TURN ON THE A/C

i fell off DxM. it’s definitely just a lite-AC, but with no AC in however long it’s nice to have something that plays like that. i should pick it back up.

I bounced off it the first time I played it as well, but I stuck with it the second time and now I’m into it. Still hoping for “real” AC soon though.

I was sold hard on the idea of “lack of humanity” and “ambiguous motivations and consequences” and “bleak alienating future war”, then turned the first one off after the first level ended with a mysterious gambling-themed rival (who killed my parents, I’m told) jumping out of nowhere to steal my kill and brag that I can never defeat him. It was a slog getting that far because the first level is about a dozen empty hallways with one enemy over and over again. This is probably one of those series I prefer to hear fans gush about than actually play.

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60 posts were split to a new topic: armored core 6

7 posts were merged into an existing topic: it’s more fun to emulate

i got ss rank in armored core 4 (s rank on every mission on both normal and hard)

it was some of the most fun i’ve had with video games in a while. excited to move onto 4a soon, which i’ve beaten years before but kinda sped through and don’t remember much of. i plan to take my time with it.

i wrote notes to my self about every mission to better remember my time with ac4. nothing worth reading but i wanted someplace to share them

wall of text

ch.1

first strike - navigate a small urban area and make your way across a wide river to destroy a few normals. hard mode makes them into energy sniping units that hop up and down like a damn richardson’s ground squirrel. very difficult to s-rank on hard, tried multiple times to do some urban warfare kind of stuff ducking in and out of the buildings behind the normals but what ended up working best was just sniping them back from a high elevation that lets me dodge their shots.

ch.2

swarms of red eyes - so sick, so so sick. what a great early mission. unceasing waves of glowing red self-destruct drones rushing at you as you stand on a moonlit promontory, targeting a launch site that you’re defending. sure, it’s not the most fun mission (just stand there and shoot stuff down) but it’s a visual treat

elimination - maybe the fastest mission in the game, but it’s also almost comical on hard: enemies shoot waves of huge rockets that tank the frame rate with their explosions. there’s a chokepoint from one end of the factory to the other that’s near impossible to pass through without getting hit. took quite a few tries to s-rank, big mix of caution and aggression needed to know when to rush.

dangerous waters - not super memorable, but it’s neat to be fighting in a massive subterranean water system. definitely inspired by g-cans.

operation: descent - as the mission starts, you’re falling from orbit into the core of a massive towering power plant. a second later, the plant’s defense systems start firing (impressive but easy-to-dodge) beams at you which pass onwards into the atmosphere. drop down into the center and kill a couple of normals defending the core. quick and easy but very visually impressive.

sharpshooting - not much to it, same area as the first mission in the game but the targets are these massive standalone sniper cannons that can and will shoot you accurately from very, very far away. fly over them and then mop them up from behind since they can’t turn very quickly.

bald-dora - i really loved this location and i wish it had been re-used at some point like many of the other areas. beautiful canyon with a rolling, winding military road running through it. the target is a plant or facility of some sort at the end of the canyon. boosting smoothly over the rolling dirt hills, cannons set along the canyon walls raining down on you…it’s a lovely memory.

sandstorm citadel - actually very cool to have a mission where you cannot see anything. of course there’d be insane sandstorms in this post-pax-economica ruined earth, and of course that’s the perfect time to rush a desert base and destroy their weaponry.

desert wolf - first real fight against an enemy next. amazigh is a really interesting choice for this because he is very, very fast and can be tricky to keep a bead on. a real trial by fire. hard mode ramps it up even more as white glint comes out to support amazigh partway through. fortunately, and perhaps disappointingly, it’s really easy to take out amazigh as he’s being transported into the site before he can even fight.

ch.3

aerial interdiction - stand on a high bridge overlooking a massive dusty valley and take out incoming helicopters attempting to make it to the other side. towards the end of the mission, a transport train will rush along the valley wall and that needs to be taken out too. hard mode was very difficult! it adds in my sworn enemy - a fermi aerial fortress - which took me a very long time to figure out how to take out.

icebreaker defense - this mission was so cool, but i dreaded it! s-ranking it on either difficulty was a very tough challenge. an icebreaker cruises through the antarctic ocean and submarines surface all around the map firing missile volleys. the only thing that worked for me was flying all around the map and grenading every submarine i could see as it appeared.

water gliding - boosting across the water’s surface in destroyed shanghai, taking out any large ships. not much to it.

might makes right - oh man i actually don’t even remember this one. i think you just rush in and kill some normals in the g-cans chamber.

barbe-bleue - tough!! starting in the middle of a subterranean base, you have to fend off invasions of normals coming from multiple entrances. this mission single-handedly made me make a new next design focused on speed so that i could move around the base quickly enough to s-rank it.

retaliation - nothing special, just take out a bunch of normals trying to attack anatolia. lovely landscape, though. very cool to have this mission ambush you in the mission select screen!

a dark night’s march - combat in a pitch-black desert, lit only by sporadic support flares shot off by an allied support group far away. very neat to see mechs shining in the midst of all the darkness. very cool that there are two missions predicated on not seeing anything, but they work in different ways.

up in flames - neat 1v1 with a heavily fortified and armed next. not too hard, not too memorable.

internal purge - the exact inverse of barbe-bleue! invade the base and take out the massive weapons under development. requires a lot of speed, and on hard mode a next enters the base as a last-ditch defense effort at the end. it was tough to beat, up against tons of firepower in a cramped hallway. blading it worked best.

ch.4

ego boost - defend a plane at an airport from an invasion of normals. i thought it was really hard at first but, so long as you have something that can fire long-range, it’s not too bad. a next attacks at the end of the mission on hard mode, which is also not a huge deal.

firefly - oh, there’s another dark mission. the same environment as the first mission in the game, but pitch black. on normal, the mission is to take out a fermi aerial fortress hidden in the darkness. my nemesis! but then on hard mode, the mission is to take out four of them. not as tricky as i thought it would be once i got more accurate with my blades, but it was really tense and scary to have their energy cannons streaming at you from the darkness.

operation: ascend - a complete reversal of the descent mission from chapter 2! i really loved this mission, or at least the idea of it: rush the massive tower from the base and climb it from the inside while destroying massive cooling fans. however, on hard mode the mission ends with three fermi aerial fortresses hovering just outside the top of the structure sending missile barrages down at you. very difficult to take care of them all cleanly.

line of defense - reusing the same bridge-valley area as earlier in the game, this mission focuses on destroying a placement of fortified ground troops. on hard, a fermi and a next rush at the end, but i somehow managed to take them both out in a few tries.

sea of blood - fight a next 1v1 by a big offshore oil rig (or is it? there are sunken skyscrapers around it). this guy was tough, and if that’s not bad enough, white glint joins the fight on hard mode! there was no particular trick to this, i just had to try it over and over until i got the s-rank (both on normal and on hard).

the womb - a 1v3 fight in an experimental research facility (feels like a coliseum) against experimental unpiloted nexts. they’re strange to fight; what ended up working best for me was standing in the entrance chute to the arena and getting the drop on them before they activated.

empress - 1v1 fight with a sniper next on the dusky antarctic landmass. very cool setting. white glint joins in on hard mode.

break the white lance - rush through the ocean to take out a central command ship in the midst of a dense armed flotilla. not a lot to it, but it’s fun rushing in past all the cannon fire.

juggernaut - a boss fight deep in a tunnel system against some massive weapon trying to invade anatolia. it’s a neat change of pace to be boosting backwards while trying to overload this thing with firepower, rear view camera showing in the corner.

ch.5

unseen assailant - we’re draining! navigate through a massive subterranean drainage facility (same general area as the early g-cans-esque missions, just a different section) to take out five normals. the mission features, i think, five massive vertical shafts connected by small tunnels. each shaft has ambushes set up and the radar is jammed by tiny helicopters. some real tunnel rat kinda stuff.

hail of bullets - same place as the defend the airplane mission, but this one is about attacking a sniper team. dodge their shots and take them out, really not much more to say.

silent avalanche - this mission is very, very difficult. this was the last mission i had to s-rank on hard and it took me about two hours straight to do it. the silent avalanche group (sniping normals dedicated to arctic support missions) is camped out defending a kojima reactor. on normal, you fly around the area and take them all out while dodging their bullets. all well and good! however, when playing on hard mode, clearing out the silent avalanche team is followed by an ambush by two nexts, helix i and helix ii. they’re siblings; one of them is focused on close range combat and the other on long range. it is a very, very hard fight. it took me a long time to kill both of them even once, much less get the s-rank. i ended up having to lure them into a crevasse where it was easier for me to do strafing runs and dodge their attacks. they fully destroyed me anytime i tried to fight them on open ground. a truly memorable mission.

futile resistance - very neat concept for a mission: descend into the antarctic kojima reactor and take out an embedded group of rebels who have specialized normals made to survive in high-kojima environments. the mission itself isn’t exactly fun, but the tension of the passive damage increasing as you descend deeper into the reactor core is so neat.

pillar of light - the mission is to attack and destroy an anti-satellite cannon in the middle of the desert. it’s loaded with all sorts of defenses, including an energy shield that has to be disabled on a different part of the map first. unfortunately, it sounds more impressive than it is! destroy the shield, find a cranny to hide in on the edge of the cannon, destroy all defenses in line of sight and then take out the cannon itself. a little underwhelming when i think about the idea of destroying an anti-orbital weapon.

sol dios - a strange mission where you have to destroy multiple massive mobile weapons in the desert to prevent them from doing a kojima particle scorched earth campaign. they look weird, like massive spiders. when you blow one up, it causes a chain reaction which destroys other weapons around it. easier than it first seems.

jardin de chavalier - 1v1 against a melee-focused next in the tiny warehouse from the second chapter. pretty fun fight, as she’s very mobile and aggressive.

marche au supplice - i loved this mission! on normal, you’re sent in to support the losing team on a 2v4 next fight. on hard, however, your allies have already been defeated when you show up and it’s now a 1v4 next battle in a desert wasteland. this one took me a long time, and i ended up succeeding by boosting past all of them at the start and pulling them into the city area where i could more easily cut line of sight and pull people into 1v1s. when i beat this mission on hard, i felt like i had really become competent with the game for the first time.

bitter obligation - took me a while to figure this one out. the mission is to destroy a company headquarters in remote northern canada. very cool location! it’s held up by strange angled support pillars that all need to be destroyed. it took me many tries as i spent way too much time and ammo fighting off all their defenses, when really i just needed to fly around and shoot down the structures. it collapses and the mission ends. big win against corporate architecture.

ch.6

seed a barren earth - 1v1 with white glint. he is so hard to fight here! very strong and very fast. i can’t remember if it’s only on hard mode or not, but at a certain point in the fight it looks like he nukes himself; there’s a huge explosion and the screen glows painfully white. good final boss fight, exactly what you’d think it would be.

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Wall of Text?

:tarothink:

Don’t remember that boss!