I have never played an AC game before, is it fun combat mechanics?
It’s fucking fantastic. The movement feels great, and combat makes you feel like a god sometimes with the shit you pull off. The game is a ton of fun.
It’s a compromise between the classic AC games that were a bit more mech-y and a Soulslike (note that even the classic games were very fast-paced, we’re not talking about Mechwarrior here). Some people call it “Sekirobot” because it’s moved away from a few of the mech-y aspects and is more about high-speed soulslike combat but with a rocket-pack, guns, and homing-missiles.
Personally I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
Hell yeah. Never played AC before as well–picked this one up on launch day and have been having an absolute blast. It’s FromSoft, so it kicks your teeth in a little bit, but once you get the hang of the combat system and make sense of the info on your screen it’s a ton of fun. If you like the dark souls style of combat (heavy emphasis on dodge-and-punish, demands near-perfect execution), you’ll like AC.
Story’s fantastic, game mechanics are great, movement feels nice. Avoid if you get motion sickness.
Thank you!
A question for AC veterans: does the presence of a lock-on change things too much? Is it way easier now?
I haven’t played the series since AC2, and I was pretty young so I don’t recall how tough the aiming was, but no I wouldn’t say the way they implement it in this one makes it too easy at all.
If you are set on using the old method, there’s a way to turn it on relatively early in the game. I tried it for a few minutes, and it made the already somewhat difficult game impossible (for me). Your mileage may vary.
That said, the game is an absolute blast to play, I’m enjoying it so much. Even just the movement feels so goddamn good. From Software has done it again. And it’s not too “souls-y” at all imo. The only real From Soft staple I’ve noticed so far is amazingly well designed (and often tough as nails) boss fights.
It’s a wholly different style of play at close range. There’s no way to “get behind” an enemy AC as they turn on a dime and so do you. At long and mid range, it feels similar. It’s really not comparable to older games as you don’t feel like you’re in a giant robot most of the time- movement is prioritized for better and worse. I still like it but had to reconcile with that early on.
Yes. Things they changed from classic AC that I like: The assault-flight mode, the cooldown-based weapons, mouse and keyboard controls, some difficult and interesting bosses. The fact that you don’t have to pay for failed missions. Removing stunlocking.
Things I don’t like: fast rotation, loss of radar, general sameyness of the ACs compared to the more extreme oldschool designs. Sometimes it feels like the only important decision is “twogun or sword”.
Things I’m not sure about because they’re obviously “Sekirobot” but the old AC approach had some flaws: the new energy model, the boost-dodges, the new stun model.
Things about oldschool AC I’m disappointed still haven’t been replaced: The fact that buy/sell/install hasn’t been unified into a single screen instead of jumping back and forth between 3 screens. The fact that you don’t automatically start skating by default - why do you ever want to walk in modern Armored Core?
It’s a good compromise between Souls and AC, but there are definitely things I miss about the early games.
