Armored Core Nexus Changed Everything... Literally.
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- Опубликовано: 3 сен 2023
- Ever since Armored Core 2, FromSoftware have seemingly not known what direction to take the Armored Core franchise in. They had this perfect formula going for a while there with an equal emphasis on the story campaign and the Arena. Then with Another Age they abandoned that to make a 100 mission expansion, completely foregoing the Arena. Then, with Armored Core 3, they went back to having an equal emphasis on both components. Only to undo that with Silent Line, keeping the Arena in the game this time, but placing a much heavier emphasis on the campaign than it. So when making their newest entry, Armored Core Nexus, how did they decide to structure the game, and how did it work out? Well, let’s talk about it.
Full Armored Core Series: • A First Timer's Journe...
Armored Core: Nexus is a 2004 third-person shooter mecha video game developed by FromSoftware for the PlayStation 2. It is the eighth entry in the Armored Core series and a sequel to 2003's Silent Line: Armored Core. Unlike Silent Line, Nexus is not an expansion but rather a full-fledged sequel.
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Игры
Fun Fact: The Machine called “Nine-Ball” is named “UNKNOWN” in the Japanese Release.
That and it's also revealed just what that unknown machine is later...
....A Prototype Pulverizer, only code-named Nine-Ball
Yeah but it is Nineball, or at least gen 3's iteration of it
It's got his colours, it's got his loadout, it's a superpowered AI
There's no coincidence.
@@linkkicksuNot to mention the obvious references to "9" in "Red Butterfly", the boss' theme.
@@linkkicksu The real Nine-Ball from Armoured Core: Nine Breaker would like a word.
@@Drakrylos we do not speak of that... thing...
so nexus came out when CRT was still a thing, and when viewed on a CRT the blur doesn't look like blur. it instead softens a lot of the image, hiding some of the goofy edges of ps2 graphics and giving the whole environment a more worn-in feel.
Was gonna say the same thing. At original resolution, and on a CRT, it just makes everything look kinda stonewashed.
When it comes to Nexus' story...
Missions you don't take are taken up by other Ravens. Just as well, one story path means that your personal story matters more than the predestined events.
When I fought Agraya, I had lost a previous mission to her. Payback was coming.
When I took a mission to kill another Raven in the middle of a lake, I was shot down by the employer. They would pay for all the water damage they did to Blue Talon.
When I received an email from Pin Fire about him getting revenge on me in the arena, I ignored him. Ambush me in the field moron.
When I went to handle the [REDACTED], I was shoved off the edge and landed on the side of the building. I would return in Last Raven, siding with Vertex. Something Genobee said during his final fight with me stuck with my Raven. Did the corporations really deserve to run the world after *that?*
The overheat mechanics forced everyone to work around that issue. Thankfully that became less of an issue in Last Raven.
The funny thing about Nexus's story is that, without the context of Last Raven, it's bizzare and disappointing. But as a prologue _to_ Last Raven, it's amazing. It establishes the world before Nexus's ending and what 'normal' was, how the world went out of balance and plays to a theme of your actions not mattering, in part because of how many Ravens are out there. Edit: The sheer bleakness of the ending, combined with the question of 'Were you sent in to _cause_ the disaster?' was haunting and unsettling.
The ending to Nexus was WILD because I had basically spent dozens of hours dicking around in giant military hardware and then suddenly it was the fucking Gotterdammerung and the world was ending. No other game I've ever played went from "zero emotional investment" to "I'm not crying, my eyeballs are just sweaty" with the speed and alacrity of Nexus.
Other negative changes Nexus added:
-Universally smaller FCS boxes
-MUCH stricter leg weight loads for anything but heavy/tank legs
-Massive emphasis placed on balancing specific booster and radiator combinations to reduce the video's aforementioned heat mechanics)
-ECM interference on your FCS in a very large number of missions
-Selling parts after using them on a mission reduces their value (with attempted offset with the increased mission rewards, but further hindered by part configuring - usually weight reduction)
-Having the player standing around in opening cutscenes during missions while enemies invade and surround them
-Took away the ability to have Intensify OP / Human Plus, but ensured that virtually every NPC AC utilized these perks with none of your drawbacks
Nexus may have brought in a multitude of parts, but the reduced number of viable builds due to the added constraints really took the fun out of that aspect for me. Nexus is one of the few AC games that I personally do not enjoy revisiting.
The FCS change was probably a good a thing now that you can aim with the stick.
Yeah the AC balance nazis were VERY vocal on Agetec forums back then. They actually WANTED all of this bullshit nerfing for 'muh balance' in VS modes!?! Companies ALWAYS listen to the WRONG audience.... nothing's changed with companies bowing to vocal twatter commies, these days 🤷♂️
@@seb24789No doubt, yeah. It also likely was taken with additional consideration to the game's slightly slower speed.
Unfortunately, it was a bit too strict and really pidgeonholed the old guard into a new control scheme that wasn't really comfortable for some of us. That From Software went back to giving AI ACs several gameplay advantages over the player (similar to how they used to have unlimited ammunition in the PS1 era) and other complications, 20-year-old me at the time got fed up and never finished it.
I went back and revisited the game before AC6 this year and applied a couple of decades of AC-related experience (particularly from recent playthroughs of Daemon x Machina) to completely reconfigure the controller and build a lighter mid-weight AC with double Finger machine guns, missiles and rockets to maximize my action economy and muscle my way through most challenges. I actually started on the bonus disc before running the campaign, to carry parts forward through the 3.5 gen trilogy, so I was pretty advantaged in the main story once I began in earnest.
All this aside, I still don't particularly like Nexus. It feels off-balance to me, and particularly cruel instead of merely punishing as many other From Software games are designed. I think this was probably due to time constraints from how AC games had an annual release schedule at the time with the series.
There a reason why Nexus is often considered the black sheep for 3rd gen. Ninebreaker effectively had to be made to fix all of the issues with Nexus and even then, the removal of OP-I alone still makes the second half of 3rd gen less fun as you're now against AI who effectively are cheating.
Actually FCS boxes and heat mechanics gives much more builds: different FCS works on different weapon lock type, high calorific value & EN output generator works on low heat high EN drain booster, but low calorific value & EN output with generator also works on low EN drain but high heat booster.
Unlike the previous gen it's literally only one FCS & generator we will use
Even with the many flaws of Nexus, that ending still gave me chills...
Edit: It was also the first game that made me truly appreciate the music and sound design. Anyway, see you in Last Raven and good luck!
What about nine breaker and formula front?
The ending is so dumb to me. It's like fighting hail.
"we must stand and fight"
Must we? And who's this 'we', where the hell are you? This is stupid. I feel like I'm attacking rain. Why don't we just run or go inside or underground? To me, my nexus ending, is me saying F this, jumping off of Bayload City, then gently landing & racing away with my Hoverlegs. And I continue my adventure on Disk2 or Ninebreaker. Then Last Raven, all 3 with the same save file.
And if you actually jump off, it's considered a mission failure, and you have to do the final mission again. And I've been fast enough to dodge those things for over a minute before it fades to black.
What a sh!tshow.
@@observingrogue7652I'm genuinely so sad for you, not in a mocking way, but the fact that you couldn't fully enjoy the game like I did
@@nakuroyuki
I still enjoy the game. Even setting up challenges, like perma-death runs, forced builds, and only using parts from one corporation. But it's just so frustrating the stupid decisions the devs made with this game.
Not just the dumb ending, but all the unfair limits put on the player, for no good reason. All this money I earned, and there's no way to obtain Human+ or OP INTENSIFY, when many opponents clearly have it.
It's like the devs did everything they could to kill fun in this game. Love being highly mobile? Well have obnoxious overheating problems, you can only use missiles & rockets on your back, because any other back weapons immobilize you to use, missiles are borderline useless to use on another AC because of all the AC counters to them, missiles don't behave like rockets without a lock on, so you can't just be a missile build, you need something else to break certain things you can't lock onto, and the rockets your back is left with are even harder to aim, because instead of crosshairs, it's some stupid horizon animation thing.
Exceed Orbit drones are frustrating to use, even worse to rely on, because they either try to hit something that's blocked by an obstacle, or they target enemies that are behind the thing directly in front of you, that's killing you.
To nearly every build not a tank, Overboost is useless, because of all the heat & energy problems it causes.
Want to dual wield weapons in your hands? Have have your aiming window shrunk, your lockon range reduced, and your left arm always delayed because it's at your side, not pointing where you're looking like the right arm.
Disk1 of Nexus doesn't tell you how to unlock all missions, leaving you wondering if they game is glitching out, when multiple playthroughs & choices, still don't unlock every mission.
Disk2 of Nexus doesn't tell you what you're doing wrong, so you have to do missions over & over again for an S-rank, because some are time based, only S-ranked with energy weapons, or some other hidden factor, again making you think the game is broken.
I've had times, trying everything I could to S-rank some missions, then after hours of trying, I just reset the PS2, did the exact same things, and got an S.
There's a great game here, but it's like the Devs did everything they could get away with, to screw with the player.
Through all may playthroughs & challenges. I ask myself:
What where they thinking?
What the F is their problem?
Why is it like this?
What am I doing wrong?
Why can't I do that?
I feel like some of the Devs or their director needs to get knocked the F out, or justify these programming decisions.
I can't tell you how many perma-death runs were ruined, because of the BS in this game.
Other then that one Crest mission, where you have to get destroyed on purpose after 3 minutes, just to unlock a mirrored pistol, (and F them for that). You try 100 percenting Nexus, Disk1 & 2, without your AP ever reaching 0000.
Even worse on top of that.
Only use Mirage parts, then only Crest.
I'm doing an evil play through challenge right now, being loyal to Mirage, even though they are entitled A55h0les for trying to rob Nexus. I still haven't been able to 100% Nexus with Mirage only parts, and continue this adventure by bringing this loyalty save file to Ninebreaker and then finally Last Raven, because stupid things about Nexus keeps killing me, forcing me to start this challenge all over again.
The stupid & unfair limits Nexus puts on the player.
And another part of the challenge, is not modifying the Loyalty AC for a specific mission on Disk1. Like you're building the best possible for whatever happens, which leads to disadvantages in certain situations, amplified by the other Nexus BS I mentioned earlier.
Somehow, I'm still having fun surviving & restarting this challenge, but the senseless base problems of the game are so frustrating. It's like trying to engineer around problems, that you know shouldn't exist in the first place.
The game would be SO much better, if the overheating & reduced-output weren't so ridiculous, and we can just buy Human+ abilities.
What the hell were they thinking? And seeing Let'sPlays of the games before Nexus, just confuses me farther.
@@observingrogue7652 This was written from pain. Recognizable, pure, suffering. I am sorry that you subjected yourself to the most awful AC game.
Reading this makes me wanna do 2 things:
1. Skip the AC Nexus games.
2. Give you my condolences.
IIRC the heat generation on boost is actually a balancing mechanic between Booster and generator, it's based off the generators "Califoric value" and the Boosters "booster heat"
Basically, if you want to use a booster with high heat, you need a generator with a correspondingly low califoric value to not burn yourself to a crisp, or you can invest in high cooling parts/radiators to help balance things out.
Alternatively you could use the radiator with the least punishment for overheating and just ignore it.
This is actually important for the entire 3.5 gen, getting the right balance between radiator, generator, and booster for what you are trying to do helps a lot.
tbh I love heat mechanics in this gen, it gives you so many different builds compare to old gen it always only one generator to use
I'm surprised you didn't cover the Revolution disc. It's one of the best parts of Nexus, getting to see some ps1 enemies remastered for the ps2. Plus, being able to unlock the parts for AC Vixen, Stinger's AC from Project Phantasma, is cool, even if most of the parts aren't that good.
Pretty sure the left-hand lag was a conscious balancing decision. With it, you have to either anticipate getting a lock-on on an enemy AC or hold it long enough to overcome the lag. And even with this, duel-trigger builds completely dominate sword builds.
not sure if you're aware but the game also has a second disc that added remade content from the ps1 era of AC with unlockable parts and even extra missions like taking up jobs from the opposing side of an old mission.
Where did you hear that at?
@@jamescaulfield6632look up Armored core nexus revolution
@@jamescaulfield6632it’s because that’s how the game released, came with 2 discs
@@JLLullaby So where did they put the other disc Because my copy didn't come with 2 disks.
@@JLLullaby I'm sorry you met the original I was thinking of armor core six
I love the heat mechanic in Nexus, it forces you to actually care about what internal parts you use instead of just choosing the highest output gen and boosters.
The computer voice of your machine is based on your head part. A craptacular computer will have a super low detail and blown out voice (which was show in your clip). I think crest parts have a female voice, and mirage ones will have a male one, iirc. The good computers will sometimes give extra information on enemy ACs in fights.
Nexus is rough but the controls, music, and ending made it enjoyable enough for me.
The left hand delay is intentional, meant to be a balance for it. There are arm stats that can make it faster.
I remember the heating system change being the main reason I was never able to bring myself to finish Nexus. But after hearing your overview of it, perhaps it was all the other weird changes as well...
Isn't this the AC game that removed OP-INTENSIFY? That was already a watered-down, Human+ system and now it too was removed..... with NOTHING to replace it 👎
@@TexasHollowEarth This game is easy enough to beat without H+, and as for booster heat there's one booster that completely negate the mechanic because it has very low boost heat.
@@cnhnxdon't forget that your generator's calorific value also contributes to heat. Looking at you Kongoh
@cnhnx - ... it's not about "needing" either for campaign missions. It's about having one for Arena and Vs modes. Also, OVERWEIGHT is sorely lacking, post-AC2:AA. It was the ultimate unlockable for AC1 and 2.... no penalty overweight mechs for ultimate builds. The older games in the series are the most enjoyable AND rewarding + have excellent long-term appeal 👍👍
The heat mechanic works out great and prevents builds that abuse boost power and energy regen, making all of your parts needing to be taken into consideration with your builds. The biggest factor to keep on eye on is your generator's calorific value, if the value is high it will contribute a considerable amount of heat to your system and the inverse is also true.
and the Revolution Disk? ye tried that yet?
The Revolution Disk is pretty much a free-mission bonanza which has you playing missions based on 1st gen Armored Core games. and yes, there's even the huge MT from "Mop up Chrome Remnants" that can be fought.
It's really the only way to get some parts, such as the Linear Rifle and the parts for AC Vixen.
Nexus is definitely another real mixed bag. I put it at about the same level as Another Age. It has some really fun missions, and some really weird ones. And even if its a bit awkward, at least it has an arena. Just like Another Age, I like how this one feels like you're just a mercenary. No major save the world events or anything. Just corporations being greedy and fighting each other. At least until the very end.
I feel like the control change is one of the few actual improvements they made. But when combined with all the other negative changes they made, its kind of hard to say it was worth it. Heavy momentum, booster heat, super harsh energy management, nearly impossible to overcome ECM, a tiny lock box that gets smaller when you dual wield, the bizarre save system, not being able to sell used parts for full price, weapon reloading and shrunken ammo pools. At least the motion blur is easy to fix with emulation.
All of those changes make close combat way harder to do than it should be. Its so hard to actually get close, and even once you do, its hard to actually stay locked on. I found sniping is the far more effective strategy throughout most of Nexus.
My two favorite parts of the game are the soundtrack, which is a strong contender for the absolute best of the series. And the Revolution disk, where they remade and expanded several missions from the PS1 games. Its fun seeing how they work differently with the more advanced gameplay. And you can even get a few parts that are remade from the old games. Like the Redeye head, and Stinger's custom AC, Vixen.
I have also heard that Nexus actually has a ton of variation to its missions, depending on what other ones you have done. different enemies will show up, and things like that. But I have never actually been able to confirm any of it myself.
I played through all three Gen 3.5 games right before AC6 came out. And I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed Nexus the most. Even with its all gameplay flaws, I like its campaign, and the Revolution disk, better than Nine Breaker's weird training exercises, and Last Raven's repetitive and unfair campaign. But even the worst AC games are better than most other games.
Nah bro.... Another Age + Project Phantasma are my favorite Link VS AC games. They have the best selection of vs maps + the good parts weren't nerfed into the earth.
Don't worry about the heat too much. It was brought back down to reasonable levels in the next Gen3.5 games, and then it's completely absent from all games past that, all the way to AC6.
But yeah the Heat system in Nexus is the most universally disliked change to the franchise in it's entire existence. Also the nerfing of rapid fire weapons to fire in bursts, and the subsequent loss of accuracy they suffered.
Haha, does AC5 even have proper boosting? I recall having to hop up buildings to gain verticality.... it was a bad joke of an AC sequel.
I just binged all your previous AC vids before work, and you go and release a fresh one in the middle of my shift.
Good work man, keep it up.
Criminally undersubscribed.
Im surprised you didnt mention the evolution/revolution disk swapping gimmick, with how discombobulated the changed made you, the other disk would have been a nice change of pace lol
I didn't play any of it myself, but I did have a little snippet about it that got cut just because this one got so long 😅
I might have to dig this up and try again. The sluggishness and heat problems early on killed it for me way back when.
Also: I think the head unit you use determines the voice and quality you hear when a dialogue goes on. Not 100 percent sure but I remember the head determines something like that.
Been loving your videos on the series! Keep it up!
The audio issue is due to head quality. "rough" heads have bad computer audio.
Ah that makes sense 😅
I really thought they had just blown out the audio by accident 😂
Loving these videos!
Armored Core was such a gem of a series and I'm glad it's back.
Finally!! Nexus content!! xD
Excited to see Chole to experience Last Raven next.
Dude! I have been watching this whole series and it’s been fantastic, never played any of the old ones but I’m loving AC6! This series is giving me all of the context I was missing, and you do a terrific job describing your journey through the game! I hope you keep at the series! And I’m sure your channel will gain some traction, I just subscribed!
Man these videos are a trip. I remember buying I think they were playstation monthly magazines for the AC build tournaments in the back, those blew my mind as a kid
You need to go back and play these after a playthrough. Some of the best fights/missions are after you've beaten the game!
AC2 and AC2AA have hardest arena and Nine-Ball Seraph return!
Edit: please make 1 more video after you finish the series where you go back to these games to see the unlocked missions/arena battles.
Also the story for Nexus pays off when you play Last Raven.
Last Raven refines some of the ideas here. It has several routes with different endings and different missions. Time passes and the game makes a big point to point it out. Nexus was honestly one of my least favorites to play through, it's not terrible though, I'll admit. The way heat is handled in Nexus drove me insane.
So Nexus is basically AC hardcore mode. It was really a setup for Last Raven.
You are not important there are many Ravens, your actions are meaningless. You will die from overhwelming firepower eventually.
Nexus is the reality of a Ravens life.
Which it delivered on and drove home in a painful way. The Last Raven though is about hope in the bleak world. Taken together they really make a good story arc.
Great reviews, gained a sub. Hope your channel takes off.
Some Story context on the last mission:
the Facility we are sent ot disable gets its Name on the next game, Last Raven and its a pretty important location.
This facility is Called the "Internecine" and its Supposedly not t odifferent from the previous AI based antagonists tho in this case because of the Nature of what we do in this mission the facility wakes up...and it proceeds ot freak out as it realizes it has been intruded into and proceeds ot respond the only way it knows how: Deploying all available weapons, whihc in this case was starting up the production plants of the unmaned suicide Drones and starting up the Pulverizer protocol.
the boss we face in this misison is effectively a prototype version of a Pulverizer which is also why it look more "MT- Like" and its almost assured the data is acquires from this fight went on to be used ot generate the 1st Batch of Pulverizer Units that were used in Last Raven.
Re: blur - not only is there that filter, but somewhere in the 3rd gen the internal rendering resolution changed and while there are more pixels, the ratio to native isn't clean so it makes the picture look... rough.
nexus kinda sounds like a good example of whats at the nexus of modern gaming. like they finally give you the controlls you want but they will make the game frustrating and unfun too. like. why is it gotta be like that?
Ya, Nexus was an odd one. From it's better cinematics to having a second disk with 'remastered' missions. It felt like FromSoftware put it out, with just whatever elements and assets they had that year or wanted to give a go.
Perhaps it could of used stronger direction, but you realy do get the feel the team learned alot to the deliver the excellent Last Raven, so soon after Nexuses release. 👍
I thought the implication with Nineball was that the reboot starting with AC3 wasn't actually a reboot, but a sequel to gens 1&2, in which humanity was forced underground a second time. I could be wrong, but I thought it was a Planet of the Apes ending where we were living in the aftermath of the first timeline all along.
It was Agetec making things up for the localization. The Nineball connection was far less explicit in the original, with the machine's name just being a set of question marks. Though there is no question it was an homage to the old ones, it wasn't intended to be our good friend/source of trauma. Not explicitly, anyways.
Ultimately I think the reason they did it is that displaying a name as "????" is a thing that the US market would accept TODAY, but it would look very wrong to most american players at the time(and likely be written off as a glitch that wasn't caught). And since Agetec recognized the reference, they decided to make the reference explicit.
@@CptJistuce I mean, how explicit did they have to be? The blown up computer core of seven hexagons would have been immediately recognizable to the player. The in-universe character wouldn't have recognized Nineball, so labeling it ???? is just dramatic irony. I don't buy that audiences back then would think it a glitch. I speak as someone who was alive back then.
@@jackspade5316 I agree with your view, but I also think the people running things at Agetec genuinely had such an inaccurate view of the customer base they still did this thinking what CptJistuce posited.
Love this series man, gj on getting through the OGs!
For me AC was always about the missions while the Arena was a nice bonus, it's interesting that the arena is so important for you. I also don't think the analog controls are such a big deal because ultimately with a quick remap aiming with the cross in the previous games and moving/strafing with face buttons worked just fine for me. But yes it is nice.
16:57 bro seriously though, there was an ingame remap function since AC1.
I'm pretty sure the blur effect is an emulator bug. It's typical PCSX2 stuff.
Damn, I should've mentioned it in the video, but the blur was also there when I booted the game up on actual hardware to check some things, just less noticeable on there because of the lower resolution. Can't believe I forgot to write that in 😅
@@notcolethe blur was designed for smoothing out choppiness and was tuned for the game being played on a CRT screen.
A lot of people say it looks better on those, but I hated it even then, personally.
I am surprised you didn't talk about the 2nd Disc at all. It seems like you skipped a solid half of the game. I would have liked to have seen your thoughts on when they have you play on the opposite side of the remastered mission. They provide a lot of story context to the old games, even if you're just repeating old missions for the most part.
I really hated that the only story development from Silent Line was we got a new corp from the new Layered we discovered. Only for that corp to not really matter much, struggle, and then collapse. It was extremely disappointing considering all the mystery and effort put into Silent Line. Navis just got shafted so hard.
I also hated the briefings. They're so bare bones.
The blown out voices depend on your head part. The more technologically advanced heads tend to sound better. The gender of the computer voice also is determined by the corp that made your head.
Also, welcome to the lame ass over heat mechanic being made the ENTIRE meta of AC combat. I hope you grow to like it, because there's a rough equivalent called Stagger which exists in AC6, and it also is the ENTIRE meta of the game. Get hit too many times and you just stop getting to move and take crazy damage. It's.. awful.
But hey, the music in Nexus is amazing.
On the bright side, all of the named characters who didn't die off due to you killing them or your nosy ass starting the second apocalypse all get much more personality in Last Raven.
6:50 other Ravens are doing the missions I think Genobee mostly. As he shows up to clean messes and do missions that you don't.
You patched out the blur filter... and RUclips comprehension patched it back in lol
I am surprised you didnt use triangle for left hand weapon & circle for weapon changing in previous gen, so basically with one thumb you can cover everything
I've disagreed with all your scores so far, but this is the first I go in the opposite direction. 7.3 is generous for this game, it is a solid 6 to 6.5. The overheat mechanic here is ruined, in 3 and silent line it directed the tempo of combat. You close to overheating? Back off and cool down. Your opponent is close to overheating? Keep the pressure on, but in that pursuit, you might overextend. Adding a radiator meant you had to balance your weight and power with your endurance. The way they gutted the boost in this game is what get it the lower score for me. In gen 2 and 3, mastering the controls meant you understood boosting to never fall into a hard stop. If you were boosting on the floor, and were close to run out of energy, you would double tap the X, fly a little, but then cut the boost, so that you would continue walking instead of getting staggered in the landing animation. Having the boost be part of the overheat mechanic meant that movement was limited, and was more grounded.
As for the controls, the dual stick is ok, but having grown with the clasic Resident Evils and the like, tank controls were not as horrible as people make them out to be. This was the first AC in the franchise I decided to go with a heavy mech instead of my usual light builds.
kind of excited to see what you think about Last Raven
that news thing is kinda interesting tho. it kinda peeks at reality because something could happen one way, but by the time it ends up on the news it seems like something else happened entirely. i agree you should have impact, but its kinda genius to see them report the news how "they" want regardless of what you did, going so far as to even give credit to other ravens for what you did, or outright lie about it happening at all. or maybe im looking too deep lol
Cant wait to see you play Last Raven
Nexus was my first ac game and I will always love it
Have you noticed the main story pattern yet?
Honestly after 2 you just start to assume there’s some blatant or hidden AI overlord you have to take out at the end. It makes the ones where there isn’t an AI to kill at the end the more surprising entries.
The look of the map/menu screen makes me think that the game displays those parts in a "high-res" 480i mode, which would explain the 30FPS cap. They traded fluidity for detail.
I may be mistaken, but that's what it looks like.
So good 2006 I needed this last raven got me through that year.
Been catching up on these videos since the LR one. I feel like Nexus' whole point is to pit the ideas of individual strength vs individual meaninglessness against each other. Even if you don't do some mission, some other Raven does it, even if you fail or succeed, it doesn't necessarily affect anything, you're barely treated as important enough to know what's going on beyond general news, even when you become one of the strongest Ravens out there.
Genobee is the most interesting part of the story here since he just straight up tells you that neither of you matter and that even if you win, you'll end up falling sooner or later when the people at the top decide to do something really stupid, which happens. But you still try to fight until the end. I'm still not sure whether Genobee is right or not, or who was the actual victor even when the player kills him and even when the player dies at the end like Genobee correctly foresaw.
On my second playthrough at the end of the final mission I knew it doesn't matter whether I shoot at the drones or try to avoid them or not. But I still went at them as well as I could. That's the power of Nexus, despite all of the questionable decisions in gameplay and presentation.
While I had some experience here and there with previous games. This was my true introduction into the franchise and cemented my love of it. It's not perfect by any means now that I've experienced more of the franchise. But it holds a special place in my heart. Plus, it set the stage for Last Raven, which is, in my opinion, one of the best games in the franchise to this day.
9:30 fun fact: each head has a ai assistant voice. You can check the part to see what kinda voice you'll get. The fancier and more advanced heads have nicer coms/bootup/warning cues etc...
10:49 The cooler system is one of the greatest add ons to the system. In terms of pvp you can find ways to intentionally overheat someone and shoot the sitting duck while their generator bleeds them dry. From what i can tell your messing up by using a generator with too high cooler condensation combined with too weak of a cooler and too hot of a booster. Your build is the real problem here.
AC Nexus, also known as "It's gonna get a little warm here"
I remember playing it for the first time and I first bought a new booster and burned myself to death that mission with the storms and the helicopters.
Also, what's strange about fromsoft is that they did this game structure thrice. First was Another Age, then Nexus, then V. Like they didn't learn anything from the last two times?
Option parts combined with parts optimized for cooling, a strong radiator and optized generator, or leg parts built for fast walking speeds mitigate overheating.
There’s multiple ways to configure your setup to offset challenges. The game gives you the challenges, then gives you the tools to overcome them. This is why old ravens like me see the AC series as the rough blueprint for souls and souls-like games.
Seriously, for the longest time an optimal early-mid game strategy was to invest in the fastest legs and the strongest energy weapons you could carry, then dance around enemies in the arena or on missions, laughing at them as you remain untouchable without boosting.
@@thechad7643 Yeah, i got around to the whole Overheating eventually. I finished the game minus a couple of mission branches and i never realized tuning was introduced in Nexus (thought it was a LR thing)
@@thechad7643 or just use the ANANDA radiator.... -_-
For me, the appeal of armored core is playing a mercenary and configuring your AC in all kinds of ways. Nexus and Last Raven had amazing customization and parts that I loved, I loved the 2nd disk with prior missions updated for the new engine, and I just loved the overall look of the game. It was dirtier and edgier where AC2 and AC3 tried to look cleaner and more high tech. So it and Last Raven are my favourite entries.
Though I did miss the music from AC3
Oh, and with option parts and the right build you can mitigate overheating to the point it’s a non-factor.
I refer to Armored Core Nexus and Armored Core Last Raven as gen 3.5. I refer to Ninebreaker as a waste of money.
The left hand lag never gets resolved.
Where did you find patches for removing the filters?
I found them for Last Raven, but I cannot find them for Nexus
AC Nexus is inherently a tragedy. Branches of the plot cannot change the ending. Players are not saviors. Even Zinovy, who is number one, is hard to turn the tide. It will have to wait until the sequel ACLR to have a turnaround
Indeed, it's intended to be a tragedy and Genobee points it out, that you have people making the same foolish decisions in pursuit of power as presumably caused the great destruction leading to Layered in the first place, again. But without Last Raven to follow it up, it's just a shoot the dog ending. So it's a good thing Last Raven is there. (Sorry Ninebreaker, but your just not that important here.)
I’m Curious as to what you thought of disk two for nexus
Dude, there`s a timeline for the series, it makes all sense that 9ball is there
Oh boi, had to rebuild my AC when I figured that boosters are now killing me by heat it generates. Straight Mechwarrior experience tbh, but I didn't expect this in AC.
Took a while to get used to sticks control, but heeeey, it turned out to be fun.
Missions were fun too, despite maps being reused, like, almost every time, and absurd amount of enemies with damn grenade launchers.
But wait, why didn't you mention the Revolution disc?
They did kinda shoot the moon with the overheating in Nexus. It was one of those good concept/bad execution ideas that got balanced out when frame cooling stats were made to actually matter in a significant way in Last Raven (Or Ninebreaker, but I skipped that one 'cause if I was gonna spend that much time in the Arena I'd rather do it in multiplayer than against bots).
9 Ball: I live forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
personally for me Nexus was basically a "bridging" or Nexus as you will gap due to how IT WAS DEVELOPED... its primarily a game that aims to "re-imagine" Gen 1 AC games in the mechanics of AC3.... which has its downsides and merits we already know by AC3 the ACs are "faster" and then they reeled that back in with the overheat mechanic because guess what AC1 DIDNT HAVE IT... and I'm like WHAT?! sadly it wont be fixed until Ninebreaker or Last Raven.
thankfully they arent sadistic enough to put "Destroy floating mines" in Nexus Revolution
You gotta go back and talk about Nexus 2nd disc, Revolution.
There's ways of getting around the overheating almost completely, but as a result your build variety is limited. I'm glad in LR they tweaked it a bit so it's not as annoying.
IM OBSESSED BY HOW AMAZING A DEEP THESE GAMES ARE. 7.5.
Wow i didnt realize that Halo: Reach literally just stole the ending from this game
FROM.... the name of a company that CREATES. MS just buys, steals, and bootlegs people's hard work + they're woke 🤡s.... pronouns in Starfield, which DOESN'T even have actual aliens to be confused about that sorta shit in the 1st place 🤷♂️
Last 1 and 1 of the hardest if not the hardest AC game Last Raven
I feel positive that one of the gen 3 games had analog as an option.
I like Nexus for that world exploration theme song. That’s all.
Did you ever do the disc 2 version of Armored Core Nexus?
Fun Fact 9 ball is only in the english version due to a dub change
Can you share the patch you used? I'm trying to run nexus, but yeah, the blur is awful
Does Nexus have an option to go back to the tank controls?
Can I please have a link to the patch and the setting of the emulator to have game not being so horribly blurry and dark?
I been tinkering for 3 hours straight and it still look no where as good as the video shows.
I actually found out earlier this week that PCSX2 has the patch natively available in the emulator if you go to the game's properties and check the patches tab (wish I knew about this 4 videos ago 😅)
Other than that, some things that made big differences for me were setting Bilinear Filtering to Bilinear (Sharp), turning off Dithering entirely, and setting Blending Accuracy to High :)
@@notcole thanks so much for the response. I also been playing through the entire armored core series as well and I love seeing your thoughts after I beaten the game. The nexus is the first game where I encounter major graphical bugs.
He didn't touch upon "Fine tuning". The de facto new mechanic of nexus. The reason why the heat system was overhaul and why you get paid so much, because "fine tuning". The reason why overheating didn't land well was because fine tuning was so good that overheating became a background mechanic, irrelevant and it was also too much of a knowledge check that some players didn't bothered to learn, is easy really.
I hope he didn't beat the game without knowing "fine tuning" existed. Is a franchise staple after nexus.
I uh.... I definitely knew that was a thing.... yeah 😅
So in ac6 you have a meter that works like stagger, I think it’s called acs? But it reminds me a bit of overheat, and I think it could have been interesting if it was overheat and instead of it letting you do a ton of damage when the meter is full I think it would have been more interesting if it simply caused a stall out, and damage rates were flat. I don’t think you’ve played ac6 yet? But it’s an interesting mechanic to play around, I just think it could have felt more like armored core if they had it work closer to overheat.
the "stagger" meter is joked to be PA (Primal Armor not Pulse Armor) with extra steps
I wonder why the not make machine gun full auto in nexus, is it because overpower or something?
AC Nexus was a product of it's time, sadly a lot of people got a picture of what armored core should be from Nexus.
I have no idea how I've never heard of armored core before VI, but I' a super fan now. These games are amazing.. So ahead of their time and fuuuun af
11:05 "Does the overheat mechanic really belong in these games?"
No. That's why they took it out of the latest entries.
Compare Armored Core with MechWarrior. In MechWarrior, your "assault tempo" is limited by your heat gauge. Weapons generate heat, and if you don't control how much heat you build up, it shuts you down, or if you're hardcore, it outright kills you. AC already has a "soft" version of this system with the generator capacity, as your "assault tempo" in the AC games is largely limited by your energy gauge. Use your whole energy gauge and it causes a "light" shutdown where half of your shit doesn't work. Having an additional heat gauge on top of this is redundant.
Functionally, heat acts as a status effect. Miyazaki worked on Nexus, (iirc, it was his first game with the company,) so for fun we can chalk it up to being the "poison swamp" of Armored Core. Practically speaking, it's irrelevant, just like poison damage is in Dark Souls 3. Just slap the heaviest radiator on every single build and treat it like a necessary sunk cost. It essentially obviates heat management in the game because you'll basically never overheat.
There's a reason why it was removed from later games; it's not even realistically meaningful by the time of Nexus.
Nexus may have some glaring flaws and it definitely was annoying for the first playthrough of it but it actually ended up being probably the second most replayed armored game for me, or maybe it is (been a a good while since I had a phase of just playing a bunch of the AC games on the PS2). I think I did at least get kinda invested into what was going on with the corporations unlike Another Age's corporate war. Poor Navis just getting bullied by Mirage, eventually Crest, and Kisaragi just leaving them. Also the missions were nice when you do get to replay them after failing some of them in the first run lol
I do also absolutely hate the new heat system in this game when I first tried this and the save system in this game with my understanding of it is that you can't quit and reload a save if you fail a mission unless you fully quit out of the game before attempting the mission. I don't thing I wll beat this one along with Last Raven, and Ninebreaker. Lastly, 6 is the best in the series so far.
I read the tittle and just came to say "yes"
was it really that they didnt know what they wanted to do or more that there were limitations to how much they could put in one game back then
Nexus got some god damn bangers though god I love the soundtrack
You didn't even play the bonus disc man that's where most of the effort of this game went
where can i buy this games?
Armored Core Nexus' changes and difficulty caused me to sell my collection. It killed my interest in the series for years.
I really hated that the Human+/OP-Intensify was removed, and the bonuses that entails.
The 2 most important bonuses from those are #1 allowing you to fire Cannon-type weapons without stopping and deploying them, and #2 half boosting drain.
Without the no-stop cannons your back weapons are exceptionally limited to either Missiles which can be stopped numerous ways, or rockets that require manual time-consuming aim. If you want Cannons you have to use Tank Legs which are not the most agile. Without the boosting improvement youre very limited in combat. Any fights against enemy Cores were nightmares because they were all hacked AI, while you had to fight the Energy and Heat meters with poor weapons options.
It was a breath of fresh air that in Armored Core 4 Cannon-type weapons do not have those problems by default. You can have good cannons AND still be boosting around.
I actually liked dealing with heat in Nexus. Heat was not there to be your friend. It was there to be your problem. If you didn't like it for its nature of causing you problems, then it was doing its job correctly. If heat wasn't capable of being an inconvenience to you, then there was no point in having it at all. But the heating issues you were subject to your opponents are subject to as well. Equip a machine gun and watch your opponent suffer heat management.
I also find it interesting that you like Armored Core when around 13:25 you say you can't complete every mission in one play-through, or if you fail a mission, when that has been true with every classic Armored Core game. That's Raven life. If you fail a mission you eat the costs and the world moves on without you. Some missions were around for a second try, but I don't recall any of them giving you a third try unless you loaded a save.
Yeah the issue here isn't that retries were limited, like you said, that's just a core part of the franchise. It's that during my entire playthrough there was not a single mission that even offered 2 attempts before clearing off the map immediately. Also not being able to rematch Arena opponents was a let down for me since that's normally where I improve at the game 😅
So this game is generous in terms of money? Sign me in
oh yes, Last Raven next
Skip to for answer next!
I am so glad im not the only one who hates the UI.
I see someone with good narration play armored core.
I sub.
I am a very simple simple man.
Yes.... Armored Core is life. I've been a Raven since 1997 😎👍
I see that you’re a man of culture as well.
😎
I'm just poking my head in here (Haven't finished the video yet!) but if you start Ninebreaker instead of skipping to Last Raven.......... DON'T IMPORT YOUR SAVE!!!!!!! It breaks the game progression, to the point where you start with less parts and 100% is impossible. Classic FromSoftware.
Nexus has the most questionable gameplay but the soundtrack is legendary tier and also DISC 2 is great. Its good if you want to port parts over to Last Raven
Finally, AC.