What a time to have an Armored Core game in our current age where there's an advancement in AI. This is a remix version of Nineball's theme, the main antagonist of Armored Core: master of Arena. Nineball is the mech's name while the pilot's name is Hustler One, who turns out to be a super advanced AI.
Never in my life, that four words would bring so much dread. *_"Target verified, commencing hostilities."_* And that repeating *_"Destroy...Nine-ball..."_* As if Hustler One is taunting The Raven, telling the pilot: _"Destroy me, if you can."_
i like to imagine it’s the pilot having gone even farther than Human Plus to the point where they’re almost completely robotic just so they can finally beat Nineball
𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚍. 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢. -one of the recurring lines used by my team in ACV and VD. If they keep fighting long enough, Ravens eventually reach a point in their lives where they realise they've surpassed Nineball. The question is whether it's skill or H+ though?
Nine -Novem- is yet another incarnation of the theme of the specter that has kind of hung over the franchise for a long time. Nineball, an AI that played god by engineering a world of eternal war for the sake of preserving humanity by locking it in a state of unstable equilibrium. Nineball himself actually dies in a confrontation with a Raven, a Mercenary, whose family died due to Nineball's direct actions which marked the end of Nineball's capacity to protect mankind by trapping it. That lyric "DESTROY NINEBALL" is meant to be the voice in that Raven's head, the madness and resolve consuming him to destroy the wargod that rules the world. The Mechanical nature is foreshadowing that it's heavily implied that the Raven in question would go on to try and become his successor under the name Leos Klein. Figured I'd explain the details because you actually nailed the core of it pretty well.
'9' is a reoccurring song in AC games since 9 Ball made an appearance in AC1. It has a remix for each 9 Ball appearance, and it gets more chaotic with each one considering what you're fighting against: the ultimate A.I. controlled AC built for combat. '9 memories' is my favorite version. What I like most about AC is the gameplay, customization, music (huge +), setting, and feeling of being a total badass mech pilot when playing it. I haven't experienced these feelings in any other mech game I've played to date.
My personally has to go to King of 9, it's not exactly the same feeling, but I just love the thought of Nine-Ball gaining the sentience of it being this supreme thing and that nothing else is needed, the chaotic vocals are also really fitting to this thought.
@@AnatoliasAce3341 bro the old AC emblem was literally a 9 ball, as in a billiard ball. I've always written/thought of it that way. Don't be 'that' guy.
This is the one song that is engrained in all Ravens' DNA. Once we hear it we get shaken to our core. This song gives us a primal fear. This is the theme song of the one and only Nineball Who was the Number 1 ranked Armored Core in the AC1 and Master of Arena. As you play the games you find out that Hustler One, the Pilot of Nineball is actually an A.I. known as the Controller. Basically an A.I. that was built long ago to keep humanity in a perfect balance of "corporate war" and chaos so they don't become too peaceful and leave the underground cities the A.I. controls. Or destroy themselves all together. Anywho Nineball is the Tyrant or Nemesis of the Armored Core Series. He even makes appearances in Armored Core 2: Another Age as a secret final boss. Hinting at the A.I. could still be alive and working behind the scenes. What made Nineball so special and feared is that Fromsoft took the old Gundam phrase, His mech is Red so he's 3x as fast to the next level. Nineball is an fast mech, but when he shoots his weapons they fire 3 times in a quick burst instead of once. He is a tough boss and you even fight two of him at once towards the end.
A bit of extra context, where the "red=3 times faster" meme originates specifically is with a character named Char. In the UC Gundam timeline, the character Char Aznable has all of his personal mobile suits painted red and modified to be 3 times as fast their stock version when there is one. It's always nice to see people acknowledge that the "red= 3 times faster" meme originates with Gundam instead of falsely claiming it originates with Warhammer 40k.
Any raven worth his salt knows and is aware about the menace that is Nine ball. Nine is also a very much recurring number in the series for some reason. Some special meaning to it.
For context, this song is about an AI controlled mech (called NineBall, hence the name) who refuses to die and will chase you relentlessly while chanting "Destroy" endlessly in its theme. Let's just say he's "fun" to fight and is a recurring foe at that so you're not wrong about that malevolence lol Also, this is just my guess but composition wise; I think the pauses they added in this version where the music completely stops for a good 5 to 10 seconds are probably a tie in to the fact Nineball reactivates shortly after being defeated the first time.
This music is a perfect example of WHY I love Gaming OST. You can do music on games that, WOULDN’T work in ANY other media or entertainment! It only works when you’re playing a VIDEO GAME! I’m honestly hyped for the new Armored Core!
"There's something going on here and I'm trying to figure that out storywise" That something is 9-Ball Seraph, controlling a transforming high speed RED custom mech twice your size, carving the backside of your AC to ribbons with repeated dual laser blade strikes while you scream in agony and frustration at your AC and controller because you can't turn fast enough and you are going to die against him for the 20th time or more at this point. There's a reason the top comment on the original version of this song on youtube is "this song triggers my fight or flight response"
That robotic voice is refer to "Nine ball" the final boss of the game. He is your archenemy for an entire game, an unbeatable rank 1 mercenary. Later it is revealed that he is not actually a human, but an AI. He is machine learning, so he reborn over and over again to fights with you, to improve himself. Hence the robotic noise in the song.
Dude as a long time AC Vet, your analysis was SPOT on - And, I'm so happy to see you enjoyed the song, it's got a very special place for the players of the game, and it's truly one of everyone's favorite :) Keep up the great work!
Seeing as Armored Core is the theme at the moment, ‘Someone is Always Moving on the Surface’, and ‘Set the Sunset’; the title theme and the ‘tinker with your mech’ theme of Armored Core For Answer. These two tunes have a lot of overlap between each other but are quite different to the AC stuff you have reacted to so far.
@@MarcoMeatball Gotta second this on Someone is Always Moving on the Surface. It's really one of the most beautiful pieces of music that I've ever heard in general. There's a long extended version that has all of the movements edited together, but it is a full 7 minutes. Totally worth it imo, but I know that might be a bit long for thia format.
For context on this song: 'Nine' is the theme of one of the series' most infamous and well known pilots: Nineball. He is the #1 top ranked pilot in all games he appears in and (Spoiler) its revealed he's actually an AI that's secretly been influencing and controlling humanity from behind the scenes in order to keep us in a state of controlled conflict via the corporations to prevent another apocalypse. He is the final boss of the very first Armored Core and its expansion Master of Arena, and makes an appearance in Armored Core 2: Another Age as a secret boss. His fight in AC2: Another Age is considered one of the hardest fights in any AC game. He is generally well known for being an incredibly tough fight and missions involving him being some of the toughest in the series, especially in his more advanced 'Seraph' form. His theme song probably has the most remixes of any AC song and its incredibly rare for a AC pilot to get their own theme. (Closest that comes to mind is 'Thinker' being the themes of AC4's protagonist, who later becomes the second White Glint and gets another theme titled 'Remember').
Worth noting, White Glint's NEXT design by For Answer uses the 4th gen equivalent parts of Nine Ball's AC. Of course, his Arena Rank is 9. And when encounter Black Glint in Armored Core 5 Verdict Day, it's model number is N-WGIX/v. Doesn't take a genius to see that translates to NEXT White Glint **9**. We've been playing to the same beats and not always even realizing it. Now, with Armored Core 6, I can't help but notice that the core they keep showing off in Nineball's.
2:28 Love how the reaction is something apparently like, 'okay.. where are they going with this break. Oh, funky.' Meanwhile, anyone with a true nostalgia remembers something more like, 'Oh, no. Oh God, no!' Great work, as always. I've checked out your stuff when it crosses my interests like this or the recent 40k stuff. Your perspective for the tone and themes of these pieces are always so spot on.
The song where you talked about a human being deformed; a part of it is from the first armored core game on PS1. In that game: if you lose enough times and go into debt, you become drafted into the "human plus" project. This gives you special piloting abilities that are not normally available and wipes out the debt. When you undergo this procedure there is a cut scene of you going under on an operating table. So you are not far off in that inference.
Ah yes, 9, the theme of everyone's favourite bright red terrifyingly powerful AI controlled (and multidimensional) AC, Nineball. Cool to see another vid on AC music, would be cool if you took a look at spirit of Motherwill
Amazing analysis as always! I've really loved your takes on Armored Core music recently, you always seem to peg some of the most important parts of the music. as for the context, it's a bit weird because this is a remix of a song from the second armored core game, AC: Master of Arena, which happens concurrently with the first game, armored core AC is a notoriously difficult game franchise, and in the first installments, it was planned for you to fail more than once. each time you do, you're given something called "human plus" a set of enhancements that make you better at piloting, stacking each time your credits go down below a critical line. your mech gets faster, stronger, and can eventually break certain limits like firing heavier back mounted weaponry while standing without tipping your several hundred ton war machine over. but the game also gives you a bit of a hint that something's up. the first being that when you get your first H+ enhancement, your name is changed to Rebel followed by a 3 digit number. by the time you get to the late game, you start seeing real issues cropping up. one of the other pilots who was known to have undergone human plus enhancements goes insane during a mission, wantonly attacking anything he sees, and you have to bring him down. his dying words are to warn you about Human Plus. nearly all the top pilots have it, and the only one you're unsure about would be Hustler One, the top pilot. and that's only because basically nothing is known about him. eventually, you're slowly drip fed enough to realize that behind all of this, the two warring corporations, the underground world humanity is mostly trapped in, is a singular central command AI, given the task to guide humanity. your final mission, given by your handler, is to meet her in an otherwise unknown factory. the moment you show up, you see Nine Ball, hustler 1's mech. it turns out a bit easier than you think, so you go deeper, and your handler's voice mergers with the voice of hustler one, openly admitting to creating everything from the warring corporations to the raven's nest, the very mercenary organization you work for. in the next room, you find three more Nine Balls. in reality, this "legendary mech" is a mass produced combat model. eventually, you find an enhanced model. Nine Ball Seraph. the computer has stated in the simultaneous voice of the foe you've been chomping at the bit to defeat and the handler you trusted up to this point that you're too singularly powerful to be allowed to continue to exist. this song is the battle theme for the AI's last ditch effort to stop you. one note i'd say is interesting is your thought that this could be becoming friends with some sort of created being. for many, it wouldn't be possible to defeat this machine without the very enhancements it created.
@@MarcoMeatball Yeah, like they said. While you say this is entirely out of your element, you dissected the piece and its moods and themes nearly exactly on the money. Like that adversarial aspect you describe, like it's revealing a new mech, etc, yeah, 100% correct. Additional context being the original version of this track was for the final boss of the original PSX trilogy, you only heard it once in them, that previously described fight with the Nine Ball Seraph. The original starts with that little piano part, everything before it new to this arrangement (which was used in the Nine Ball Seraph's cameo in Another Century Episode: R, a similar Fromsoft developed series but a big IP crossover series like Super Robot Wars); while that part is going, the game was giving some dramatic pans over and rotations around the Nine Ball Seraph (the first time the player ever sees the thing) and the guitars and rest kick in right when the player is given control of themselves again and the fight begins. And between that cinematic moment and the gameplay, between those two very different moods in the music, is voice sampled dialogue box with the only thing the Nine Ball Seraph says to you: "Target verified: Commencing hostilities".
Dunno if somebody mentioned it, but a quick rule of thumb. Most AC songs you covered until now were composed by Kota Hoshino, who's the only one composer in AC Tracks who tends to use his own vocals or own samples. This track here is made by Keiichiro Segawa. He didn't made nearly as much tracks like lead composers Kota Hoshino and Tsukasa Saito, but many of his tracks include this heavy electronic soundfont and instruments like in this one. Also, super happy you're still reviewing AC songs! Always waiting excitingly on a new upload!
You REALLY don't have time to appreciate this song and listen to it when you're actually fighting Nine Ball. The guitars kick in right around the time you begin to really get your ass stomped and it's just this insane invasion of noise of both the music and the rapid fire blast of laser noises and missile explosions and stuff and it's a full on assault on the senses. This is because your screen is just FILLED with lights once Nine Ball closes on you and you're both slinging just the absolutely most devastating weapon shots at each other. Your vision and hearing, your sense of touch as you scramble with the controller and you feel your heart in your chest and your throat. Suddenly it's over and things are quiet again. Everything is still... You're dead. And you realize you have to work your way through everything back to that point all over again. It's not until you hear this song somewhere else, maybe just playing the OST or something, that it hits you what this song is and you get a sudden cold sweat. And you realize this.. This VIDEO GAME did something to you. it put something in your skull that you can't ever get back out. Something that sits very near in an almost intimate way to wherever it is your function of fear resides within your brain.
As music enjoyer this is a very good start to talk about a genre called "artcore", a genre that becomes more common in shoot-em-up and rhythm games or games with sci-fi background, it combines electronic qualities with any other existing genres to create new ways of expressing emotions and open up your horizon of music to infinity. For beginners to this genre of music, very highly recommend Touhou, Rockman/Megaman series and Mad Rat Dead. Especially Mad Rat Dead is even more better start as it is a combination of flatformer and rhythm games with memorable story, you won't just listen to music but be one with it.
The second phase of the song will always instill fear in me and all ravens who have faced "hustler 1" who pilots the AC called Nineball, Hustler 1 is actually an AI who was created to guide humanity towards a better future... the problem with Nineball's plan is that it is created by an unfeeling, logical machine who is able to make the decision which lead to the deaths of many, and the frustration of many Ravens. Also the vocals aren't really "singing", it is more of giving orders that you the player must follow no matter what, hence the way the lyric is delivered "Destroy Nineball" there is no emotion to it, almost like the mech voice the order to the pilot.
Armored Core music just hits different, I can't really think of another videogame soundtrack that sounds quite like it. I super recommend tracks from Armored Core 3, specifically Artificial Sky I and In My Heart.
The thing that always drew me to Armored Core was the grungy kind of dystopian setting it had for a mecha series that kind of reminded me of Battletech
To us Gen1 Armored Core Ravens(pilots). The Nineball theme is PTSD inducing.. PS1 Armored Core and it's other titles was really hard when it got released during it's time.
Why do I love Armored Core? well... I was first exposed to it from the Original game back in... when was it... 1997? and I fell in love with it because "ROBOTS!" I was a little kid at the time. But one thing that I adored about that game was the customization... nowdays in games... customisation is like... making a character. giving them different eye colour, hairstyles, race. tattoo's or scars... rather par of the course. but Armored Core? Armored Core basically let you BUILD your own Mech... YOUR mech... and tailor it to YOUR specifications... YOUR playstyle. in some regards the mech itself becomes the "character" because its what you spend most of your time doing in the game; customizing this mech to your needs... your desires... and even now. a mech game that has customization? most of the time its just "give it different guns" "change its color scheme" but Armored Core took it a step further... ALL body parts are interchangeable. ALL parts can be swapped out... added... modified in some way to create something unique... And in some ways like how a Mechanic gets attached to their kit car project... you develop a connection with your AC (Armored Core)... you go through thick and thin... struggle, succeed... fail... you upgrade it, modify it and it becomes more than a "tool".... it's like in Titanfall where you have the Pilots "bond" with their Titans... except you dont bond with the AI/Interface. you bond with the machine itself. Maybe I'm weird, but I think some of the mechanics/builders out there might know what I'm talking about here. TLDR: the customization was on a level like no other. And there a few games out there that can deliver that level of customization even to this day. The Story and general "theme" of the game is really interesting if you start reading into it. but when I was little I had no idea what the "plot" was... I was too busy making different robots xD Also the sountracks are usually really interesting too... usually a little "strange" when just listening to it on its own... but when you combine the gameplay or CGI with the music? it all somehow merges SO well.
Yes westerners can't connect to their weapons and view them as tools, which is represented in their fiction Eastern has a personal connection with their weapons, a bond(katanas etc), and this is represented in their fiction as well
Yeah, I still have a faint recollection of choosing parts trying to balance power supply and demand (’cause having infinte ammo from energy weapons was ”broken”). Karasawa and moonlight were pretty busted if I remember correctly, even if they did drain your energy like an iphone in winter 😂
Just so you know Nineball is a _classic_ Fromsoft boss, in that "Git gud or git STOMPED" vein. Also, yes, Nineball, or rather, Hustler One, is an AI, one built for combat and keeps humanity in a state of conflict just so that they won't go wiping each other out. It controls _everything_ from behind the scenes in the games from the original to Master of Arena. (Basically the first three.) And as mentioned before, Kota Hoshino, the composer, has a very unique style of composing thanks to his lack of formal musical education. As a result, his songs often contain clashing elements, and he's somehow managed to nail that feeling of a "Haunting Wail" in some songs, so to speak.
Having it confirmed that it won't turn out to be mecha Dark Souls has me beyond stoked for the game to come out. I'm planning to replay all of the games while we wait.
You will really like the Ultrakill ost when you think this is interesting. Also the compilations from act 1 & 2 by Hakita don't include the P-1/2 songs.
Love the range that you cover. AC music always sounds unique and the composer, Kota Hoshino is a really talented dude. Especially considering he has no formal music education
Funny that you called it it a borderline samba, AC battles are very much like a dance; both mechs flying and boosting from side to side to avoid range attacks, some try to close the gap for melee while others try to fall further back all done at ridiculous speeds and reaction times
Since I watched this video months ago, I have explored the armored core music so deeply that it is most of what I listened to this year. Thanks for the discovery! Much love!
As maybe said earlier, AC Nine-Ball and its pilot, Hustler One, are originally the mastermind AI who controls the humanity and keeps it in constant war for its own good. Its theme, "9" from AC: Master of Arena is playing when the player engages the final boss of the game: Nine-Ball Seraph. It's also used to make the fans to shiver, as the AI is one of the hardest bosses in the entire series. And also because of previous experience in the original Armored Core game. This version of "9", by the way, is used in Another Century's Episode R, a crossover mecha game that features Gundam, Macross, Super Robot Wars and some others. There's no any indication that Armored Core is ever featured. But then, after playing the game several times and getting to the final boss once again, you quickly learn what the devs chose for a secret encounter when you suddenly hear the piano kicking in.
I've always been curious about Armored Core ever since I learned that Fromsoft made those games. I never played them though, until the AC6 announcement spurred me to pick up For Answer. It awoke some old memories about playing this arcade mech game called Virtual On, as a kid. I will say that for me, as a relative newcomer, the fun is making a cool as heck mech, then zipping around and destroying things with it. Lore is pretty interesting too, if very bleak
It's crazy how spot on your analysis are of the computer/human conflicting characteristics, because the Nineball AC is controlled by an AI computer that acts as an invisible dictator over the actions of humanity within It's world thru the use of war and dictating the wars outcome thru using it's mercenaries to tip the tide in each battle.
"Destroy 9 Ball" 9 ball is a staple in Armored core. The original, the guards, seraph, unknown old AC, Seraph rebuild, 9 ball unique MT, even 9 Breaker. We can't forget about little 8 Ball either.
for me, it feels like freeform jazz, kinda like Gundam Thunderbolt uses it's music. This fits pretty much any mission in AC, with it's chaos, feeling of velocity and metal carnage.
It’s kinda the same with Ace Combat, the music is so specific to the games that you won’t hear anything like it outside of the IPs however, once you hear it you automatically know what it’s from. It’s just great.
Sick interpretation. It's nutty to me how I had to read lore entries on the series wiki to understand what Nineball's overall impact on the story is, but you just understood it from a remixed version of his theme. Really high quality read, speaks to your ability to understand music very well.
What I'm really appreciating about all these Armored Core videos you're doing is that while I grew up with some of the games as a kid, I was a kid. I didn't appreciate music as much as I do now as an adult, and so I'm finding a lot of these tracks for the first time either cause I only played a few of the games or because I just wasn't really aware enough to truly appreciate the soundtracks.
What i like about armored core? Best mech designs ever, so many mech parts, speed, it's just one of those games that make technical and skill blend beautifully, not making the game boring by holding your hand through combat. The older gen games also had really moody scifi level designs that are practical in design rather than over the top clichés of scifi.
I subscribed just from your title of the video alone 😂😂😂 it's how I've felt but never put to words until reading your video title. I'm the only person I knew that played these games and I started back on Armored Core 2. Now I'm happy to see a community of people exists that have the same love as I do for these games' magnificence and it's music that encapsulates the insanity of being in a battle (imagine all your emotions like anger, fear, love, hate, pride, envy, etc turned to an 11). Raven for life 😎 P.S. I added an edit for what you mentioned towards the end of the video about how you wanted to know what it feels like to have allegiance to this game. Kota Hoshino is still someone who I'll pickup anything they're selling, no questions asked. I'd recommend listening to some earlier work from Evergrace the PS2 RPG. My baby brother use to get scared when the vocals from the music played, and as an adult I found that mildly amusing (big bro energy lol) but also it made me ask why did it make him uncomfortable? There's a primalness (not a word you say grammar Nazis? Eff you, I'm going for it) to the music, primitive and mystical with it's chanting and yodels, it's ancient sounding tongue. Then I thought, holy crap, I get it little bro, when I really paid attention, it sounded like they were trying to summon something 🤣🤣🤣 there's a bit of that in AC music, but more electronic and synthetic. Like when you described the part in this song where the voice was distorted, like something trying to play at being alive or human but isn't. I guess you could say that's what those of us that like piloting mechs get drawn into. Those machines aren't alive, but we're the soul of them and we breathe life into them with our passion in a fight 😎
Armored Core is all about customization and choice. You choose how your mech looks, you get parts, you buy them, you fit them, you can even paint them, you can make custom emblems. Armored Core is my first playstation game and is a core memory for me. so Obviously it holds a deep passionate place in my heart. Armored Core is about finding a fighting style, there is so many options to choose from. its about corporate espionage, its about the end of the line, about fighting without a reason, pushing yourself with no future or finding a future for those that support you.
l love how AC's music has captured your imagination as an non-fan for the same reasons it's captured mine as a mega-fan. Looking forward to more of these. Please try AC 6 when it comes out though. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it.
There are so many armoured core tracks that make me feel many different emotions at once. Precious Park, Cosmos, For Answer, Fallout, they all give off these complex emotions of war and endless fighting mixed with beauty and freedom.
What interests me in the Armored Core games, especially the ones that take place on Earth underground like 1 and 3, and the subsequent sequels, is the sci fi dystopian post apocalyptic world ran by mega corporations and AI, and you as a super soldier in a super mech fighting for one of said mega corporations or as your own lone wolf doing whatever. I would really love to see a fleshed out Armored Core RPG where you're not just in the mech but maybe can explore outside the mechs and see the world you're fighting in.
nineballs theme original or remixed always sends shivers down my spine jesus the PTSD this part of the game gives to the point hair is standing on end hearing that piano riff
So context behind the "Destroy; Nineball" vocals. Nineball is a hyper aggressive A.I. security system that utilizes two mechs known as ACs (Armored Cores) and it typically wins every engagement it is in. Also in the first game it decided to have one of its machines pretend to be a person up until the end when you destroy its mainframe.
You, listening to this song: this is so contradictory, what is happening? Me, getting flashbacks to my childhood, throttling my boost as hard as possible: FUCK YOU HUSTLER, STOP HAMMERING ME WITH ARTILLERY AND LET ME HIT YOU WITH MY SWORD! But in all seriousness, I'm astounded by how close your observations of what each part of the track is supposed to be representative of. And, to answer your last question, why I love Armored Core and FromSoft so much, it's a big answer, so bear with me. As a team, they pretty much made a large portion of my childhood. They helped to satisfy that desire for adventure while simultaneously giving you the tools to choose how you carved your way ahead, but letting you figure it out yourself, to struggle and grow on your own into the horrible, yet beautiful world. The AC customization was indepth to the point where it wasn't about having the best stats, but finding the balance to match your style of play. They originally also didn't have tutorials, just threw you into the deep end and told you to swim. Pass the test, you're a Raven; death is failure. This would end up carrying over to all of their own titles, which came from their very beginnings in King's Field going into Otogi, Tenchu, Demon's Souls and beyond; this is a permanent part of their philosophy as a company. They did such a good job with designing the series that just about every other company would go on to commission them to help make their mecha games, having a hand in Another Century Episode, Murakumo Renegade Pursuit, Metal Wolf Chaos, Zone of the Enders, Chromehounds, Steel Battalion, and even Gundam itself. FromSoft doesn't just make mecha games; they ARE mecha games. Ravens fly free because these skies are ours. How it meshes with me: I'm autistic, I have ADHD, and I'm also an adrenaline junkie. My love for robots, for adventure, my need to create, my passion for martial arts and combat- they all followed me into just about every facet of my adult life. I like to describe myself as an IRL mecha pilot because I actually drive articulated boom lifts and teleboom forklifts for a living, and things like rappelling, climbing, electrical, and parkour are job skills for me. I get paid to build shit in high places and drive modern day giant robots for a living without needing to join a tank crew; there's not a lot of jobs that get as close to the mecha experience as that.
Interesting that you pulled malevolence from this because the '9' or 'Nineball' mentioned in this song technically is just that as far as the story in the games are concerned. The ps1 games are pretty sparse in terms of telling you lots of details directly to your face (as usual from From Soft. Dark Souls definitely was not the start of this method of storytelling for them), but one thing that is made fairly clear is near the end of the ps1 games storylines in the last ps1 AC game, Master of Arena. From the mail you get to what some of the npcs say in missions, you start to finally piece things together. And during the very last mission, you find out that Nineball was indeed behind a lot of the things and conflicts across the ps1 era games as it tells you that everything was by its design for the sake of humanity, or so it claims. The original song kicks in after you descend into the epicenter of where the true Nineball resides and finally take it on, like your character has been wanting to do since the beginning of the game after defying death time and again.
As a long time Armored Core fan, the best thing about the game is the customization you can to your mech (called an Armored Core, or AC for short) If you've ever played a Forza game and customized your car, its like that, but big ol robots.
Honestly a lot of 90-00s cyberpunk or mecha media has a lot of this techno, electronic music in it. It tends to be that or metal in my experience. Or maybe I play weird games growing up :P
One of the most important aspects of encore is building your Mac in response to mission failure so this song especially where the continuous rhythm stops could be the failure of the mission and the robotic voice and the baseline could be a reference to you the AC pilot and your machine talking to each other as you rebuild the music picks back up you continue the mission again and succeed
I'm not sure if someone has already brought it up yet, but as a point of context the Armored Core: Reprises album is an out of game redux by FreQuency of a number of popular themes as well as one song original to the album (I Know What You Stand). It's really interesting listening to the album when you've become familiar with the original versions of the songs featured there. The other album "Sunrise" is an Armored Core themed album where it's a rough 50/50 split on original pieces to redux songs. Some of which would make an appearance in 20th Anniversary OST box but most notably are not featured in any games. On the subject of the 20th Anniversary OST set, disc 20 has a few additional songs that also do not make appearances in any of the games. If you have the time I'd love hear your thoughts on the Sunrise album and some of the disc 20 originals such as "In The Universe." Take care and happy holidays.
I had always interpreted the music to be like (bass guitar) a "mech jockey" climbing in to a mech cockpit. The Electric guitar as the start up sequence. The singing (talking?) as the AI boot cycle. and then when it is all together, the battle. Which in Armored Core, really does not have very high stakes, except getting paid, and making a name for yourself.
I've only just discovered your channel today, and I've watched every video you've done about Armored Core music. I gotta say it's pretty amazing how you've virtually hit the nail on the head for the context of each song despite not having really played most of the games. You're understanding/comprehension of music is outstanding! 👏
"The bass guitar has such a warm quality to it" - Oh boy. Here we go. You know what else has a warm quality to it? Plasma cannons. This is a PTSD song for Armored Core players, by the way. No one hears the original version of this song for longer than like 10 seconds their first time through. It's a super unpleasant experience. Lore deep dive: Armored Core 1 games take place in Underground Cities which exist on a post-apocalyptic earth, the surface of which is a wasteland after a horrific war called the Great Destruction. The cities are run by AI computers which recreate a facsimile of the dystopian society from before the Great Destruction. They forcibly maintain balance with behind the scenes manipulation and many people are even unaware they exist, though it seems to be an open secret among the higher ups. Nineball is the AI's personal mech, and when it needs to act directly, it uses it. This mech is piloted by the fake "Hustler One", the top Raven (or registered, licensed mercenary) in the city. When you fight Nineball for the final time, the AI uses a super version called Nineball Seraph. It's actually offended that you've caused so much chaos and destruction in your rise to power. But simultaneously, when you defeat it, it opens up the city to the surface and gives everyone freedom to do now as they choose. Not all AI's have these super mechs (Silent Line's has the very similar IBIS, but AC1 and 3's do not and only exist as super computers with either their own normal mech, or a retinue of protectors). Whatever the case, they all appear to have this function where they need you to kill them to release the reigns of humanity back to humanity. They simultaneously want you to win while doing their best to keep you constrained. Sort of as a way to make sure that humanity is ready to guide itself again and break free from the chains of the corporate dystopian cycle and forge their own path. This song debuted in Armored Core Master of Arena, and interestingly the plot to its direct sequel, Armored Core 2, is about the protagonist from Master of Arena taking on the role of villain, and secretly trying to find a way to ruin humanity and put them back under control of possibly an AI, because with out the AI's guidance humanity has done nothing but continued the vicious cycles that defined it before. He feels he is at fault and has made a terrible and grave mistake for destroying Nineball, which he did out of vengeance because his family died in the crossfire of one of Nineball's battles. So, while Nineball is your detested enemy, it is also in a way also your friend and your parent. Your guardian and teacher. Quietly stoking the flames of human ingenuity and that unique driving spirit that defines our need to rise up. With the intent to guide us into killing it. There's... so much deeper I could go about how this situation came to be. The possible origins of these AI's and why they seem to have emotions or choose to do things differently from one another, and so on. But that's the crux of the situation with Nineball and the story in Armored Core surrounding it. The voice can be interpreted as your mech's desire to fight, even though it isn't sentient. The recognition that Nineball is your ultimate arch rival and so there is the natural need for the two mechs to battle, as dragons always do in myth, and kill one another. It could be seen as the voice of the controlling AI itself, demanding you rise up and kill it so that you can grasp your own destiny and freedom as a species. But, Nineball's dialogue suggests you're an aberration, and anomaly it wasn't prepared for. You stand out as something different from the rest of humanity and you're dangerous. The story of AC2 STRONGLY implies it was actually correct. AND Nineball, working behind the scenes pretending to be your Operator and Handler with the mercenary organization, tries repeatedly to stop you with out violence, trying to guide you down different paths that don't result in your causing so much chaos or growing so powerful so quickly. So I don't think the voice is the AI guiding you to beat Nineball. Maybe the voice represents your own grating sanity, your need for revenge, your being lost to the technology and the hopelessness of the situation such as that the only thing you live for right now is to.. DESTROY. NINE. BALL.
Loving armored core stuff, recommending to check out nine ball's original theme, or even his intro from the Japanese version, his distorted voice always gave me chills, it was a nightmare fight. Also would love to see more music from 4/fa
I love the always there, always omnipresent sense of speed and urgency in the tracks of Armored Core. After playing AC the most of probably any game I've ever played outside of BattleTech MechWarrior, is that speed is king in AC. You can't hit what you can't hit, to hell with armor. The capacity to build awesome speed builds is superior in AC. The missile dodge dance is just another day at the office for all Ravens. I have to admit I beat the first game without being "Human Plus" but after finding out that tip from a game mag or somewhere, wow, love the hidden lore and "Easter eggs" that it had like that. "Human plus," giving you the ability to use shoulder weapons that otherwise could not be used less you came to a complete stop or used a tank chassis or "4" leg setup. It gave the ability to use the "Folding" shoulder weapons even while flying with 2 legs, like certain "bosses" but man really brought the game to life and made it even more fun and replayable. I guess they wanted to make you jealous of the bosses abilities. Who would have known you just had to die a lot and go into debt at the start to get the offer to become "Human Plus."
The genre is techno/dance/(sometimes)trance. I don't think they were very into differentiating the different types of "group sounds" they had in Japan in the late 90's. I did hear, however, that the reason this particular type of sound was in there because that's the type of music that the sound director was into at the time they released armored core 1.
This is the theme of Nine-Ball, a boss that has been giving Ravens P.T.S.D. for the last two and a half decades or so. An AC piloted by an A.I. taking on the persona of Hustler One, the number #1 Raven in the arena. Nine-Ball is an incredibly persistent boss following us Veteran Ravens OUT OF THE FRANCHISE! Just to trigger the P.T.S.D. he gave us. Sadly he didn't appear in Fires of Rubicon so I took on that role myself. Because well, we play as C4-621 and well 6+2+1=9.
I started Armored Core with "Armored Core For Answer". There are two main things that draw me to this series. The first is the customization. Each mech can be changed, obtimised and personalised to a ludicrous degree, culminating in picking stabilizers and counter weights to balance the weight added by your weaponry. The second is the incredibly 'raw' world and story. Things are as they are. Nothing is made to look nice, or horrid. Armored Core is about massive cooperations that wage war over resources on a global scale. The player is a mercenary for hire, and has to keep themselves afloat. You get paid for accomplishing your task, no more, no less, yet through building trust with different factions, different story outcomes and endings can be achieved. Say, you pick a contract that asks you to destroy a certain type of naval vessels of an enemy fleet, and offers a bonus for each destroyed one of a second type of vessel. The fleet you face will contain a lot of different ships, and you may have to gun down a few others to get to where you need to go, yet you also have to balance your resources. You can absolutely go and destroy the entire fleet, but the firm that contracted you will only pay you if you destroy your primary targets, and add payments for the secondary ones. Destroying the entire battlegroup is more than possible for you in your powerful mech, but this will incur massive costs for ammunition and repairs. So unless you are impressively well geared for this specific mission, you will likely only do as the firm asks, weaving your way through enemy fire to get the primary targets, and pick off a few secondary ones as the situation allows. Another mission may ask you to work for very little wages, causing you to lose money in the process, but get much better reputation with the contracting cooperation, and allowing for other outcomes or better paying jobs down the line. AC is about playing as a mech mercenary. You can go and play as a self-proclaimed hero or a monster in human form, but this will cost you in one way or another. In a world where resources are everything, you can only thrive by being a professional merc who looks at the bottom line, and who is up for a risky gamble every now and again.
WOW, really did not expect this track to come up. As an avid AC fan, the amount of love for the series thats coming out of the woodwork after AC6 was announced is astounding.
One more shout out to these two classic tracks. -"Spirit of Motherwill" from Armored Core 4 -"The Mother Will Comes Again" from Armored Core Verdict Day, a reprisal to the previous track.
Its still crazy to think me and my brother used to play AC 2 and 3 and I later watched him play For Answer but neither of us ever had the context that these games were by From Software, the Souls boys. Even when Moonlight Greatsword was an obtainable weapon I all Armored Core games as well as literally every Souls game with increasing rarity and importance up until Bloodborne and Elden Ring where certain requirements are necessary to obtain the legend weapon that grows more lore related to each franchise as it goes. Still feel bad about making my brother do the final evil mission without prior context in For Answer and soft locking him into an unwinnable battle against three endgame souls boss level mechs with no go back button. But he beat the game so hard I pushed him to do the other mission. I dont think he stayed mad at me. But he was just like "this is literally impossible even with everything." Probably on me in hindsight that I didn't realize AC is literally Hyper Souls with several extra steps.
Two AMVs I like watching in relation to AC 4 and AC 4:FA, is "No.39" and "Autobahn". It's a montage of songs tied to voiced combat clips from the game, which at least give a sense of the atmosphere of those two games, if not the story proper. They have English subtitles for the Japanese voiceovers, which is better than nothing. If you don't mind taking those songs off future lists of blind reactions, I consider the two videos good window into the Armored Core 4 universe (the devs tend to write new universes for each sequel and its spin offs).
This big difference this Reprises version has from other versions of this theme is that others don't have that more mellow opening and start at the piano section instead. Nineball is a recurring boss throughout the series and always one of the toughest fights. Moving so fast that players have trouble just keep them in view, shoving missiles and laser swords figuratively and literally up your ass if you can't keep up.
I know this is a remix album, but I'm still gonna say that PS1 music is just, wild, in a level entirely of its own. PS1 and PS2 songs in general, you can usually tell the platform they're from just by the music style, and I love that lol
Saw the video title and was very intrigued because I had recently come into possession of the entire Armored Core soundtrack and it summed it up perfectly. FreQuency's music is unusual, but at the same time I can't think of any other kind of music which would fit AC. A bit like the Darius series and its style of music, come to think.
I've played Armored Core 1, going through 3, and i dabbled in 4 and For answer. One of the defining things about Armored core is the lore and character development in the game. The main character is you the person (exactly the same way as Warrior of Light in FFXIV). The story is simple and repeated through its iterations. Post apocalyptic event, the mega corps fill the void of government, and behind the scenes an AI plots humanity's destruction. But there is a significant amount of dialogue and interaction you do with fellow mercenaries, and your contractors. Additionally (unlike FFXIV), your choices matter. When you take up a mission with 1 client, it can cause another to disappear. As well as affect available future missions and encounters. There are also decisions in battle. That affect things like fighting against mercenaries you just met or even allied with before, but you are enemies today, and somebody isn't going home tonight. That's just the current events. The games also delve into the archeological elements. Such as exploring or destroying technology and remnant systems from the apocalyptic event. And the lore and conversations you get from these missions really makes the imagination run wild. The best tidbits of taste of this i think are the openings of armored core 3 and silent line.
![Coheed and Cambria - Searching for Tomorrow [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hDsYGLbmadg/mqdefault.jpg)
What a time to have an Armored Core game in our current age where there's an advancement in AI. This is a remix version of Nineball's theme, the main antagonist of Armored Core: master of Arena. Nineball is the mech's name while the pilot's name is Hustler One, who turns out to be a super advanced AI.
oh shit. how am i out here getting spoiled on a 30 year old game LOL
I was just playing through AC1 for the first time too hahahahh
@@BlinJe rip, dont worry there's a still a lot of armored core out there
@@BlinJe I'm very sorry man. 😔
@@blahtoblahtoto6441 no no. Nothing to apologise for, raven
@@BlinJe Oh, that isn't even the half of it buddy. The conspiracy runs deep.
Never in my life, that four words would bring so much dread.
*_"Target verified, commencing hostilities."_*
And that repeating *_"Destroy...Nine-ball..."_*
As if Hustler One is taunting The Raven, telling the pilot: _"Destroy me, if you can."_
i like to imagine it’s the pilot having gone even farther than Human Plus to the point where they’re almost completely robotic just so they can finally beat Nineball
𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚍. 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢.
-one of the recurring lines used by my team in ACV and VD.
If they keep fighting long enough, Ravens eventually reach a point in their lives where they realise they've surpassed Nineball. The question is whether it's skill or H+ though?
Nine -Novem- is yet another incarnation of the theme of the specter that has kind of hung over the franchise for a long time. Nineball, an AI that played god by engineering a world of eternal war for the sake of preserving humanity by locking it in a state of unstable equilibrium. Nineball himself actually dies in a confrontation with a Raven, a Mercenary, whose family died due to Nineball's direct actions which marked the end of Nineball's capacity to protect mankind by trapping it. That lyric "DESTROY NINEBALL" is meant to be the voice in that Raven's head, the madness and resolve consuming him to destroy the wargod that rules the world. The Mechanical nature is foreshadowing that it's heavily implied that the Raven in question would go on to try and become his successor under the name Leos Klein. Figured I'd explain the details because you actually nailed the core of it pretty well.
'9' is a reoccurring song in AC games since 9 Ball made an appearance in AC1. It has a remix for each 9 Ball appearance, and it gets more chaotic with each one considering what you're fighting against: the ultimate A.I. controlled AC built for combat.
'9 memories' is my favorite version.
What I like most about AC is the gameplay, customization, music (huge +), setting, and feeling of being a total badass mech pilot when playing it. I haven't experienced these feelings in any other mech game I've played to date.
"9 memories" is my fav too. combine with the fight with Wild Cat make this theme +50% cooler
It's "Nine-Ball", not 9 Ball.
My personally has to go to King of 9, it's not exactly the same feeling, but I just love the thought of Nine-Ball gaining the sentience of it being this supreme thing and that nothing else is needed, the chaotic vocals are also really fitting to this thought.
@@AnatoliasAce3341 bro the old AC emblem was literally a 9 ball, as in a billiard ball. I've always written/thought of it that way. Don't be 'that' guy.
@@Ultimatestrife I know it's a 9 ball, just the name is Nine-Ball.
but sorry.
This is the one song that is engrained in all Ravens' DNA. Once we hear it we get shaken to our core. This song gives us a primal fear. This is the theme song of the one and only
Nineball
Who was the Number 1 ranked Armored Core in the AC1 and Master of Arena. As you play the games you find out that Hustler One, the Pilot of Nineball is actually an A.I. known as the Controller. Basically an A.I. that was built long ago to keep humanity in a perfect balance of "corporate war" and chaos so they don't become too peaceful and leave the underground cities the A.I. controls. Or destroy themselves all together. Anywho Nineball is the Tyrant or Nemesis of the Armored Core Series. He even makes appearances in Armored Core 2: Another Age as a secret final boss. Hinting at the A.I. could still be alive and working behind the scenes.
What made Nineball so special and feared is that Fromsoft took the old Gundam phrase, His mech is Red so he's 3x as fast to the next level. Nineball is an fast mech, but when he shoots his weapons they fire 3 times in a quick burst instead of once. He is a tough boss and you even fight two of him at once towards the end.
A bit of extra context, where the "red=3 times faster" meme originates specifically is with a character named Char. In the UC Gundam timeline, the character Char Aznable has all of his personal mobile suits painted red and modified to be 3 times as fast their stock version when there is one.
It's always nice to see people acknowledge that the "red= 3 times faster" meme originates with Gundam instead of falsely claiming it originates with Warhammer 40k.
Any raven worth his salt knows and is aware about the menace that is Nine ball.
Nine is also a very much recurring number in the series for some reason. Some special meaning to it.
Yep, that song basically says "no time to fuck around, give it all & kill that cheating bastard or die trying".
Furthermore, in Armored Core Art book, Hustler One depicted as an even more badass _Quattro Bajeena (Char Aznable),_ complete with his shades.
@@mechanomics2649 I just chock it up to Orks appreciating the glory that is CHAR
For context, this song is about an AI controlled mech (called NineBall, hence the name) who refuses to die and will chase you relentlessly while chanting "Destroy" endlessly in its theme.
Let's just say he's "fun" to fight and is a recurring foe at that so you're not wrong about that malevolence lol
Also, this is just my guess but composition wise; I think the pauses they added in this version where the music completely stops for a good 5 to 10 seconds are probably a tie in to the fact Nineball reactivates shortly after being defeated the first time.
It also leaves room for Nine-Ball to say any lines it has
You know you're a badass when your own theme music tells your opponent to kill you. "Destroy Nineball"
This music is a perfect example of WHY I love Gaming OST.
You can do music on games that, WOULDN’T work in ANY other media or entertainment! It only works when you’re playing a VIDEO GAME!
I’m honestly hyped for the new Armored Core!
"There's something going on here and I'm trying to figure that out storywise"
That something is 9-Ball Seraph, controlling a transforming high speed RED custom mech twice your size, carving the backside of your AC to ribbons with repeated dual laser blade strikes while you scream in agony and frustration at your AC and controller because you can't turn fast enough and you are going to die against him for the 20th time or more at this point.
There's a reason the top comment on the original version of this song on youtube is "this song triggers my fight or flight response"
That robotic voice is refer to "Nine ball" the final boss of the game.
He is your archenemy for an entire game, an unbeatable rank 1 mercenary.
Later it is revealed that he is not actually a human, but an AI.
He is machine learning, so he reborn over and over again to fights with you, to improve himself.
Hence the robotic noise in the song.
Dude as a long time AC Vet, your analysis was SPOT on - And, I'm so happy to see you enjoyed the song, it's got a very special place for the players of the game, and it's truly one of everyone's favorite :) Keep up the great work!
Your here :D
Seeing as Armored Core is the theme at the moment, ‘Someone is Always Moving on the Surface’, and ‘Set the Sunset’; the title theme and the ‘tinker with your mech’ theme of Armored Core For Answer.
These two tunes have a lot of overlap between each other but are quite different to the AC stuff you have reacted to so far.
I’ve got you covered
@@MarcoMeatball please listen to remember from armored core 4 answer
@@MarcoMeatball Gotta second this on Someone is Always Moving on the Surface. It's really one of the most beautiful pieces of music that I've ever heard in general. There's a long extended version that has all of the movements edited together, but it is a full 7 minutes. Totally worth it imo, but I know that might be a bit long for thia format.
@@Azure9577 he already did Mechanized Memories, which is a remix of Remember
For context on this song:
'Nine' is the theme of one of the series' most infamous and well known pilots: Nineball. He is the #1 top ranked pilot in all games he appears in and (Spoiler) its revealed he's actually an AI that's secretly been influencing and controlling humanity from behind the scenes in order to keep us in a state of controlled conflict via the corporations to prevent another apocalypse. He is the final boss of the very first Armored Core and its expansion Master of Arena, and makes an appearance in Armored Core 2: Another Age as a secret boss. His fight in AC2: Another Age is considered one of the hardest fights in any AC game.
He is generally well known for being an incredibly tough fight and missions involving him being some of the toughest in the series, especially in his more advanced 'Seraph' form.
His theme song probably has the most remixes of any AC song and its incredibly rare for a AC pilot to get their own theme. (Closest that comes to mind is 'Thinker' being the themes of AC4's protagonist, who later becomes the second White Glint and gets another theme titled 'Remember').
Worth noting, White Glint's NEXT design by For Answer uses the 4th gen equivalent parts of Nine Ball's AC. Of course, his Arena Rank is 9. And when encounter Black Glint in Armored Core 5 Verdict Day, it's model number is N-WGIX/v. Doesn't take a genius to see that translates to NEXT White Glint **9**.
We've been playing to the same beats and not always even realizing it.
Now, with Armored Core 6, I can't help but notice that the core they keep showing off in Nineball's.
C4-621 (6+2+1 = 9)
one of the Dark Horses of Ac6 is V.IV Rusty, who happen to be rank 9 in the Arena
@@onigojira
Honestly I instantly thought of V.IV Rusty's "Steel Haze (Rusted Pride)"
2:28 Love how the reaction is something apparently like, 'okay.. where are they going with this break. Oh, funky.'
Meanwhile, anyone with a true nostalgia remembers something more like, 'Oh, no. Oh God, no!'
Great work, as always. I've checked out your stuff when it crosses my interests like this or the recent 40k stuff. Your perspective for the tone and themes of these pieces are always so spot on.
:)))
"I'm trying to figure out what's going on here, story-wise..."
"DDDDESTROY NINE BALL"
"Ah"
The song where you talked about a human being deformed; a part of it is from the first armored core game on PS1. In that game: if you lose enough times and go into debt, you become drafted into the "human plus" project. This gives you special piloting abilities that are not normally available and wipes out the debt. When you undergo this procedure there is a cut scene of you going under on an operating table. So you are not far off in that inference.
Ah yes, 9, the theme of everyone's favourite bright red terrifyingly powerful AI controlled (and multidimensional) AC, Nineball. Cool to see another vid on AC music, would be cool if you took a look at spirit of Motherwill
Oh god yes! Spirit of Motherwill is my absolute favorite AC track! That was a boss fight to remember!
Amazing analysis as always! I've really loved your takes on Armored Core music recently, you always seem to peg some of the most important parts of the music. as for the context, it's a bit weird because this is a remix of a song from the second armored core game, AC: Master of Arena, which happens concurrently with the first game, armored core
AC is a notoriously difficult game franchise, and in the first installments, it was planned for you to fail more than once. each time you do, you're given something called "human plus" a set of enhancements that make you better at piloting, stacking each time your credits go down below a critical line. your mech gets faster, stronger, and can eventually break certain limits like firing heavier back mounted weaponry while standing without tipping your several hundred ton war machine over. but the game also gives you a bit of a hint that something's up. the first being that when you get your first H+ enhancement, your name is changed to Rebel followed by a 3 digit number.
by the time you get to the late game, you start seeing real issues cropping up. one of the other pilots who was known to have undergone human plus enhancements goes insane during a mission, wantonly attacking anything he sees, and you have to bring him down. his dying words are to warn you about Human Plus. nearly all the top pilots have it, and the only one you're unsure about would be Hustler One, the top pilot. and that's only because basically nothing is known about him.
eventually, you're slowly drip fed enough to realize that behind all of this, the two warring corporations, the underground world humanity is mostly trapped in, is a singular central command AI, given the task to guide humanity. your final mission, given by your handler, is to meet her in an otherwise unknown factory. the moment you show up, you see Nine Ball, hustler 1's mech. it turns out a bit easier than you think, so you go deeper, and your handler's voice mergers with the voice of hustler one, openly admitting to creating everything from the warring corporations to the raven's nest, the very mercenary organization you work for. in the next room, you find three more Nine Balls. in reality, this "legendary mech" is a mass produced combat model.
eventually, you find an enhanced model. Nine Ball Seraph. the computer has stated in the simultaneous voice of the foe you've been chomping at the bit to defeat and the handler you trusted up to this point that you're too singularly powerful to be allowed to continue to exist. this song is the battle theme for the AI's last ditch effort to stop you.
one note i'd say is interesting is your thought that this could be becoming friends with some sort of created being. for many, it wouldn't be possible to defeat this machine without the very enhancements it created.
Holy shit
This sums it up perfectly.
@@MarcoMeatball Yeah, like they said. While you say this is entirely out of your element, you dissected the piece and its moods and themes nearly exactly on the money. Like that adversarial aspect you describe, like it's revealing a new mech, etc, yeah, 100% correct.
Additional context being the original version of this track was for the final boss of the original PSX trilogy, you only heard it once in them, that previously described fight with the Nine Ball Seraph. The original starts with that little piano part, everything before it new to this arrangement (which was used in the Nine Ball Seraph's cameo in Another Century Episode: R, a similar Fromsoft developed series but a big IP crossover series like Super Robot Wars); while that part is going, the game was giving some dramatic pans over and rotations around the Nine Ball Seraph (the first time the player ever sees the thing) and the guitars and rest kick in right when the player is given control of themselves again and the fight begins. And between that cinematic moment and the gameplay, between those two very different moods in the music, is voice sampled dialogue box with the only thing the Nine Ball Seraph says to you: "Target verified: Commencing hostilities".
i missed the clips of Marco singing opera at the beginning, glad that we got one back!
They’re back and we’re including voiceover clips too :)
Dunno if somebody mentioned it, but a quick rule of thumb. Most AC songs you covered until now were composed by Kota Hoshino, who's the only one composer in AC Tracks who tends to use his own vocals or own samples.
This track here is made by Keiichiro Segawa. He didn't made nearly as much tracks like lead composers Kota Hoshino and Tsukasa Saito, but many of his tracks include this heavy electronic soundfont and instruments like in this one.
Also, super happy you're still reviewing AC songs! Always waiting excitingly on a new upload!
That’s really helpful to know thank you, I took a screenshot.
You REALLY don't have time to appreciate this song and listen to it when you're actually fighting Nine Ball. The guitars kick in right around the time you begin to really get your ass stomped and it's just this insane invasion of noise of both the music and the rapid fire blast of laser noises and missile explosions and stuff and it's a full on assault on the senses. This is because your screen is just FILLED with lights once Nine Ball closes on you and you're both slinging just the absolutely most devastating weapon shots at each other. Your vision and hearing, your sense of touch as you scramble with the controller and you feel your heart in your chest and your throat.
Suddenly it's over and things are quiet again. Everything is still...
You're dead.
And you realize you have to work your way through everything back to that point all over again.
It's not until you hear this song somewhere else, maybe just playing the OST or something, that it hits you what this song is and you get a sudden cold sweat. And you realize this.. This VIDEO GAME did something to you. it put something in your skull that you can't ever get back out. Something that sits very near in an almost intimate way to wherever it is your function of fear resides within your brain.
As music enjoyer this is a very good start to talk about a genre called "artcore", a genre that becomes more common in shoot-em-up and rhythm games or games with sci-fi background, it combines electronic qualities with any other existing genres to create new ways of expressing emotions and open up your horizon of music to infinity.
For beginners to this genre of music, very highly recommend Touhou, Rockman/Megaman series and Mad Rat Dead. Especially Mad Rat Dead is even more better start as it is a combination of flatformer and rhythm games with memorable story, you won't just listen to music but be one with it.
Thanks for this definition!!!
For an Armored Core fan this music is fear incarnate
The second phase of the song will always instill fear in me and all ravens who have faced "hustler 1" who pilots the AC called Nineball, Hustler 1 is actually an AI who was created to guide humanity towards a better future... the problem with Nineball's plan is that it is created by an unfeeling, logical machine who is able to make the decision which lead to the deaths of many, and the frustration of many Ravens. Also the vocals aren't really "singing", it is more of giving orders that you the player must follow no matter what, hence the way the lyric is delivered "Destroy Nineball" there is no emotion to it, almost like the mech voice the order to the pilot.
Armored Core music just hits different, I can't really think of another videogame soundtrack that sounds quite like it. I super recommend tracks from Armored Core 3, specifically Artificial Sky I and In My Heart.
The thing that always drew me to Armored Core was the grungy kind of dystopian setting it had for a mecha series that kind of reminded me of Battletech
2:44 at this moment, immediate flash back and heart rate increase. Commencing hostilities
Genuinely so much PTSD of the end of Master of Arena from 2:34...
To us Gen1 Armored Core Ravens(pilots).
The Nineball theme is PTSD inducing..
PS1 Armored Core and it's other titles was really hard when it got released during it's time.
Why do I love Armored Core? well... I was first exposed to it from the Original game back in... when was it... 1997? and I fell in love with it because "ROBOTS!" I was a little kid at the time. But one thing that I adored about that game was the customization...
nowdays in games... customisation is like... making a character. giving them different eye colour, hairstyles, race. tattoo's or scars... rather par of the course.
but Armored Core? Armored Core basically let you BUILD your own Mech... YOUR mech... and tailor it to YOUR specifications... YOUR playstyle. in some regards the mech itself becomes the "character" because its what you spend most of your time doing in the game; customizing this mech to your needs... your desires... and even now. a mech game that has customization? most of the time its just "give it different guns" "change its color scheme" but Armored Core took it a step further... ALL body parts are interchangeable. ALL parts can be swapped out... added... modified in some way to create something unique...
And in some ways like how a Mechanic gets attached to their kit car project... you develop a connection with your AC (Armored Core)... you go through thick and thin... struggle, succeed... fail... you upgrade it, modify it and it becomes more than a "tool".... it's like in Titanfall where you have the Pilots "bond" with their Titans... except you dont bond with the AI/Interface. you bond with the machine itself.
Maybe I'm weird, but I think some of the mechanics/builders out there might know what I'm talking about here.
TLDR: the customization was on a level like no other. And there a few games out there that can deliver that level of customization even to this day.
The Story and general "theme" of the game is really interesting if you start reading into it. but when I was little I had no idea what the "plot" was... I was too busy making different robots xD
Also the sountracks are usually really interesting too... usually a little "strange" when just listening to it on its own... but when you combine the gameplay or CGI with the music? it all somehow merges SO well.
Yes westerners can't connect to their weapons and view them as tools, which is represented in their fiction
Eastern has a personal connection with their weapons, a bond(katanas etc), and this is represented in their fiction as well
Yeah, I still have a faint recollection of choosing parts trying to balance power supply and demand (’cause having infinte ammo from energy weapons was ”broken”). Karasawa and moonlight were pretty busted if I remember correctly, even if they did drain your energy like an iphone in winter 😂
Just so you know Nineball is a _classic_ Fromsoft boss, in that "Git gud or git STOMPED" vein.
Also, yes, Nineball, or rather, Hustler One, is an AI, one built for combat and keeps humanity in a state of conflict just so that they won't go wiping each other out. It controls _everything_ from behind the scenes in the games from the original to Master of Arena. (Basically the first three.)
And as mentioned before, Kota Hoshino, the composer, has a very unique style of composing thanks to his lack of formal musical education. As a result, his songs often contain clashing elements, and he's somehow managed to nail that feeling of a "Haunting Wail" in some songs, so to speak.
Man.. I am so hyped for the new Armored Core. We haven't had a good Mech game in a while.
Having it confirmed that it won't turn out to be mecha Dark Souls has me beyond stoked for the game to come out. I'm planning to replay all of the games while we wait.
What about Daemon X Machina?
As someone who started with Ninebreaker, I'm over the moon that we're getting an AC after such a long while.
You will really like the Ultrakill ost when you think this is interesting. Also the compilations from act 1 & 2 by Hakita don't include the P-1/2 songs.
Love the range that you cover. AC music always sounds unique and the composer, Kota Hoshino is a really talented dude. Especially considering he has no formal music education
Funny that you called it it a borderline samba, AC battles are very much like a dance; both mechs flying and boosting from side to side to avoid range attacks, some try to close the gap for melee while others try to fall further back all done at ridiculous speeds and reaction times
Since I watched this video months ago, I have explored the armored core music so deeply that it is most of what I listened to this year. Thanks for the discovery! Much love!
As maybe said earlier, AC Nine-Ball and its pilot, Hustler One, are originally the mastermind AI who controls the humanity and keeps it in constant war for its own good. Its theme, "9" from AC: Master of Arena is playing when the player engages the final boss of the game: Nine-Ball Seraph. It's also used to make the fans to shiver, as the AI is one of the hardest bosses in the entire series. And also because of previous experience in the original Armored Core game.
This version of "9", by the way, is used in Another Century's Episode R, a crossover mecha game that features Gundam, Macross, Super Robot Wars and some others. There's no any indication that Armored Core is ever featured. But then, after playing the game several times and getting to the final boss once again, you quickly learn what the devs chose for a secret encounter when you suddenly hear the piano kicking in.
I've always been curious about Armored Core ever since I learned that Fromsoft made those games. I never played them though, until the AC6 announcement spurred me to pick up For Answer. It awoke some old memories about playing this arcade mech game called Virtual On, as a kid. I will say that for me, as a relative newcomer, the fun is making a cool as heck mech, then zipping around and destroying things with it. Lore is pretty interesting too, if very bleak
It's so good to see Armored Core make a come back. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get more Virtual On as well.
Virtual-On is goated, its literally the inspiration behind Gundam Vs. series
It's crazy how spot on your analysis are of the computer/human conflicting characteristics, because the Nineball AC is controlled by an AI computer that acts as an invisible dictator over the actions of humanity within It's world thru the use of war and dictating the wars outcome thru using it's mercenaries to tip the tide in each battle.
MY GOD the man has finally done it.
"Destroy 9 Ball"
9 ball is a staple in Armored core.
The original, the guards, seraph, unknown old AC, Seraph rebuild, 9 ball unique MT, even 9 Breaker. We can't forget about little 8 Ball either.
for me, it feels like freeform jazz, kinda like Gundam Thunderbolt uses it's music. This fits pretty much any mission in AC, with it's chaos, feeling of velocity and metal carnage.
As simply as I can put it; Armored Core makes me feel like a badass
I'm surprise he hasn't stubled into Dynasty Warrior/Shin Sangoku Musou OST, yet.
It’s kinda the same with Ace Combat, the music is so specific to the games that you won’t hear anything like it outside of the IPs however, once you hear it you automatically know what it’s from. It’s just great.
Sick interpretation. It's nutty to me how I had to read lore entries on the series wiki to understand what Nineball's overall impact on the story is, but you just understood it from a remixed version of his theme.
Really high quality read, speaks to your ability to understand music very well.
2:33 every AC fans anxiety and fear starts playing.
Chuckles *im in danger*
Marco you gotta give the title song of armored core for answer a listen. It's a beautiful piece. It's called someone is always moving on the surface
Yup
What I'm really appreciating about all these Armored Core videos you're doing is that while I grew up with some of the games as a kid, I was a kid. I didn't appreciate music as much as I do now as an adult, and so I'm finding a lot of these tracks for the first time either cause I only played a few of the games or because I just wasn't really aware enough to truly appreciate the soundtracks.
Same for me tbh!
All hail Nineball, the greatest Raven to ever have exis...exx....ex.......ex.ssittted
This particular song was not actually IN any of the games. The reprises album is sort of a work of passion re-imagining old songs from the series.
What i like about armored core? Best mech designs ever, so many mech parts, speed, it's just one of those games that make technical and skill blend beautifully, not making the game boring by holding your hand through combat. The older gen games also had really moody scifi level designs that are practical in design rather than over the top clichés of scifi.
The amount of ptsd you triggered in this video.....
Oh yeah since we are on mecha stuff. Daemon X Machina has some great tracks.
I subscribed just from your title of the video alone 😂😂😂 it's how I've felt but never put to words until reading your video title. I'm the only person I knew that played these games and I started back on Armored Core 2. Now I'm happy to see a community of people exists that have the same love as I do for these games' magnificence and it's music that encapsulates the insanity of being in a battle (imagine all your emotions like anger, fear, love, hate, pride, envy, etc turned to an 11). Raven for life 😎
P.S. I added an edit for what you mentioned towards the end of the video about how you wanted to know what it feels like to have allegiance to this game. Kota Hoshino is still someone who I'll pickup anything they're selling, no questions asked. I'd recommend listening to some earlier work from Evergrace the PS2 RPG. My baby brother use to get scared when the vocals from the music played, and as an adult I found that mildly amusing (big bro energy lol) but also it made me ask why did it make him uncomfortable? There's a primalness (not a word you say grammar Nazis? Eff you, I'm going for it) to the music, primitive and mystical with it's chanting and yodels, it's ancient sounding tongue. Then I thought, holy crap, I get it little bro, when I really paid attention, it sounded like they were trying to summon something 🤣🤣🤣 there's a bit of that in AC music, but more electronic and synthetic. Like when you described the part in this song where the voice was distorted, like something trying to play at being alive or human but isn't. I guess you could say that's what those of us that like piloting mechs get drawn into. Those machines aren't alive, but we're the soul of them and we breathe life into them with our passion in a fight 😎
Armored Core is all about customization and choice. You choose how your mech looks, you get parts, you buy them, you fit them, you can even paint them, you can make custom emblems. Armored Core is my first playstation game and is a core memory for me. so Obviously it holds a deep passionate place in my heart. Armored Core is about finding a fighting style, there is so many options to choose from. its about corporate espionage, its about the end of the line, about fighting without a reason, pushing yourself with no future or finding a future for those that support you.
l love how AC's music has captured your imagination as an non-fan for the same reasons it's captured mine as a mega-fan. Looking forward to more of these. Please try AC 6 when it comes out though. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it.
Would love to see you react to Thinker Reprise
God, the chills every time the piano part comes in
There are so many armoured core tracks that make me feel many different emotions at once. Precious Park, Cosmos, For Answer, Fallout, they all give off these complex emotions of war and endless fighting mixed with beauty and freedom.
Precious Park is such a track that you can't find anywhere else, it is also so happy compared to everything else in the game.
It's all in the lyrics. ”Destroy 9 Ball." In winning you claim the title Nine Breaker.
it saddens me how few people know about this amazing franchise,..then again, i also kind of enjoy this small group of diehard fans i can be a part of
That will change for better or worse soon
@@MarcoMeatball lol, True
All I hear in this song is nostalgia of Nineball wrecking my face in a duel setting. Makes me so excited.
What interests me in the Armored Core games, especially the ones that take place on Earth underground like 1 and 3, and the subsequent sequels, is the sci fi dystopian post apocalyptic world ran by mega corporations and AI, and you as a super soldier in a super mech fighting for one of said mega corporations or as your own lone wolf doing whatever. I would really love to see a fleshed out Armored Core RPG where you're not just in the mech but maybe can explore outside the mechs and see the world you're fighting in.
nineballs theme original or remixed always sends shivers down my spine jesus the PTSD this part of the game gives to the point hair is standing on end hearing that piano riff
So context behind the "Destroy; Nineball" vocals. Nineball is a hyper aggressive A.I. security system that utilizes two mechs known as ACs (Armored Cores) and it typically wins every engagement it is in. Also in the first game it decided to have one of its machines pretend to be a person up until the end when you destroy its mainframe.
The internet celebrating a game i loved in my childhood brings warmth to my cold raven heart :) I hope you find enjoyment in the games sir
He captured whats happening so perfectly
You, listening to this song: this is so contradictory, what is happening?
Me, getting flashbacks to my childhood, throttling my boost as hard as possible: FUCK YOU HUSTLER, STOP HAMMERING ME WITH ARTILLERY AND LET ME HIT YOU WITH MY SWORD!
But in all seriousness, I'm astounded by how close your observations of what each part of the track is supposed to be representative of.
And, to answer your last question, why I love Armored Core and FromSoft so much, it's a big answer, so bear with me. As a team, they pretty much made a large portion of my childhood. They helped to satisfy that desire for adventure while simultaneously giving you the tools to choose how you carved your way ahead, but letting you figure it out yourself, to struggle and grow on your own into the horrible, yet beautiful world. The AC customization was indepth to the point where it wasn't about having the best stats, but finding the balance to match your style of play. They originally also didn't have tutorials, just threw you into the deep end and told you to swim. Pass the test, you're a Raven; death is failure. This would end up carrying over to all of their own titles, which came from their very beginnings in King's Field going into Otogi, Tenchu, Demon's Souls and beyond; this is a permanent part of their philosophy as a company. They did such a good job with designing the series that just about every other company would go on to commission them to help make their mecha games, having a hand in Another Century Episode, Murakumo Renegade Pursuit, Metal Wolf Chaos, Zone of the Enders, Chromehounds, Steel Battalion, and even Gundam itself. FromSoft doesn't just make mecha games; they ARE mecha games. Ravens fly free because these skies are ours.
How it meshes with me: I'm autistic, I have ADHD, and I'm also an adrenaline junkie. My love for robots, for adventure, my need to create, my passion for martial arts and combat- they all followed me into just about every facet of my adult life. I like to describe myself as an IRL mecha pilot because I actually drive articulated boom lifts and teleboom forklifts for a living, and things like rappelling, climbing, electrical, and parkour are job skills for me. I get paid to build shit in high places and drive modern day giant robots for a living without needing to join a tank crew; there's not a lot of jobs that get as close to the mecha experience as that.
[TARGET VERIFIED.]
[COMMENCING HOSTILITIES]
Interesting that you pulled malevolence from this because the '9' or 'Nineball' mentioned in this song technically is just that as far as the story in the games are concerned. The ps1 games are pretty sparse in terms of telling you lots of details directly to your face (as usual from From Soft. Dark Souls definitely was not the start of this method of storytelling for them), but one thing that is made fairly clear is near the end of the ps1 games storylines in the last ps1 AC game, Master of Arena. From the mail you get to what some of the npcs say in missions, you start to finally piece things together. And during the very last mission, you find out that Nineball was indeed behind a lot of the things and conflicts across the ps1 era games as it tells you that everything was by its design for the sake of humanity, or so it claims.
The original song kicks in after you descend into the epicenter of where the true Nineball resides and finally take it on, like your character has been wanting to do since the beginning of the game after defying death time and again.
As a long time Armored Core fan, the best thing about the game is the customization you can to your mech (called an Armored Core, or AC for short)
If you've ever played a Forza game and customized your car, its like that, but big ol robots.
Honestly a lot of 90-00s cyberpunk or mecha media has a lot of this techno, electronic music in it. It tends to be that or metal in my experience. Or maybe I play weird games growing up :P
One of the most important aspects of encore is building your Mac in response to mission failure so this song especially where the continuous rhythm stops could be the failure of the mission and the robotic voice and the baseline could be a reference to you the AC pilot and your machine talking to each other as you rebuild the music picks back up you continue the mission again and succeed
PS the robot voice could be saying "destroy 9 ball" "destroying 9 ball"
With the layered vocal of in the same register as the guitar, I kept hearing “M-M-MISSILE WARNING. LOCK-ON….”
I'm not sure if someone has already brought it up yet, but as a point of context the Armored Core: Reprises album is an out of game redux by FreQuency of a number of popular themes as well as one song original to the album (I Know What You Stand). It's really interesting listening to the album when you've become familiar with the original versions of the songs featured there.
The other album "Sunrise" is an Armored Core themed album where it's a rough 50/50 split on original pieces to redux songs. Some of which would make an appearance in 20th Anniversary OST box but most notably are not featured in any games. On the subject of the 20th Anniversary OST set, disc 20 has a few additional songs that also do not make appearances in any of the games.
If you have the time I'd love hear your thoughts on the Sunrise album and some of the disc 20 originals such as "In The Universe." Take care and happy holidays.
I had always interpreted the music to be like (bass guitar) a "mech jockey" climbing in to a mech cockpit. The Electric guitar as the start up sequence. The singing (talking?) as the AI boot cycle. and then when it is all together, the battle. Which in Armored Core, really does not have very high stakes, except getting paid, and making a name for yourself.
It needs to be explained why the music is this way. FromSoft developers themselves make the music on their own.
Meet the AC universe version of the "annoying bastard who don't die" xD
Also, F NineBall.
I've only just discovered your channel today, and I've watched every video you've done about Armored Core music. I gotta say it's pretty amazing how you've virtually hit the nail on the head for the context of each song despite not having really played most of the games. You're understanding/comprehension of music is outstanding! 👏
Thanks for being here!
Listen to nine memories
"The bass guitar has such a warm quality to it" - Oh boy. Here we go.
You know what else has a warm quality to it? Plasma cannons. This is a PTSD song for Armored Core players, by the way. No one hears the original version of this song for longer than like 10 seconds their first time through. It's a super unpleasant experience.
Lore deep dive:
Armored Core 1 games take place in Underground Cities which exist on a post-apocalyptic earth, the surface of which is a wasteland after a horrific war called the Great Destruction. The cities are run by AI computers which recreate a facsimile of the dystopian society from before the Great Destruction. They forcibly maintain balance with behind the scenes manipulation and many people are even unaware they exist, though it seems to be an open secret among the higher ups.
Nineball is the AI's personal mech, and when it needs to act directly, it uses it. This mech is piloted by the fake "Hustler One", the top Raven (or registered, licensed mercenary) in the city. When you fight Nineball for the final time, the AI uses a super version called Nineball Seraph. It's actually offended that you've caused so much chaos and destruction in your rise to power. But simultaneously, when you defeat it, it opens up the city to the surface and gives everyone freedom to do now as they choose.
Not all AI's have these super mechs (Silent Line's has the very similar IBIS, but AC1 and 3's do not and only exist as super computers with either their own normal mech, or a retinue of protectors). Whatever the case, they all appear to have this function where they need you to kill them to release the reigns of humanity back to humanity. They simultaneously want you to win while doing their best to keep you constrained. Sort of as a way to make sure that humanity is ready to guide itself again and break free from the chains of the corporate dystopian cycle and forge their own path.
This song debuted in Armored Core Master of Arena, and interestingly the plot to its direct sequel, Armored Core 2, is about the protagonist from Master of Arena taking on the role of villain, and secretly trying to find a way to ruin humanity and put them back under control of possibly an AI, because with out the AI's guidance humanity has done nothing but continued the vicious cycles that defined it before. He feels he is at fault and has made a terrible and grave mistake for destroying Nineball, which he did out of vengeance because his family died in the crossfire of one of Nineball's battles.
So, while Nineball is your detested enemy, it is also in a way also your friend and your parent. Your guardian and teacher. Quietly stoking the flames of human ingenuity and that unique driving spirit that defines our need to rise up. With the intent to guide us into killing it.
There's... so much deeper I could go about how this situation came to be. The possible origins of these AI's and why they seem to have emotions or choose to do things differently from one another, and so on. But that's the crux of the situation with Nineball and the story in Armored Core surrounding it.
The voice can be interpreted as your mech's desire to fight, even though it isn't sentient. The recognition that Nineball is your ultimate arch rival and so there is the natural need for the two mechs to battle, as dragons always do in myth, and kill one another. It could be seen as the voice of the controlling AI itself, demanding you rise up and kill it so that you can grasp your own destiny and freedom as a species. But, Nineball's dialogue suggests you're an aberration, and anomaly it wasn't prepared for. You stand out as something different from the rest of humanity and you're dangerous. The story of AC2 STRONGLY implies it was actually correct. AND Nineball, working behind the scenes pretending to be your Operator and Handler with the mercenary organization, tries repeatedly to stop you with out violence, trying to guide you down different paths that don't result in your causing so much chaos or growing so powerful so quickly. So I don't think the voice is the AI guiding you to beat Nineball. Maybe the voice represents your own grating sanity, your need for revenge, your being lost to the technology and the hopelessness of the situation such as that the only thing you live for right now is to.. DESTROY. NINE. BALL.
It's like breakbeat metal techno...
fromsoft's in studio band is uniquely fascinating
Why do japanese even have in studio bands
Loving armored core stuff, recommending to check out nine ball's original theme, or even his intro from the Japanese version, his distorted voice always gave me chills, it was a nightmare fight.
Also would love to see more music from 4/fa
I love the always there, always omnipresent sense of speed and urgency in the tracks of Armored Core. After playing AC the most of probably any game I've ever played outside of BattleTech MechWarrior, is that speed is king in AC. You can't hit what you can't hit, to hell with armor. The capacity to build awesome speed builds is superior in AC. The missile dodge dance is just another day at the office for all Ravens. I have to admit I beat the first game without being "Human Plus" but after finding out that tip from a game mag or somewhere, wow, love the hidden lore and "Easter eggs" that it had like that. "Human plus," giving you the ability to use shoulder weapons that otherwise could not be used less you came to a complete stop or used a tank chassis or "4" leg setup. It gave the ability to use the "Folding" shoulder weapons even while flying with 2 legs, like certain "bosses" but man really brought the game to life and made it even more fun and replayable. I guess they wanted to make you jealous of the bosses abilities. Who would have known you just had to die a lot and go into debt at the start to get the offer to become "Human Plus."
The genre is techno/dance/(sometimes)trance. I don't think they were very into differentiating the different types of "group sounds" they had in Japan in the late 90's. I did hear, however, that the reason this particular type of sound was in there because that's the type of music that the sound director was into at the time they released armored core 1.
This is the theme of Nine-Ball, a boss that has been giving Ravens P.T.S.D. for the last two and a half decades or so. An AC piloted by an A.I. taking on the persona of Hustler One, the number #1 Raven in the arena. Nine-Ball is an incredibly persistent boss following us Veteran Ravens OUT OF THE FRANCHISE! Just to trigger the P.T.S.D. he gave us.
Sadly he didn't appear in Fires of Rubicon so I took on that role myself. Because well, we play as C4-621 and well 6+2+1=9.
I started Armored Core with "Armored Core For Answer". There are two main things that draw me to this series.
The first is the customization. Each mech can be changed, obtimised and personalised to a ludicrous degree, culminating in picking stabilizers and counter weights to balance the weight added by your weaponry.
The second is the incredibly 'raw' world and story. Things are as they are. Nothing is made to look nice, or horrid. Armored Core is about massive cooperations that wage war over resources on a global scale. The player is a mercenary for hire, and has to keep themselves afloat. You get paid for accomplishing your task, no more, no less, yet through building trust with different factions, different story outcomes and endings can be achieved.
Say, you pick a contract that asks you to destroy a certain type of naval vessels of an enemy fleet, and offers a bonus for each destroyed one of a second type of vessel. The fleet you face will contain a lot of different ships, and you may have to gun down a few others to get to where you need to go, yet you also have to balance your resources. You can absolutely go and destroy the entire fleet, but the firm that contracted you will only pay you if you destroy your primary targets, and add payments for the secondary ones. Destroying the entire battlegroup is more than possible for you in your powerful mech, but this will incur massive costs for ammunition and repairs. So unless you are impressively well geared for this specific mission, you will likely only do as the firm asks, weaving your way through enemy fire to get the primary targets, and pick off a few secondary ones as the situation allows.
Another mission may ask you to work for very little wages, causing you to lose money in the process, but get much better reputation with the contracting cooperation, and allowing for other outcomes or better paying jobs down the line.
AC is about playing as a mech mercenary. You can go and play as a self-proclaimed hero or a monster in human form, but this will cost you in one way or another.
In a world where resources are everything, you can only thrive by being a professional merc who looks at the bottom line, and who is up for a risky gamble every now and again.
Ah yes, the only thing in my head before AC6 reminds me of everything: Nineball's theme.
WOW, really did not expect this track to come up. As an avid AC fan, the amount of love for the series thats coming out of the woodwork after AC6 was announced is astounding.
Let it be known I’ve been reacting to ac before the announcement 😂
One more shout out to these two classic tracks.
-"Spirit of Motherwill" from Armored Core 4
-"The Mother Will Comes Again" from Armored Core Verdict Day, a reprisal to the previous track.
Its still crazy to think me and my brother used to play AC 2 and 3 and I later watched him play For Answer but neither of us ever had the context that these games were by From Software, the Souls boys. Even when Moonlight Greatsword was an obtainable weapon I all Armored Core games as well as literally every Souls game with increasing rarity and importance up until Bloodborne and Elden Ring where certain requirements are necessary to obtain the legend weapon that grows more lore related to each franchise as it goes.
Still feel bad about making my brother do the final evil mission without prior context in For Answer and soft locking him into an unwinnable battle against three endgame souls boss level mechs with no go back button. But he beat the game so hard I pushed him to do the other mission. I dont think he stayed mad at me. But he was just like "this is literally impossible even with everything."
Probably on me in hindsight that I didn't realize AC is literally Hyper Souls with several extra steps.
Two AMVs I like watching in relation to AC 4 and AC 4:FA, is "No.39" and "Autobahn". It's a montage of songs tied to voiced combat clips from the game, which at least give a sense of the atmosphere of those two games, if not the story proper. They have English subtitles for the Japanese voiceovers, which is better than nothing. If you don't mind taking those songs off future lists of blind reactions, I consider the two videos good window into the Armored Core 4 universe (the devs tend to write new universes for each sequel and its spin offs).
Reborn, and reborn again. Nineball rises up to beat down those ravens who would seek to rise above.
This big difference this Reprises version has from other versions of this theme is that others don't have that more mellow opening and start at the piano section instead.
Nineball is a recurring boss throughout the series and always one of the toughest fights. Moving so fast that players have trouble just keep them in view, shoving missiles and laser swords figuratively and literally up your ass if you can't keep up.
I know this is a remix album, but I'm still gonna say that PS1 music is just, wild, in a level entirely of its own. PS1 and PS2 songs in general, you can usually tell the platform they're from just by the music style, and I love that lol
Saw the video title and was very intrigued because I had recently come into possession of the entire Armored Core soundtrack and it summed it up perfectly. FreQuency's music is unusual, but at the same time I can't think of any other kind of music which would fit AC. A bit like the Darius series and its style of music, come to think.
I've played Armored Core 1, going through 3, and i dabbled in 4 and For answer. One of the defining things about Armored core is the lore and character development in the game. The main character is you the person (exactly the same way as Warrior of Light in FFXIV). The story is simple and repeated through its iterations. Post apocalyptic event, the mega corps fill the void of government, and behind the scenes an AI plots humanity's destruction. But there is a significant amount of dialogue and interaction you do with fellow mercenaries, and your contractors. Additionally (unlike FFXIV), your choices matter. When you take up a mission with 1 client, it can cause another to disappear. As well as affect available future missions and encounters. There are also decisions in battle. That affect things like fighting against mercenaries you just met or even allied with before, but you are enemies today, and somebody isn't going home tonight. That's just the current events. The games also delve into the archeological elements. Such as exploring or destroying technology and remnant systems from the apocalyptic event. And the lore and conversations you get from these missions really makes the imagination run wild.
The best tidbits of taste of this i think are the openings of armored core 3 and silent line.