates your customization behind completion of missions and part farming from enemies. When you have a full library of weapons and parts and upgrade nodes, you can totally go in depth on all kinds of stats in a way that's VERY Armored Core, but it takes beating the main story or delving deep into multiplayer missions to get there. And at that point, what are you even doing it FOR? I love DxM, but it very much needed to frontload more customization so players could get that freedom of creation back.
remember parts hunting had been a thing in AC if not mistaken only 4th gen removed that and so did ACVD, in ACV there are parts that are thrown about in certain mission maps that you can find
Honestly I kind of expect Armored Core 6 to be like Elden Ring and I say that in the sense that like with Elden Ring they take a look back at the entire series as a whole and take the parts people liked to slam them into a new game with some extra features.
Based on Miyazaki himself from an interview, Elden Ring is like his finish line, while Armored Core VI is going back from the start line. Elden Ring is what the souls series was supposed to be, but back then they didn't have the budget and manpower, so they went with what the souls series we know now. Armored Core VI on the other hand is going to "devolve" and look back at what makes armored core back to the root.
There's been a stagger system and a counter system in AC since one of the AC1 sequels. Cant recall which one. It was hidden and kind of jank but its there.
Human plus was a hidden option unlocked when going into debt right away by dying. It allowed you to use the "crouch only" shoulder weapons when flying and gliding in a 2 legged AC. It made your energy consumption less and generators "red zone" less so a complete capacitor drain requiring a full recharge would take less time to get out of the red zone. It was like you were given Iron mans heart. The first time you play through the game not knowing about it you will be like "what the hell, how are these 2 legged guys using their crouch only weapons while flying?" That was their secret "Human Plus." AC1 had it, I'm not sure if it could be activated in "Project Phantasma" but you could bring that games secret components over from each other via memory card saves. Pretty sure I played Phantasma having human plus from AC1 even though Phantasma was suppose to take place before AC1.
"Invasions" would totally be on brand for the next AC game. Lots of missions in the previous titles would be a 'straightforward destroy the facility', 'infiltrate the base', escort the mcguffin' then BOOM a rival mercenary would show up and throw a wrench into everything. Conversely hopping in mid mission (MHW style) to assist could also be a thing though it would likely be a lot more complicated to do at the right moment. Of course this comes after no co-op being confirmed so its a moot point.
Okay so couple things. First, the pile bunker has been in Armored Core since at least part 3 and it's been exactly the same as what was shown in the trailer. The explosion that will come off of it is the result of directly impacting the core is pretty much where it always aimed. Second, part-based targeting is in armored Core last Raven. If it's implemented well it could probably be a good mechanic but anyone who played the game recalls that it was also really easy to lose a mission because your enemies would aim pretty much at your head and your core the entire time destroy it and you'd be out, or fire explosives that damage all your parts and eventually your arms or your legs give out. Is especially frustrating when your legs are destroyed and you were just not mobile anymore so you were sitting duck. And third, there's been map exploration I think possibly as far back as armacore one where you can find a part on the map pick it up and then it's now in your garage whether you pass or fail the mission. They didn't have that in armored Core 4 and I suppose they did not have it in five but it was a feature all the way until silent line definitely, and possibly also in Nexus and the last Raven. It wasn't a constant dropping of loot Diablo style, it was hugest look around the map a little bit and you'll find a part chilling somewhere and pick it up and that was your reward for actually looking around the map or using the whole map while fighting.
This conversation as hyped me even more about AC6. I'm from the souls crowd but the thing I like the best in souls is figuring out and trying wonky builds. This is looking great maybe i'll try an old one to test the water
I didn't know that you two were in cahoots, you both played so many of the same games i was suprised i had never seen a collab, nice to see i was wrong, i loved watching you both play GoWR and your shield choices, Ruri; "Shields Up!" Cowboy; "get parried bitch"
@@razgriz2276 i dont but it was Ruri who uploaded it so it has to be somewhere in his playlists. They also did another one talking about Wo Long i believe. Their collabs are pretty nice
Tbh, the difference between AC 4 and 5 ("expansions" included, because that's what For Answer and Verdict Day basically are) is that in 4 and the previous titles it felt like you were piloting a huge engine of destruction, while 5 felt more like a third person shooter and felt lack luster (personally). Just to put it out there my favorites in the series are Nexus and Last Raven.
Soulsborne and nioh games I always get stuck in the boss, quit and come back 2 or 3 months later and beat it and then start enjoying the game. Armored core I've never ever made it to one single boss let alone been stuck on a boss, and it's still my favorite game series
The shot from the trailer of the AC among the wreckage with the raven's possessions piled on its back has had me thinking that while the game won't be a soulsborne, it will have a whole new system to replace the "Raven's Nest" menu. I see Rubicon III being dotted with garages or shelters that serve the role of campfires or shards of grace where the player can rearm, recup, and customize, but the player carries their inventory with them. And as when the raven in the trailer saw the conflict in the distance and chose to engage, he had to equip the necessary weapons and drop everything else. Perhaps it will be open world, where the player can find parts among the refuse, but there is a parallel mission structure, and the player needs to weigh the risk of engaging in combat and the reward therefrom with the risk of losing the rest of your inventory to scavengers, much like the grace you drop in Elden Ring when you die. Thoughts?
I really enjoyed this video, and I hope you’ll continue to cover Armored Core 6! 😊 I played a bit of the PS2 games, though I wasn’t very good at them. 😂 Still, I remember seeing build guides for AC at the end of Tips & Tricks magazine, and I would just be amazed that people were competing and writing into existence their own mechs and stories alongside their play styles when I was a kid. Finally, FWIW, Daemon X Machina was mostly enjoyable, but is very much not AC. It is honestly more like Zone of the Enders, which I also loved and would love to see return, but I see absolutely no hope of that. 🙃
I know it shouldn't bother me but the amount they both got wrong about AC from 4A back and even some small things in V just bother me to no end. Especially when they're constantly going on about be "Veterans" of the series but their only real experience was V lol
If there is a Option in AC6 to Play together i want to Play with you Sir 😅 your comment says "Hey dont Talk shit about my Baby" you Love the series Like i do 😂 brah hug
They are just larger creators than the guys who know the series and are putting out content on the series. Get Armoredcorelore and AAG in the same room with yamamura 👍
@@TheSibler Sorry man, when you create content and grow it matters. He has been around forever but time spent doesn't always mean guaranteed results. There is another guy named Janine or some such and I'd pick him over Buster as well. Perfect example FightinCowboy and this guy are doing podcasts on AC and are not knowledgeable, larger community and more charisma.
Listening to cowboy talk about AC:V and Verdict Day gameplay as if he’s talking about the series as a whole is frustrating, ngl. Most of these things he’s lovingly remembering are outliers that really only featured in Gen 5 which was From Softs attempt to take the series in a radically new direction. An Armored Core VI looking to recapture what made the series as a whole special probably isn’t going to look anything like this.
47:11The shield on the leg will stretch out when using the cannon, improving the frontal defense.ruclips.net/user/shortsaMsiFYxmQ7g 1:11:13At ACfA, you can try again after completing the task because you are not satisfied with the profit or loss. However, this phenomenon does explain why AC is not suitable for auto saving
The big thing I hate about 5 and Verdict day is the lack of verticality. So I really hope they fix that. I personally love the fast pace of AC4A but I'm an og AC fan and I get why its less accessible. I would like to see the same generally design of 4/4A but reduce the speed. I think the way 4A maintained the momentum from QB was a bit gratuitous so if the go back to more what AC4 was (or maybe just a little bit slower) they'd be able to satisfy the veterans while also making it accessible to the rest of the public. I just hit the part where Cowboy talked about human plus... That's completely wrong. Human Plus had absolutely no impact whatsoever on your funds. How do you call yourself an AC Veteran and not get that?
Vertical was a feature of your leg type. The game wanted to make each leg a different play style. I had problem with picking a leg that suited my play style and it added more to the strategy of the game.
@@demora714 I don't know because all the videos I've seen of 5th gen its like that. Basically vertical is just incredibly restricted and it really changes the fundamental feel of movement in the game. It really is a horrible change imo.
@@nightfox6738 videos? So you haven’t played 5th gen? 5th gen had vertically, it was just based on legs.Light weight bipedal and reverse joint legs had bonuses in jumping power as their main advantage while quad had the slowest descent. This was also where map type played a huge role in what ac you used. Light weight bipedal and reverse joint excelled where they had structures to gain the height advantage quickly while quads excelled in more open maps where they could maintain their airtime over everyone else.
@@demora714 How are you not getting this? Yes, I played it, no I didn't get far which is why I'm also referencing that I've seen videos of it to. Say what you want about the legs allowing vertical motion but its still severely inhibited by the mechanic even with the most vertically mobile legs. Go play literally any other AC game and then tell me 5th gen had verticality.
@@nightfox67381-3 and 4 gameplay are damn near opposites with 5 being the closest to a middle ground which is why is said it should be the base. 5 actually made use of the environment unlike 1-3 while 4 pretty much made everything a open plain due to it’s mobility,as you could just boost over everything. 5 improved on the controls of 4 made the game more grounded (yes by limiting verticality) but improved greatly on environmental interaction and made the game more dynamic and tactical. I’m not disputing the verticality of the game just the purpose. I not against the idea of vertical climb returning but 5 did address a number of the previous games issues and laid the ground work for a much better 6 than any of the previous titles did.
I liked that you mentioned Cannons that could only be fired in a ready stance where you cant move UNLESS you have Tank or spider legs, then the transformation of the BIGASS CANNON goes seamlessly. I also want to mention one mission where my AC couldnt fly on water, i mean i could for a while but literally drowned when i tipped the toes in. Instant Game over, so i switched to Boat Legs and i could just endlessly long float on water, no problem at all, didnt even have to use my boosters anymore. Sure The AC didnt look as nice anymore, but you gotta go with what works for the type of Mission that you are doing. The Briefing usually explained the whole Mission very nicely with a good english dub but on harder difficulty, sometimes the Mission changed dramatically. I also feel the need to address Ammunition cost. Do not start out playing rockets only in Storymode or you will end up with a minus balance, unable to buy new stuff. I usually used some type of energy weapon with big ammo count for 0 cost so i only had to pay the repairs afterwards. I tried to use my heavy weaponry sparingly in easier missions. In the Interview, Myasaki did mention that there will be Bossbattles so i am exited for that. I also hope we get some type of seamless COOP. I wouldnt mind finding a Partner in Crime for all Missions to be honest, and they should add NPC arena with at least 30 enemys, optionally Player Arena as well. I enjoyed this video but id like to have a more indepth collab, that goofball interrupted way to often with unfunny jokes instead of actually engaging in the topic.
it's funny that your discussing this point because for me monster hunter is actually that. i start out and build as many elements for my 3 weapon types IG, LS, GS and i will always switch to what fits best for the monster i am hunting.
Human Plus evolved from a mercy mechanic ( grants you bonuses and clean reset if you go into debt too much ) to a post game reward in 3 and SL. Eliminated in Nexus forward. Best bonuses were increased energy efficiency ( basically a bonus to stamina ) and being able to fire back weapons on bipedal builds without having to kneel.
Highly recommend playing Nexus and Last Raven with Human + enabled, breathes whole new life into both games. Especially Last Raven, since it has the most parts by far, it enables exponentially more builds.
@@abyssphantom6786 is that in the psp version or a mod for pc emulation? Far as I can remember, they never put Human Plus ( or OP-Intensify as of AC3 ) in Nexus or Last Raven
@@Nexuish it was available as a cheat in Nexus and Last Raven on ps2, and can be turned on as a coding change on both the PSP, and on the emulated versions. It’s honestly hard for me to think of it as a cheat, or unfair advantage, because over 95% of all enemy ACs in every AC game have it equipped for free. Also, as great as the customization may seem, it’s honestly not nearly as good without it. Mostly because 6 out of the 8 leg types, which leg type controls your overall build type more so than any other part, only have access to Missiles (which are kinda lazily spammed, and can be easily countered) or Dumb fire rockets, which are mostly used by bots, on meme builds, and for challenge runs. Only having those 2 back options for 75% of the build archetypes in the game just feels bad to me.
ac was always the git gud game period however there was the late third gen series like ninebreaker and nexus that you could tune parts to boost stats so there was at one point a stat leveling style system in the series and i actually wanna see that come back that level of customization
6 should take advantage of the differences in jumping power between legs for verticality. Reverse legs have always done the job but maybe regular legs could be better
I know it is a different type of game, but I'm always surprised no one mentions Front Mission games which have similarities, but are turn based strategy.
Didn't AC V have 5 v5? I recall being a Over weapons specialist tasked with K.O.ing 1 guy from the start to give us the advantage or having 2 of us with the giga missiles, 2 with target guns with pistols and 1 guy running as bait and just killing almost all of the enemy team in 1 minute of the match
AC was one of my favorite games to play on my ps1 as a kid. I stopped playing them once the ps3 dropped as I didn’t get a new console until this busted ass ps4 that I got a couple of years back. I’m SO fuckin’ excited to play this again. And Cowboy is right, Souls players are clueless as to how insane the learning curve & challenge is with armored core. My good friend who I tend to play the souls borne games with whenever we can, hasn’t ever heard of AC. I am forcing him to play this new game with me 😂 I’ve gotta get his reaction to it.
Set building is my fav thing about MH. And I freakin love mechs; always have. So to hear that AC is gonna be set building on steroids and hours in the garage and crazy wild mechs? Yes please. Thx for the podcast guys
On your first play through you will constantly be tweaking your build or even specializing it for specific missions/arena opponents. Then when you've finished it and unlocked most parts you start trying every dumb idea you can think of. Like using a giant handgun to stun someone so you can rip into them with a plasma cannon that has really low projectile speed... (I have an old video of that on my channel)
one of fromsoftware underrated games was also A.C.E. (another century episode) and the gundam unicorn game. ACE was fucking fire for mech and anime nerds like me.
I understand nerfing AC4A speed for wider appeal. However, AC4 had a regulation feature where player could choose how the game was balanced and therefore alter gameplay
Armored Core is a mecha game… but made for the FromSoftware equivalent of people who obsess over their tweaks and stat parameters in car games like Gran Turismo 7 and their aesthetics in MMOs like Phantasy Star Online and Black Desert. 50-70% of your joy in the experience will be in building and experimenting, and the remaining 30-50% is sheer Mecha bliss in a really fascinating story narrative.
Oh yah one more thing..as u are a big cosmere fan, search up the songs windrunner, bondsmith and Survive by stormlyte on youtube..absolutely amazing based on kaladin, dalinar and kelsier.
I kinda hope they can bridge the gap between the original games and what FROM has done with Souls the past decade, without compromising the overall package for fans of the game.
A pray and suspect that its gonna be like 80% 4 and 4amswear. Mainly because we saw 3 things; a primal armor, something akin to an assault armor and the trailer ended in a substantial quick boost. The goggles in the trailer could have been a scan mode but honestly combat in V and Vday felt completly inferior to 4 and 4a so i hope they go with speed.
It’s probably coming from a clean slate and not using a combination of anything we’ve ever seen. They’re going to BOTW this but using knowledge of what they’ve learned with past games. It’s definitely going to be just be a different system.
FightinCowboy didn't play Gen1-3, he's too focused on AC5/Vday. AC6 will go back to its roots Gen1-3 with 4A mechanics. No infinite ground boosting. And the claw grip comment lol I didn't use claw grip killing Necron, 9 ball, in Gen 1. He didn't know there are more Gen1-3 fans, 4A second, and the 5th gen was the last. 4A's quick boosting is not even high-level play, it's easy to pull off Quick Boost Chain (Boost cancel) and 2nd stage Quick Boost, even 3rd stage Quick Boost.
Going back to gen 1-3 would be a mistake. The controls of VD were hugely improved over gen 1-3. The limited boosting ability from those generations would just kill the gameplay. The environment were also underused and added no value to the game or really affected gameplay. 4 is obviously too fast. While 5 had its issues imo their best bet is to build on VD. Use VD as the base for gameplay then add elements of 1-4. VD made leg choices very impactful, made actual use of the environments unlike previous games and added a lot of strategy to the gameplay.
It was confirmed a day ago that there will be no co op in AC6, apparently because the single player will be more “dynamic”, so I think that there will be stuff like betrayals, complete 180s during missions and such which make it hard to implement co op rather than just having “defeat 2 ACs” as a mission. So it’s a give and a take I guess
I spent a significant amount of money on a new PC when Elden Ring was coming out, and I figured it would be worth it because there will be other big games coming along... Now I am vindicated by the knowledge that I will be able to play Armored Core 6 on high settings. Maybe I'll even buy a new monitor
The problem I have with 4's system is that heavier platforms sucked where not getting hit is the only way to survive. 5 is not perfect either--the attack type feels arbitrary and it also felt unfair in PvE since you dont know what weapons and armor the enemy is packing before the mission. It worked okay in PvP but I won't be sad if they just cut the damage types. I'm glad they are going to bring back primal armor since the related system is interesting--yes I'm a huge fan of assault armor.
Yea I felt in AC 4 , light fast builds always won over a heavier build , there were times when I was forced to build a certain way , just to progress in the game , so I always felt , you had to sacrifice my preferred cosmetic look in order to be fast enough to beat the harder mech you faced in the campaign , and most vids you will see on ac 4 they have fast quick builds focused on boost !
i do agree AC4A was a bit too fast, but i personally think if they just add either a quickboost cooldown, or raise the en requirement to quickboost so it has to be used sparingly, it would be an amazing compromise. Loved all the previous entries, but the 1st gens are a bit too oldschool (fine for their time). Also V and Vday are such a departure, might as well throw them in the DaemonXMachina [garbage]bin.
I'm replaying it on 360 right now and yeah I feel it's too fast. I don't know what it hitting me or how. The biggest problem is that the game does a terrible job explaining things to you. I also wouldn't mind a bit more anime influence in the looks. Sometimes it's too 'Tanky' looking for my tastes. Everything looks like a tank with legs. Heads be looking silly like I'm getting 90s cable on satellite. Or they look more alien than robot. Maybe I'm too old school gundam fan now and wish they'd combine these damn franchises.
Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing. Although, with Ruri only having vague distant memories of AC5 and Cowboy having mostly 5/VD, some For Answer, and zero experience with any other titles, it makes the conversation pretty narrow focused and inexperienced sounding. Honestly these types of convos go much better when at least 1 person involved has decent knowledge on the subject as a whole. (Since AC5/VD were made by the side project team, and they are very Niche compared to the rest of the series as a whole, someone talking about the AC series when they’ve only played 5th gen, would be the equivalent of someone who’s only played Monster Hunter Stories and is trying to talk about the mainline series)
@@Corusame Yes ^_^ I can highly recommend Coffee Potato, Buster TBM Gameplay, above average gaming, ArmoredCoreLore, and now also it seems Ratatoskr is also getting quite knowledgeable, having played 4th gen and 3rd gen so far and is going through the others.
Im playing Daemon X Machina right now because I cant play any of the AC games right now. Knowing it isn't as good gives me hope that I will like AC 6 more.
Welp, after this video I'm downloading Verdict Day on my PS3. I really take for granted how streamlined buying a digital game is on current gen consoles. Been downloading and installing the 5.7GB game to my PS3 and it's been going on about 45 minutes now and the install process is at 4%.
Older ac games had hidden parts some you could find some you could only get by purposely failing mission(for get which ac it was but there was a mission where you're supposed to guard a transport but you can destroy it and steal the part you was suppose to be protecting 😆
On the note of buying Armored Core games, Even just buying and jailbreaking an old console is cheaper than buying 1 copy of an Armored Core game currently. In fact that's what I did.
Naaaah man....Ravens were the vibe! I like AC4 ACFA style AC. I would like to see high mobility AC's in AC6. The hulky ACs of 5 and VD did not do it for me.
Not nearly as fast, and you're missing a LOT of features even in the gameplay end with back and shoulder weapons. Also, jumping and maneuvering around is a pain compared to AC4. It's so different. DxM is what AC would be if AC had a stroke and then was shot in both kneecaps.
@@davekaye5483 I've played All AC and DxM. Nope, DxM is faster in high level play. Just watch Top Japanese players, precise turbo spamming the boost and blink. They can kill you just by using blink and dual blades. AC4A is fast, but not as fast as DxM. True it lacks some mechanics, because DxM was made by the guys who made Dark Souls 2 and Armored Core 5/Vday.
Always good to chat with you. As lots of folks have pointed out my expertise mainly lies in 5/VD, I remember bits and pieces of the 4th generation but I didn't go super hard back then. I'll have to try and emulate some of the earlier gens before launch for sure based on how much folks are talking them up.
AC3 and AC: Last Raven capture the last gens nicely since AC3 is more of a remake of AC1 with better everything and Last Raven expands on AC3 and is brutal. ACFA is a given as it is usually top 3 AC games of all time.
I need to do the opposite and play 4&5. Loved the previous games but couldn't really get going into 4 for some reason. Maybe I'll skip ahead to 5
@@MyPronounsHeWhore if you love the older games, don’t expect to like the newer ones tbh. 4 and 4FA are great titles but very VERY different from all the other titles (if you like the idea of combat feeling floaty, mostly airborne, and like permanently overboosting all the time, in any direction, then you’d like 4th gen. Avg speed is 1,000kmh+ at end game).
Also, 5 and 5VD are pretty much only online pvp only, with almost 0 story sadly. Also, they were made by the B team of Armored Core (I don’t say that as insult, just truth. The team that made 5/VD also made AC Ninebreaker, and none of them really worked on or played ANY of the other 13 games in the series., as they were the ‘side team’. If you realllllly loved AC Nine Breaker, then you might like 5/VD. I honestly think Nine breaker has more story than 5 and VD put together, which is sad story wise.).
The other reason that 5/VD was made by the B team, was that over 80% of the AC staff quit Fromsoft after AC4 For Answer released, and is also why we haven’t had an AC titles in the last decade.
@@thorinhannahs4614 I managed to get both of these working on an emulator for my Steam deck so I'll check em out.
I don't get why ppl talk up 4. FA is great because all the boss fights but 4? I mean it's good but I don't think it's THAT good.
No offense to Cowboy, but his expertise is clearly focused on AC5 and Verdict Day. There were several details he got wrong that ranged from 4 and For Answer's difficulty changing missions dramatically all the way back to how corporate allegiance and Human Plus worked in the first Armored Core. He got enough right to communicate his points, but there's more to research and discuss about this franchise.
One of the things he missed is that there were hidden parts in the older games that you could find on the ground and pick up. Also, there were difficulty options for the PS2 games, however the only thing they seem to change is the size of the lock box.
Yeah AC4 (not For Answer) had a slightly slower movement speed than FA and in both you could skate on the ground as well, with much nicer and more intuitive movement than in AC5 and Verdict Day. The main difference between AC4 and ACFA is that generator capacity in For Answer was ludicrous so chain-boosting became spammy. AC4 had lower generator capacity so if you'd have to hit the ground and then skate around while waiting for your boost energy to recharge. However, you could also walk just by letting go of the left trigger.
There was a difficulty setting for AC4, but there were only three options of difficulty, and they didn’t change the type of enemies that spawned.
Cowboy is correct on about 85% of the statements he made on earlier games. AC4 and especially For Answer were extremely fast paced. Light Mechs were THE meta for the entire lifespan of the games. If you tried using a tank chassis or some of the bulky-weighted setups, you had no chance of hitting anyone or anything.
Melee always was so gimmicky in 4, FA, and 5. If you tried using dual energy blades, you basically dug your own grave. The medium range blades didn’t insta-kill and the difficulty of hitting an enemy that close made the risk/reward not in your favor, and the only insta-gib blade was a stab motion not a sweep motion so you had to have balls-to-the-walls prediction on top of insane dodging skills. The ONLY benefit to blades was that they had infinite use and could be equipped as a sidearm if your hand/arm weapons purged.
@Furrrvle TDO Armored Core 4 was released back in, what, 2008? The earlier AC’s on the Ps2 was somewhat popular but not in the US. Armored core 4 is where I would say most people got their toes into the water, and I’d say anyone who kept up with the franchise from then on is considered a “veteran”. That’s like saying that Call of duty veterans aren’t true fans unless they played Cod 1-3…
@@jacobmcguire106 As a competitive AC4 and AC4A player, everything you wrote is completely untrue. Mid-weight mechs (which is what you see if you watch that 3 v 3 Japan vs USA match) were the meta, quad-legged mechs were meta for blades since your choice of legs altered the melee attack swing and quad-leggers would stab forward instead of slash, and lightweight frames were gimmicky for casual players who just wanted to see how fast they could go for shits and giggles. In AC4, you could get away with a fairly light mid-weight frame and dual-wield motorcobra machine guns if you were good, but those'd run out of ammo fast. In AC4A, you couldn't do that anymore because the armor punch-through of the motorcobras was nerfed into the ground and they became borderline unusable in competitive play. Dearborne missiles were king in most cases.
Dual energy blades were the meta for blades matches. Eltanin blades were preferred over the moonlight because they swung faster and the blade was longer. Moonlight was more powerful but had longer startup frames and longer recovery frames, so in most cases it looked flashy but you'd have to get lucky while the Eltanin was more reliable.
Lastly, for easy hard mode S-rank clears for both unlocks and that final FRS memory point, the preferred builds are either dual blades builds for close range, or really heavy tanks with the rocket launcher arms and the back-mounted grenade launchers for nuking the high holy hell out of the opposition as quickly as possible.
So yeah, you're 100% wrong there, buddy.
There was limited exploration in ACs 1 and 2. Hidden weapons/parts were very common. The Karasawa was a hidden weapon. The very first live mission in AC1 has a hidden part if you turn completely around and jump outside of the mission boundary. I can see scavenging being a thing. I actually like the concept of being dropped into a mission zone and having some exploration
Hidden parts was also a thing in Arma core 3 and silent line. And I think it may have also been in Nexus and Last Raven
@@joshuawilliams8252 Yes, AC3 - Last Raven all had hidden parts you could find...just like how every game from AC3 through Last Raven all take place within the same universe/world. Only that Nexus takes place about half a century after Silent Line but it's still within the same overarching story.
hidden parts and unique variants that are hidden around is much different than scavenging. Hopefully scavenging isn't a thing
In AC3 the Karasawa was hidden in a mission near the very end :/
IMPORTANT FYI: The emphasis on damage types (Physical / Thermal / Chemical) is specific to 5th generation Armored Core *only* and was largely an artifact of trying to drive home the need for team play and squad roles. Previous games only had physical and energy damage differentiation at most and didn't place a heavy emphasis on switching to the correct damage type to solve the problem; instead you were customizing your mech to find the right mix of firepower, range, defense, and mobility to address the needs of the mission, and/or how you wanted to play. 5th generation is probably the least popular generation and is regarded as a far departure from earlier generations. Miyazaki was also primarily involved with generation 4.
Also of note is that generation 4 gave you more freedom to play how you wanted than did other generations, so if generation 6 shapes out like 4, what cowboy is saying about you not being able to take your "claymore" to the end of the game is much less applicable, if its like 4, you CAN bring whatever weapons you want to the end of the game, but some missions will be harder than others and if you don't experiment it may not be immediately apparent what sort of playstyle you're locking yourself into and how that may be limiting you. Cowboy seems to primarily be basing his information on the series' gameplay loop on the 5th generation specifically.
There's a few things to note. Difficulty selection has existed, but I remember it generally being pretty limited. I don't remember which games have it, but AC3 in particular I know does. I don't know what it does exactly, but I don't recall it giving you anything different at the very least. 4 and 4A both had 'hard mode', which was structured more as an alternate version of the mission rather than a simple hard difficulty where enemies did more damage and all that. It would add modifiers, like no primal armor, or allies would drop out, attack you instead, you get ambushed or the plan doesn't go as expected, etc. But there were times when it was pretty much identical in structure between difficulties.
As part of the difficulty talk, there was human plus, which I'm honestly surprised that Cowboy didn't know much about. Maybe he just forgot, it happens. Whatever the case, it's a cool implementation and worth reading about. In gen 1 and I believe 2 (I'm playing through them again, so I'll find out soon enough) going too far into debt basically just meant that you were sent off to have experiments done on you. Which in the process reset the game, keeping all parts and builds (but reset money naturally), along with a new ability that you could not get any other way. To get all the abilities you had to go through the process 6 or so times, but you'd get things like better energy, a permanent radar function, laser blade beams, and being able to use cannons without readying.
So that was the easy mode, but to be honest it didn't make it _that_ much easier unless you knew what you were doing; resetting the game with more gear sooner did help too. 3 and Silent line had human plus in the form of OP-Intensify, which was an optional part you got as a reward-- so not as much an easy mode in the same sense, especially since it's function, while similar in a way, was quite different. Nexus up to Last Raven I don't think had it as an obtainable thing. 4 and 4A had regulations which had a similar concept I guess. But each regulation tended to greatly alter how AC's performed. An AC may work on one regulation, but not others; such as one regulation giving unlimited energy. 5 and VD, I honestly don't even remember if they had anything.
So the series has had harder difficulty options and even easier ones in the form of human plus, but it was never consistent across all of them. Gen 2 also had the limiter release function, but that was more strategic as it could make a section easier, but also much harder or more annoying if timed wrong.
There were hidden parts in gens 1, 2 & 3, but I think near the end of gen 3 might've stopped doing it, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. gen 4 and gen 5 I don't think do, which is why Cowboy doesn't seem to recall it. In fact, the way you got the Karasawa in the original was by finding it in the corner in some room with oil drums. So I think that a scavenge system could work without using a weight system. When you find a hidden part and interact with it, it just disappears and says "part acquired". So maybe they could do the same with AC6. Though I feel like it would probably stick to hidden parts at most. If you can 'scavenge', I imagine the parts would be tallied and added after the mission is over. Maybe you could mark parts for pickup, but who knows. Just that there are options to make such a system work without using a literal backpack with added weight and inventory mechanics specifically for it. Though I'm unsure if I'm for or against the idea regardless of how it's done. I'd have to see it in action either way.
Great talk, though, just hearing people talk about Armored Core, what it was, and what it could be, is almost like a dream. I've never heard so much discussion until now, not in the West. I super hope that custom emblems return and that they let me draw it rather than use shapes like Forza. Don't get me wrong, that works well, but I would love if I could import images (which is wishful thinking), or if it had support to at least use a mouse with decent control. Which interestingly enough, at least one of the games in Gen 3 has mouse support for emblem making (I only tried one game). It's terrible and not worth using because the cursor moves at the same speed regardless of how fast you're really moving it, but the idea is cool.
And sure, you could put naughty images on emblems, but you could always do that and no, I don't think that only happens in the West exclusively. 4 and 4A was limited, but 5 and VD gave you the tools to make anything. And I hope that they let us at least place emblems onto the mechs. Something closer to forza in functionality and quality would be better, but I remember giving my AC's in 4 some cool designs that you could not do normally-- it was janky with the placement, but it was cool. Give us a way to report bad emblems, don't be too heavy handed in removing ones that shouldn't be, and I don't think it'll be an issue and if it is, then people are looking for something to be upset about-- rather, I can already see the Kotaku and IGN articles in my head.
Well, sorry for the wall of text, like I said, I'm super excited and could talk for ages about Armored Core even if I'm not good at doing it. Most of Cowboy's expertise seems to be AC5, which honestly I just like to see someone talk about how fun AC5 is. I think all of the games are good in their own ways between gens 3, 4 & 5 (gens 1, 2 & 3 being essentially the same with Last Raven being the best imo). AC5 tends to get the short end by some, but it's still good overall and boy was the ending to VD hype. AC6 releasing early 2023 and not late 2023 would be exciting. I really just want to see some gameplay already; it's hard to sit still. Hopefully by the end of January we will, because if we happen to be near release, I feel like they'd want to show people what the game is about sooner than later. I don't know if there are any gaming events in the next 2 or 3 months that they would show it off at, or if it will be a shadow drop on RUclips or something. Whatever happens, I'm sure From Soft can pull it off and I absolutely can not wait!
Ohhhh we soooo ready 🤯 Just need a new PC good time to buy right ?😅
COM : SYSTEM ENGAGED
The way 4 and 4A does difficulty sounds like the sickest shit
So, AC2-For Answer all have difficulty settings, it’s not explained but here’s what it does:
‘Normal’ is actually easy mode, giving: Larger FCS total reticle
Slightly weaker MTs, and almost ALL Ac battles have enemy ACs spawn at half health or less.
Less deductions from Ammo and repairs, so a little more cash income
That’s it really, mostly the AC battles are half as easy as they should be on Normal.
That being said, I highly recommend players play on ‘Hard’ since that is the actual normal, with ‘Normal’ being easy mode.
Do you know any content creators who have a good knowledge of the whole AC series?
@@Corusame ???
In some time of the previous games you could find parts in some missions as well as parts for your performance or meeting certain hidden objectives in a mission.
DaemonXmachina is nice for some fun and for a soft intro to mech games
AC is definitively a league above but i think it can be kinda hard to breach the series
The variety in AC is just insane
Still gotta respect DxM for actually making a mech game during a mech game draught
Thank you for saying that.
A lot of people give DxM a lot of flak these days.
But I do agree with the feeling that the game feels floaty.
They are making a sequel.
@@alexdev518 well with a game setting that can magically create clone out of thin air you shouldn't concern about feeling floaty
@mehmeth9773 there is Memory soft cap. Higher your Memory the longer your lock time. The lower your weight the faster you are.
EDIT: After watching this properly yeah damn these two need to play the earlier gens. Also human plus/op-intensify dont give more money... thats not a thing? Your progressively unlock extra abilities like better cooling, be able to go overweight, use shoulder weapons without kneeling for bipedal builds etc etc.
AC5 and Verdict day are likely going to have a fairly low amount of influence over AC6. From Soft know that AC5 was divisive and brought the series to a stop.
In fact I expect 3rd and 4th gen will be the biggest influence.
I wish more of these people spoke about 3rd gen as it's the biggest generation of all... The majority of the franchise was on the PS2.
i mean its not like ac4 was also very divisive, at the end of the day, i think we will get more of a gen3 influence than 4 and 5
@@dralakba-dusk31 I keep hearing the best of both worlds is 3/Ravens mechanics and gameplay with 4/Answers big bombastic boss battles.
I didn't play much of 4 or Verdict Day but I kind of hope MTs can be a little threatening again.
From the trailer tho. The mechs are WAY closer to AC5 ones.
Okay Ive checked the trailer video again and I guess its more like a mix of AC4 and 5 it has side boosters of 4 and the thrust vectors of 5. Yeah my best bet is they will feel more like in between AC4-5 to pilot.
The weapons shown are a mix of AC 5 and 4 ones.
although I like flying in AC 3-1 games. I hope they let us fly again unlike AC5. But I like AC5 overboost best among all the generations so I hope they keep that.
@@breaklpoint1008 Check again. those mech parts in the ACVI trailer is closer to Gen1-3, specifically Emeraude and Zio parts from 2nd gen and the parts from 1st gen, Crest and Mirage from 3rd Gen. 4A's mech design is closer to Evangelion's Angels, While 5/Vday mech designs are closer to Front Mission.
AC3 as the base with influnce from 4 and a few things from 5. That is my dream version of AC6. AC3 as a base is great because it was really trying to realize what AC1 and AC2 were trying to do. Mechanics, controls and design experience has come so far. Grabbing this on steam for glorious m+kb.
The stake driver weapon (pilebunker) has been in the franchise for a while, they’re often called parrying blades in armored core, personal favorite is the kiku from For Answer
Interesting thing not many know about, but you can actually parry with it. Has to be a Sword in shield setup, but there was ‘parrying’ with the parry blade all the way back in the start of 3rd gen, AC3.
@@abyssphantom6786 yeah it’s a cool and fun mechanic it looks like it might come back in some form based off the trailer
@@CrimsonKamina Trailers for the AC games should NEVER be used to judge gameplay, or things we can do in game lol.
They show off the atmosphere, some parts visually, and the graphics. Other than that, almost every single AC trailer and intro has the ACs fighting in ways that aren’t possible in game, with impossible movement, and even most of the weps/guns shown do things and shoot in ways that are completely impossible in game.
@@abyssphantom6786 throwback to AC4 trailer where (supplice?) stabs someone with the...Marve? i forget what gun it was.
@@draysmusicalshtposts6340 Lol right? Made us think we were gonna get our first Gunblade in the AC series.
Or 5th gen, when they said we were gonna get transforming body parts in an interview, after the trailer that had a head transformation like we see in AC6 trailer.
Or 3rd gen, when they had an AC with Micro missiles in the ‘inside’ part, in the shoulders, that worked with shoulder extensions.
Or 2nd and 3rd gens when they had destructible limbs in every trailer. Tbf, we did finally get those with Last Raven, but the hit boxes were coded by a 12yo xD
Armored core and gundam wing inspired me to go into mechanical engineering…was sorely disappointed I couldn’t get my hands on a suitable reactor 😅
DxM is very AC like (having been made by former AC dev), but the removal of internal parts and the integration of the corresponding abilities into other body parts hurt a lot of customization. For example, in AC I always preferred the sideways (rectangular) target lock box vs the wide, narrow or vertical lock boxes. In DxM you are limited to a small number of heads if you want that. In AC it is a separate internal part leaving you to choose whatever head you want. They did the same with boosters too, integrating them into cores and legs, limiting selection to only a few parts. It is a big reason why AC vets were dissappointed by the customization in DxM.
1:12:29 I feel the same way, especially with Monster Hunter these days. Even though back in the older games you could still gather ingredients to craft most of what you needed, but it was harder back then. You needed more ingredients to craft, you could fail crafting (I don't think i've failed a craft since World in either Worldborne or Risebreak), granted you weren't as fast as you are in 5th gen so that was precious time you had to debate wasting to get more potions. Now you don't have to buy or make pick axes, bug nets, or harpoons in Tri/3U, hell they dont even take up a slot in your invetory. Now you can eat multiple times in 1 hunt, you can visit a tent and fill up on items infinitely, you can swap sets as much as you want. Now I wouldn't have as much of a gripe with it if it was limited, like only being able to grab a handful of items and thats it, or being able to swap to one other select set that you've selected as a secondary thats sitting in the tent. Then theres the tent fast travel.
I don't see why any of these quality of life improvements are a bad thing (I first played monster hunter portable third psp english fan patch) like the only one that could be argued to make the game noticeably easier is being able to restock potions and bombs and knives and stuff at the tent infinitely and even then if I'm going back to the tent over and over without dying (because dying too much auto fails anyway) I'll run out of time if I'm taking so much damage or doing so little damage that I need to do that. like the only hunts where I would've needed to stock up that many times (haven't played rise, only played a bit of winter expansion) were like the super hard high ranks in world that were that blue fire dragon and the mating pair with AOE insta kill explosion, and I wouldn't have been able to refill items that many times anyway cause I lost to dying too much
@@hornylink A lot of them remove from the soul of the game. It's Monster Hunter, not Monster Slayer. It's meant to be a little more methodical, making you be more cautious when you played, having you prep for the hunt.
@@chadsullivan3645 *shrug* i disagree.
@@chadsullivan3645 but you still do that with the recent titles lol, they just streamlined the unnecessary, convoluted bloat
Your FCS determines the size and lock range of the reticle, anything in the reticle is auto targeted. That's how aiming works. The FCS has an indicator sound as well which lets you know you've acquired a target and start firing before the camera catches up with the movement. This is what allows for the fast gunplay and movements in versus combat.
I feel like they removed a lot of those nuances to fcs in gen 4 or is it just me? They def removed the box, but maybe the sound is just so subtle I couldn't hear it?
@@nightfox6738 yeah could work diffrent since Scanmode is pretty much confirmed in the trailer... Not sure how to feel about it but ...i liked 5 and verdict day....tough it was kinda bad in the single player mode, i hope they stack Armored Core 6 up with all the glory of past games like they did with elden ring, pulling from the best of souls.
Some interesting takes. It is however nice to see a 5th Gen player being interviewed for a change! Some stated stuff was a bit off but nothing too severe I'd say.
18:20 - So this is where 4/FA differs alot from previous games. In AC3 and older (and V/VD) you have a lock box that you have to place over a target to get a lock on and it's a fixed size. 4th Gen revised this to be more automatic. So in effect your entire screen is your lock box, and as long as your opponent isn't too far off or at an odd angle, you will get a "lock" on your opponent.
22:22 - lol
24:08 - Funny enough, there is fan game based on AC which is similar in framework to V/VD which has it's own take on this (It's called MachineClad). When you are in the air, you can do a small boost upward (almost like a small high boost) and takes a lot of energy. It's so obvious when you see it but I think they may have been something they could have implemented in 5th Gen.
28:10 - 5th Gen as a whole showed just how good the multiplayer piece of AC could be even with how flawed it was in execution. I've been of the opinion that a human on the other end piloting their own custom AC and bringing their own unique experience is 100x more interesting and fun than any AI Fromsoftware has been able to make in any Armored Core game.
31:46 - Correct. Because the missions were longer in V, they gave you a resupply drop where you could basically go into the garage change parts, etc.
31:51 - Not quite right. V was 99% PVP, but Verdict Day did offer a much more robust and fun singleplayer, along with hardcore modes (basically play through the game from scratch with added conditions to make the playthrough harder). Missions we're overall better and unlock V, VD threw in some nice curveballs where missions play heavily into mechanics (there's one missions where you fight two ACs. Once is a shield AC meant to soak up damage and divert your attention, and the other was a long range tank that sniped you).
32:14 - Confirmed there are no difficulty options for V/VD. Some of the older games did though (AC1/2 I think?)
32:32 - It did not modify difficulty. H+ just gave you more abilities for your AC (increased generator capacity, increased regen, can use back weapons on non tank and quads). You just had to go into 50,000k debt to unlock it, and then do it repeatedly to unlock the HUMAN+ abilities.
35:42 - Yes, it would influence the parts you unlock, but what degree varies from game to game. In later games (technically you have an initial choice in 4/FA but nothing afterwards) it didn't matter at all.
38:20 - Gameplay loop is as follows: Do Mission -> Improve AC -> Do Missions -> Improve AC. For some games you'd also throw in Arena.
40:08 - I think counter picks is quite the right word here. "Improving" to best meet the players (and the mission's need) would be more accurate.
41:08 - Armored Core is basically played in the garage 50% of the time
47:11 - If you use a cannon weapon, your AC kneels on the ground and that knee shield unfolds and increases your defenses.
48:50 - In retrospect, I don't remember alot of dicks on builds. Certainly alot of anime girls.
52:51 - Cannon weapons cannot be stored on the shoulders. You had to purge them to use your other back weapons
53:09 - Parts damage was in LR (and its predecessor weapons destruction was in SL), and quite frankly I don't it was that good. Probably one of the simulation/realism aspects From added to late 3rd Gen AC that was not great.
53:55 - The closes thing is probably the I01M-URCHIN (aka MWI-MD/40). It was a shoulder part that shot out a group of sticky mines that would explode upon contact. Much smaller scale and used more for defensive play.
54:11 - Ah, good ol memories of 1.01 ACV.
1:03:36 - Previous AC games had chock full of hidden parts. Sometimes in plain sight, but many you had to hunt for them.
Rurikhan - it's like Monster Hunter
Fightincowboy - it's not a Souls like or Monster Hunter
Let's settle this in the Elden Ring Colosseum. Fight.
when you started talking about negative balance, it reminds me of AC 1 and 2. There was a pity point early game if you had a super negative balance and failed so many times, i think negative million or more, but the game would give you the most powerful radar and the Karasawa energy rifle for free, but if you didnt get out of debt after that it was game over.
And in the first gen of the games there were definitely items you could loot from the environment. you could even fail a mission, but get one of the best radars in the game. the mission was to protect the radar, but you can steal it instead.
I don't remember the 'pity' thing at all from what you're describing, going a whole million probably would never happen. I recall that if you go under by 50K it straight up resets the game mission progress to the start, but with your gear and builds intact, as well as a new ability. And you could repeat that a number of times to get many abilities. Also, I do remember that mission where you could steal that radar in the original. In fact, there have been a number of missions in the AC series that let you do that, but the idea that one of the best radars you got by stealing it during a mission was silly but a fun detail. Did mean that you couldn't have all the items without having a failure, but that's a minor problem to me.
@@lethauntic I found what i was thinking about, and it was the Human Plus upgrades in the first AC game on PS1. There are a total of 10 human plus upgrades that a player can obtain for negative debt incurred during game play. Amassing a debt of -50,000 credits or greater will result in a cut scene in which it is implied you have been selected to become a human plus pilot. Once the cut scene is over the game will restart with all missions undone, your credits at zero and you will have any parts in your garage that you purchased before reaching the debt limit. This can be done 8 times for a total of 8 upgrades. Each time the cut scene is the same so keep count. Once the game is completed with all missions done and all parts collected 2 more upgrades will become available.
Also fun fact in ac1 if you go to far in debt you end up dead and used as an expire ment to be brought back as a human plus, the game completely starts over but you got a new ability and this can happen multiple times and you get new abiltes
There was an interview with Miyazaki back around the time dark souls 3 dropped and he was asked what he would like to do. He said then he wanted to take armored core back to the core of the game elements because he didn't particularly like the direction it had gone.
I took that to mean he wanted it to feel more like the 1-3 days.
"Its like monster hunter"
"Its not like any of that or souls like"
*THIS SUNDAY NIGHT*
Hell yeah. A podcast about Armored Core. Time to drag Ruri into the world of best mech!
The character customization has more depth in Daemon x Machina than Sunbreak.
This was hilarious; great to see the two of you talking through this in such an informative and also funny way. Can't wait for ACVI to drop, but if it's in March I don't know if I'll have time to squeeze it in right away between all the other games coming out-- it feels like almost every game coming out in 2023 that I'm interested in is dropping between February and March. Utter craziness. Cheers!
What other games matter than Fromsoft and Atlus games these days? I dont know any, Silksong and that's it
The thing is, at the END of DxM, it's closer to Armored Core.
One of the things about Armored Core is that you can just start buying parts from minute 1 to make the mech you WANT to pilot.
DxM, on top of feeling different in gameplay, gates your customization behind completion of missions and part farming from enemies. When you have a full library of weapons and parts and upgrade nodes, you can totally go in depth on all kinds of stats in a way that's VERY Armored Core, but it takes beating the main story or delving deep into multiplayer missions to get there. And at that point, what are you even doing it FOR?
I love DxM, but it very much needed to frontload more customization so players could get that freedom of creation back.
remember parts hunting had been a thing in AC if not mistaken only 4th gen removed that and so did ACVD, in ACV there are parts that are thrown about in certain mission maps that you can find
Honestly I kind of expect Armored Core 6 to be like Elden Ring and I say that in the sense that like with Elden Ring they take a look back at the entire series as a whole and take the parts people liked to slam them into a new game with some extra features.
Yeah this sounds about right, the crowning achievement and it's only just the comeback
Likely you are correct. It's the only logical progression
Based on Miyazaki himself from an interview, Elden Ring is like his finish line, while Armored Core VI is going back from the start line. Elden Ring is what the souls series was supposed to be, but back then they didn't have the budget and manpower, so they went with what the souls series we know now. Armored Core VI on the other hand is going to "devolve" and look back at what makes armored core back to the root.
Hell nah that's disrespect to the core series as a whole....it would make zero sense because Core and Elden are to different playstyles
the switch disdain had me rolling on the floor 🤣. come on switch is not that bad
There's been a stagger system and a counter system in AC since one of the AC1 sequels. Cant recall which one. It was hidden and kind of jank but its there.
Human plus was a hidden option unlocked when going into debt right away by dying. It allowed you to use the "crouch only" shoulder weapons when flying and gliding in a 2 legged AC. It made your energy consumption less and generators "red zone" less so a complete capacitor drain requiring a full recharge would take less time to get out of the red zone. It was like you were given Iron mans heart. The first time you play through the game not knowing about it you will be like "what the hell, how are these 2 legged guys using their crouch only weapons while flying?" That was their secret "Human Plus." AC1 had it, I'm not sure if it could be activated in "Project Phantasma" but you could bring that games secret components over from each other via memory card saves. Pretty sure I played Phantasma having human plus from AC1 even though Phantasma was suppose to take place before AC1.
MGSV is a open world game and it still has a mission based structure for the campaign
Awesome to see you two working with each other!
The best Gundam game for customization is hands down Gundam Breaker 3 if anyone is interested in checking it out.
Mabye AC VI will inspire Bandai to make a good gundam breaker game again.
"Invasions" would totally be on brand for the next AC game. Lots of missions in the previous titles would be a 'straightforward destroy the facility', 'infiltrate the base', escort the mcguffin' then BOOM a rival mercenary would show up and throw a wrench into everything. Conversely hopping in mid mission (MHW style) to assist could also be a thing though it would likely be a lot more complicated to do at the right moment.
Of course this comes after no co-op being confirmed so its a moot point.
Okay so couple things.
First, the pile bunker has been in Armored Core since at least part 3 and it's been exactly the same as what was shown in the trailer. The explosion that will come off of it is the result of directly impacting the core is pretty much where it always aimed.
Second, part-based targeting is in armored Core last Raven. If it's implemented well it could probably be a good mechanic but anyone who played the game recalls that it was also really easy to lose a mission because your enemies would aim pretty much at your head and your core the entire time destroy it and you'd be out, or fire explosives that damage all your parts and eventually your arms or your legs give out. Is especially frustrating when your legs are destroyed and you were just not mobile anymore so you were sitting duck.
And third, there's been map exploration I think possibly as far back as armacore one where you can find a part on the map pick it up and then it's now in your garage whether you pass or fail the mission. They didn't have that in armored Core 4 and I suppose they did not have it in five but it was a feature all the way until silent line definitely, and possibly also in Nexus and the last Raven. It wasn't a constant dropping of loot Diablo style, it was hugest look around the map a little bit and you'll find a part chilling somewhere and pick it up and that was your reward for actually looking around the map or using the whole map while fighting.
This conversation as hyped me even more about AC6. I'm from the souls crowd but the thing I like the best in souls is figuring out and trying wonky builds. This is looking great maybe i'll try an old one to test the water
I didn't know that you two were in cahoots, you both played so many of the same games i was suprised i had never seen a collab, nice to see i was wrong, i loved watching you both play GoWR and your shield choices, Ruri; "Shields Up!" Cowboy; "get parried bitch"
they did 1 ep of an Elden Ring podcast together too iirc, back when ER's beta was on
@@_syzygy_ you have a link?
@@razgriz2276 i dont but it was Ruri who uploaded it so it has to be somewhere in his playlists. They also did another one talking about Wo Long i believe. Their collabs are pretty nice
Tbh, the difference between AC 4 and 5 ("expansions" included, because that's what For Answer and Verdict Day basically are) is that in 4 and the previous titles it felt like you were piloting a huge engine of destruction, while 5 felt more like a third person shooter and felt lack luster (personally).
Just to put it out there my favorites in the series are Nexus and Last Raven.
Soulsborne and nioh games I always get stuck in the boss, quit and come back 2 or 3 months later and beat it and then start enjoying the game. Armored core I've never ever made it to one single boss let alone been stuck on a boss, and it's still my favorite game series
The shot from the trailer of the AC among the wreckage with the raven's possessions piled on its back has had me thinking that while the game won't be a soulsborne, it will have a whole new system to replace the "Raven's Nest" menu. I see Rubicon III being dotted with garages or shelters that serve the role of campfires or shards of grace where the player can rearm, recup, and customize, but the player carries their inventory with them. And as when the raven in the trailer saw the conflict in the distance and chose to engage, he had to equip the necessary weapons and drop everything else. Perhaps it will be open world, where the player can find parts among the refuse, but there is a parallel mission structure, and the player needs to weigh the risk of engaging in combat and the reward therefrom with the risk of losing the rest of your inventory to scavengers, much like the grace you drop in Elden Ring when you die. Thoughts?
Im so excited for this game. I loved tinkering with my AC for hours on Armored Core 4
Need more Ruri and Cowboy Khan's Kast
I really enjoyed this video, and I hope you’ll continue to cover Armored Core 6! 😊
I played a bit of the PS2 games, though I wasn’t very good at them. 😂
Still, I remember seeing build guides for AC at the end of Tips & Tricks magazine, and I would just be amazed that people were competing and writing into existence their own mechs and stories alongside their play styles when I was a kid.
Finally, FWIW, Daemon X Machina was mostly enjoyable, but is very much not AC. It is honestly more like Zone of the Enders, which I also loved and would love to see return, but I see absolutely no hope of that. 🙃
I know it shouldn't bother me but the amount they both got wrong about AC from 4A back and even some small things in V just bother me to no end. Especially when they're constantly going on about be "Veterans" of the series but their only real experience was V lol
If there is a Option in AC6 to Play together i want to Play with you Sir 😅 your comment says "Hey dont Talk shit about my Baby"
you Love the series Like i do 😂 brah hug
They are just larger creators than the guys who know the series and are putting out content on the series. Get Armoredcorelore and AAG in the same room with yamamura 👍
@@TheSibler I know the name and have seen some of his stuff. Not enough charisma for me to sign off on 🤷♂️
@@TheSibler Sorry man, when you create content and grow it matters. He has been around forever but time spent doesn't always mean guaranteed results. There is another guy named Janine or some such and I'd pick him over Buster as well. Perfect example FightinCowboy and this guy are doing podcasts on AC and are not knowledgeable, larger community and more charisma.
@@TheSibler The people I listed qualify then.
I'm so glad all of fromsoftware's games just so happen to release on my birthday lol
Listening to cowboy talk about AC:V and Verdict Day gameplay as if he’s talking about the series as a whole is frustrating, ngl.
Most of these things he’s lovingly remembering are outliers that really only featured in Gen 5 which was From Softs attempt to take the series in a radically new direction.
An Armored Core VI looking to recapture what made the series as a whole special probably isn’t going to look anything like this.
Amazing collaboration!
I've played nearly every AC game in the franchise. I started with AC 2 for the ps2
Enjoyed this!
If the scavengin is done like in Battletech it would be pretty cool. You get the parts in the mission debrief depending on how you destroyed mechs.
thats Daemon x Machina but its made by ex-From Soft devs
47:11The shield on the leg will stretch out when using the cannon, improving the frontal defense.ruclips.net/user/shortsaMsiFYxmQ7g
1:11:13At ACfA, you can try again after completing the task because you are not satisfied with the profit or loss. However, this phenomenon does explain why AC is not suitable for auto saving
The big thing I hate about 5 and Verdict day is the lack of verticality. So I really hope they fix that. I personally love the fast pace of AC4A but I'm an og AC fan and I get why its less accessible. I would like to see the same generally design of 4/4A but reduce the speed. I think the way 4A maintained the momentum from QB was a bit gratuitous so if the go back to more what AC4 was (or maybe just a little bit slower) they'd be able to satisfy the veterans while also making it accessible to the rest of the public.
I just hit the part where Cowboy talked about human plus... That's completely wrong. Human Plus had absolutely no impact whatsoever on your funds. How do you call yourself an AC Veteran and not get that?
Vertical was a feature of your leg type. The game wanted to make each leg a different play style. I had problem with picking a leg that suited my play style and it added more to the strategy of the game.
@@demora714 I don't know because all the videos I've seen of 5th gen its like that. Basically vertical is just incredibly restricted and it really changes the fundamental feel of movement in the game. It really is a horrible change imo.
@@nightfox6738 videos? So you haven’t played 5th gen? 5th gen had vertically, it was just based on legs.Light weight bipedal and reverse joint legs had bonuses in jumping power as their main advantage while quad had the slowest descent. This was also where map type played a huge role in what ac you used. Light weight bipedal and reverse joint excelled where they had structures to gain the height advantage quickly while quads excelled in more open maps where they could maintain their airtime over everyone else.
@@demora714 How are you not getting this? Yes, I played it, no I didn't get far which is why I'm also referencing that I've seen videos of it to. Say what you want about the legs allowing vertical motion but its still severely inhibited by the mechanic even with the most vertically mobile legs. Go play literally any other AC game and then tell me 5th gen had verticality.
@@nightfox67381-3 and 4 gameplay are damn near opposites with 5 being the closest to a middle ground which is why is said it should be the base. 5 actually made use of the environment unlike 1-3 while 4 pretty much made everything a open plain due to it’s mobility,as you could just boost over everything. 5 improved on the controls of 4 made the game more grounded (yes by limiting verticality) but improved greatly on environmental interaction and made the game more dynamic and tactical. I’m not disputing the verticality of the game just the purpose. I not against the idea of vertical climb returning but 5 did address a number of the previous games issues and laid the ground work for a much better 6 than any of the previous titles did.
I liked that you mentioned Cannons that could only be fired in a ready stance where you cant move UNLESS you have Tank or spider legs, then the transformation of the BIGASS CANNON goes seamlessly.
I also want to mention one mission where my AC couldnt fly on water, i mean i could for a while but literally drowned when i tipped the toes in. Instant Game over, so i switched to Boat Legs and i could just endlessly long float on water, no problem at all, didnt even have to use my boosters anymore.
Sure The AC didnt look as nice anymore, but you gotta go with what works for the type of Mission that you are doing.
The Briefing usually explained the whole Mission very nicely with a good english dub but on harder difficulty, sometimes the Mission changed dramatically.
I also feel the need to address Ammunition cost. Do not start out playing rockets only in Storymode or you will end up with a minus balance, unable to buy new stuff.
I usually used some type of energy weapon with big ammo count for 0 cost so i only had to pay the repairs afterwards. I tried to use my heavy weaponry sparingly in easier missions.
In the Interview, Myasaki did mention that there will be Bossbattles so i am exited for that.
I also hope we get some type of seamless COOP. I wouldnt mind finding a Partner in Crime for all Missions to be honest, and they should add NPC arena with at least 30 enemys, optionally Player Arena as well.
I enjoyed this video but id like to have a more indepth collab, that goofball interrupted way to often with unfunny jokes instead of actually engaging in the topic.
it's funny that your discussing this point because for me monster hunter is actually that. i start out and build as many elements for my 3 weapon types IG, LS, GS and i will always switch to what fits best for the monster i am hunting.
“It’ll be less than an hour” said Rurikhan, unable to see the length of the video from the past
Great episode and guest!
God I really hope for co-op, the best feeling is going through missions with friends
Human Plus evolved from a mercy mechanic ( grants you bonuses and clean reset if you go into debt too much ) to a post game reward in 3 and SL. Eliminated in Nexus forward.
Best bonuses were increased energy efficiency ( basically a bonus to stamina ) and being able to fire back weapons on bipedal builds without having to kneel.
Highly recommend playing Nexus and Last Raven with Human + enabled, breathes whole new life into both games. Especially Last Raven, since it has the most parts by far, it enables exponentially more builds.
@@abyssphantom6786 is that in the psp version or a mod for pc emulation? Far as I can remember, they never put Human Plus ( or OP-Intensify as of AC3 ) in Nexus or Last Raven
@@Nexuish it was available as a cheat in Nexus and Last Raven on ps2, and can be turned on as a coding change on both the PSP, and on the emulated versions.
It’s honestly hard for me to think of it as a cheat, or unfair advantage, because over 95% of all enemy ACs in every AC game have it equipped for free.
Also, as great as the customization may seem, it’s honestly not nearly as good without it. Mostly because 6 out of the 8 leg types, which leg type controls your overall build type more so than any other part, only have access to Missiles (which are kinda lazily spammed, and can be easily countered) or Dumb fire rockets, which are mostly used by bots, on meme builds, and for challenge runs.
Only having those 2 back options for 75% of the build archetypes in the game just feels bad to me.
I'm an old school armored core player. I'm excited to play this new game. I'm also curious to see what new additions they bring in.
ac was always the git gud game period
however there was the late third gen series like ninebreaker and nexus that you could tune parts to boost stats so there was at one point a stat leveling style system in the series and i actually wanna see that come back that level of customization
6 should take advantage of the differences in jumping power between legs for verticality. Reverse legs have always done the job but maybe regular legs could be better
I know it is a different type of game, but I'm always surprised no one mentions Front Mission games which have similarities, but are turn based strategy.
Didn't AC V have 5 v5? I recall being a Over weapons specialist tasked with K.O.ing 1 guy from the start to give us the advantage or having 2 of us with the giga missiles, 2 with target guns with pistols and 1 guy running as bait and just killing almost all of the enemy team in 1 minute of the match
Ruri you need to get some armored core tubers on the podcast. Armored core lore, Above average gaming, not otzdarva.
Do you know any content creators who have a good knowledge of the AC series?
@@Corusame yea the 3 I listed in this comment, not otzdarva, above average gaming, and armored core lore… among others
@@Corusame 🐄
AC was one of my favorite games to play on my ps1 as a kid. I stopped playing them once the ps3 dropped as I didn’t get a new console until this busted ass ps4 that I got a couple of years back. I’m SO fuckin’ excited to play this again.
And Cowboy is right, Souls players are clueless as to how insane the learning curve & challenge is with armored core. My good friend who I tend to play the souls borne games with whenever we can, hasn’t ever heard of AC. I am forcing him to play this new game with me 😂 I’ve gotta get his reaction to it.
54:30 that weapon looked like a grenade launcher, it looked like it had bays for grenades witch he threw, in slow motion they're kinda visible
Set building is my fav thing about MH. And I freakin love mechs; always have. So to hear that AC is gonna be set building on steroids and hours in the garage and crazy wild mechs? Yes please. Thx for the podcast guys
On your first play through you will constantly be tweaking your build or even specializing it for specific missions/arena opponents. Then when you've finished it and unlocked most parts you start trying every dumb idea you can think of.
Like using a giant handgun to stun someone so you can rip into them with a plasma cannon that has really low projectile speed...
(I have an old video of that on my channel)
@@Soladrin that sounds awesome
one of fromsoftware underrated games was also A.C.E. (another century episode) and the gundam unicorn game. ACE was fucking fire for mech and anime nerds like me.
Why no Armored Core 4 Love? That 16 player multiplayer at launch for Ps3 was NEXT GEN AMAZING!!!!
I understand nerfing AC4A speed for wider appeal. However, AC4 had a regulation feature where player could choose how the game was balanced and therefore alter gameplay
Armored Core is a mecha game… but made for the FromSoftware equivalent of people who obsess over their tweaks and stat parameters in car games like Gran Turismo 7 and their aesthetics in MMOs like Phantasy Star Online and Black Desert.
50-70% of your joy in the experience will be in building and experimenting, and the remaining 30-50% is sheer Mecha bliss in a really fascinating story narrative.
great podcast. never played an AC game before but i'm legit excited because fromsoftware has never disapointed me.
Awesome to see a fellow cosmere/fromsoftware fan in the comments 💪🏼
@Spectre08 aye yooo hell yea. My 2 fav things lol.
@@kaladinstormblessed9626 Literally the same.
Oh yah one more thing..as u are a big cosmere fan, search up the songs windrunner, bondsmith and Survive by stormlyte on youtube..absolutely amazing based on kaladin, dalinar and kelsier.
@Spectre08 we must become friends, this is fate. Do u use twitter or messenger or something?
I kinda hope they can bridge the gap between the original games and what FROM has done with Souls the past decade, without compromising the overall package for fans of the game.
A pray and suspect that its gonna be like 80% 4 and 4amswear. Mainly because we saw 3 things; a primal armor, something akin to an assault armor and the trailer ended in a substantial quick boost. The goggles in the trailer could have been a scan mode but honestly combat in V and Vday felt completly inferior to 4 and 4a so i hope they go with speed.
It’s probably coming from a clean slate and not using a combination of anything we’ve ever seen. They’re going to BOTW this but using knowledge of what they’ve learned with past games. It’s definitely going to be just be a different system.
Playing ac 3 portable hard mode on ps vita, and damn i'm getting pummeled by the game's brutality.
Oh yeah. Old AC games do not play nice.
The control scheme is where all the difficulty comes from.
Just bought a copy of for answer for 45$ CAD on Ebay , pretty good deal IMO
FightinCowboy didn't play Gen1-3, he's too focused on AC5/Vday. AC6 will go back to its roots Gen1-3 with 4A mechanics. No infinite ground boosting. And the claw grip comment lol I didn't use claw grip killing Necron, 9 ball, in Gen 1. He didn't know there are more Gen1-3 fans, 4A second, and the 5th gen was the last. 4A's quick boosting is not even high-level play, it's easy to pull off Quick Boost Chain (Boost cancel) and 2nd stage Quick Boost, even 3rd stage Quick Boost.
Do you know any content creators who have a good knowledge of the whole AC series?
Going back to gen 1-3 would be a mistake. The controls of VD were hugely improved over gen 1-3. The limited boosting ability from those generations would just kill the gameplay. The environment were also underused and added no value to the game or really affected gameplay. 4 is obviously too fast. While 5 had its issues imo their best bet is to build on VD. Use VD as the base for gameplay then add elements of 1-4. VD made leg choices very impactful, made actual use of the environments unlike previous games and added a lot of strategy to the gameplay.
I wish we get something like the overweapons or even as DLC. I want my grind blade.
So I think 4 plot story is... probably very similar to gundam i mean universal century gundam ?
AC V and Verdict day had campaign co-OP. I think they'll have that again
It was confirmed a day ago that there will be no co op in AC6, apparently because the single player will be more “dynamic”, so I think that there will be stuff like betrayals, complete 180s during missions and such which make it hard to implement co op rather than just having “defeat 2 ACs” as a mission. So it’s a give and a take I guess
Hello, if someone know a good video that analyse the armored core PvP (AC 5 in particulare). I would be very thankfull. 😊
I spent a significant amount of money on a new PC when Elden Ring was coming out, and I figured it would be worth it because there will be other big games coming along... Now I am vindicated by the knowledge that I will be able to play Armored Core 6 on high settings. Maybe I'll even buy a new monitor
Ive been looking at prices for old armored core games. Prices are ridiculous. Good thing is i own every copy starting at ac1 that released in america.
I wonder if they will involve pilots with bonuses and penalties to your AC @fightincowboy
The problem I have with 4's system is that heavier platforms sucked where not getting hit is the only way to survive. 5 is not perfect either--the attack type feels arbitrary and it also felt unfair in PvE since you dont know what weapons and armor the enemy is packing before the mission. It worked okay in PvP but I won't be sad if they just cut the damage types. I'm glad they are going to bring back primal armor since the related system is interesting--yes I'm a huge fan of assault armor.
Yea I felt in AC 4 , light fast builds always won over a heavier build , there were times when I was forced to build a certain way , just to progress in the game , so I always felt , you had to sacrifice my preferred cosmetic look in order to be fast enough to beat the harder mech you faced in the campaign , and most vids you will see on ac 4 they have fast quick builds focused on boost !
i do agree AC4A was a bit too fast, but i personally think if they just add either a quickboost cooldown, or raise the en requirement to quickboost so it has to be used sparingly, it would be an amazing compromise.
Loved all the previous entries, but the 1st gens are a bit too oldschool (fine for their time). Also V and Vday are such a departure, might as well throw them in the DaemonXMachina [garbage]bin.
I'm replaying it on 360 right now and yeah I feel it's too fast. I don't know what it hitting me or how. The biggest problem is that the game does a terrible job explaining things to you. I also wouldn't mind a bit more anime influence in the looks. Sometimes it's too 'Tanky' looking for my tastes. Everything looks like a tank with legs. Heads be looking silly like I'm getting 90s cable on satellite. Or they look more alien than robot. Maybe I'm too old school gundam fan now and wish they'd combine these damn franchises.
I played deamon x machina.
I enjoyed it, I legit had fun, and it scratched an itch.
But....
It did not fully satisfy that itch.
Can anyone inform me about the Xbox stream FC did for Xbox and can I rewatch it anywhere?
It's on his channel
Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing.
Although, with Ruri only having vague distant memories of AC5 and Cowboy having mostly 5/VD, some For Answer, and zero experience with any other titles, it makes the conversation pretty narrow focused and inexperienced sounding.
Honestly these types of convos go much better when at least 1 person involved has decent knowledge on the subject as a whole.
(Since AC5/VD were made by the side project team, and they are very Niche compared to the rest of the series as a whole, someone talking about the AC series when they’ve only played 5th gen, would be the equivalent of someone who’s only played Monster Hunter Stories and is trying to talk about the mainline series)
Can you recommend another content creator who would be more knowledgable of the AC series?
@@Corusame Yes ^_^ I can highly recommend Coffee Potato, Buster TBM Gameplay, above average gaming, ArmoredCoreLore, and now also it seems Ratatoskr is also getting quite knowledgeable, having played 4th gen and 3rd gen so far and is going through the others.
Im playing Daemon X Machina right now because I cant play any of the AC games right now. Knowing it isn't as good gives me hope that I will like AC 6 more.
I think if you liked daemon x machina you would love AC though. Its just better
Welp, after this video I'm downloading Verdict Day on my PS3. I really take for granted how streamlined buying a digital game is on current gen consoles. Been downloading and installing the 5.7GB game to my PS3 and it's been going on about 45 minutes now and the install process is at 4%.
Older ac games had hidden parts some you could find some you could only get by purposely failing mission(for get which ac it was but there was a mission where you're supposed to guard a transport but you can destroy it and steal the part you was suppose to be protecting 😆
On the note of buying Armored Core games, Even just buying and jailbreaking an old console is cheaper than buying 1 copy of an Armored Core game currently. In fact that's what I did.
Don't kill me just a thoughts, Would BR be a dope mode to bring to AC? Or something like big team battles.
AC 4 for answer is hands down the best AC game
So Cowboy forgot that we could find and pick up gear in the gen 1-3 and VD? Scavenging could definitely be a thing in this game.
AC6 I'm going for high speed with machine guns on each had.
Naaaah man....Ravens were the vibe! I like AC4 ACFA style AC. I would like to see high mobility AC's in AC6. The hulky ACs of 5 and VD did not do it for me.
Would it be more Monster Hunter or God Eater?
Daemon x Machina is fuckin Armored Core more arcady and on speed. Geez that game is fast as fuck XD
Not nearly as fast, and you're missing a LOT of features even in the gameplay end with back and shoulder weapons. Also, jumping and maneuvering around is a pain compared to AC4. It's so different. DxM is what AC would be if AC had a stroke and then was shot in both kneecaps.
@@davekaye5483 I've played All AC and DxM. Nope, DxM is faster in high level play. Just watch Top Japanese players, precise turbo spamming the boost and blink. They can kill you just by using blink and dual blades. AC4A is fast, but not as fast as DxM. True it lacks some mechanics, because DxM was made by the guys who made Dark Souls 2 and Armored Core 5/Vday.