Tag: Armored Core VI | A Banana Peeled

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Why I’m not playing Armored Core VI

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

As most people know, I’m a huge From fan. When they announced that they were doing a new Armored Core, I was pretty excited about it–even though I’m not into sci-fi nor mechs. It’s FromSoft. I trust them implicitly. I thought the trailers were all fire, but…

I’ll say it. I knew I probably wouldn’t gel with it from the start. I know me and for better or worse, I am not into sci-fi or mechs. I don’t care about that. At all. But it was From, so I was going into it with an open mind.

It came out and I installed it. I was exicted, but in the back of my mind, I had the thought that it probably wouldn’t be for me. I hoped that wasn’t the case, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were.

To be perfectly blunt, I knew I wasn’t going to get along with it. Even though I was hyped. Even though it was FromSoft. Even though it looked slick as hell. Even though everyone in the RKG Discord was thrilled about it.

I tried it out and was meh about it. Again, being honest. It was ok, but it wasn’t really grabbing me. Not because of the game itself–it was doing what it was supposed to do. But it just wasn’t my thing. Which was ok, but made me sad because I so wanted it to be my thing. I want everything FromSoft to be my thing. I did a quick look here, and I was mildly enthusiastic about it. But, even then, it was very tempered.

When I hit the tutorial boss, I realized just how much this game was going to test me. Below, I included a video by OutsideXbox, and Andy has some of the same complaints I did about the boss. One, that he can go outside the warning signs (meaning you’ve left the playable area), but you can’t. It’s understandable because the boss is so big, but it’s irritating. Two, that the lock-on breaks if you swing the camera too quickly–which, let’s face it, you’re going to do. Only with the boss, though. Even when I had the lock-on, if I boosted towards the boss, I would…simply go by it.

Oh, and there are two boost buttons. I’m not entirely clear why. One is a combat boost button and one is just a boost-boost. I can’t deal with that, especially in the heat of combat.

Another thing about the boss fight that I didn’t understand was how at one point in the fight, your handler told you that you had gotten what you needed, but you had to ‘clean up’ the rest. Meaning, ‘kill’ the boss. Also, I couldn’t read its health bar or know how much health it had. But even when I did the first part pretty flawlessly, the second part (clean up) dragged on and on and on until I died by attrition. I wasn’t doing anything differently, and maybe that was the issue. I also don’t know how I actually killed it.

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon: a quick look

Posted on August 26, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

FromSoft dropped a new game yesterday. Normally, that would mean I would be super-hyped and jumping out of my skin. I mean, I bought a whole new desktop 10 days before Elden Ring came out specifically so I could play it. Granted, I need a new desktop, anyway, but I didn’t push myself to get one until the prospect of not being able to play Elden Ring hit me. I was not happy that From didn’t drop the specs needed for the PC until 10 days before the game dropped.

I do understand that ti’s more difficult to assess what is needed for a PC than a console because the specs are much more diverse on the former and not limited by hardware the way it is on the console. But 10 days before the game realesed was cutting it close. I was fortunate enough that I could buy a new desktop just like that, but most people cannot.

This time, I didn’t even check the specs before I bought the game. If my computer could play Elden Ring, it should be able to play ACVI. Even with my beefy rig, Elden Ring had some microstutters on release. I had two hard crashes, too, but that was it. It wasn’t enough to dampen my enthusiasm for the game, but it was a thing. And I know that many people had it much worse, even people with beefier PCs.

I will be brutally honest. I am not a sci-fi person or a mech person. I don’t give a flying fig about robots, so I would not have even blinked about this game if it weren’t for the fact that it was made by FromSoft. I have never played an Armored Core, but I know that this was their bread-and-butter back before they became known for their brutally hard action-adventure RPGs such as Dark Souls.

Fun fact: Patches first appeared in an Armored Core. I don’t remember what his epithet was in that game, and I hesitate to look it up because I don’t want to spoil what it is in this game. I found it by looking for the first game he was in. The thing I thought was a spoiler wasn’t. He was a Lynx called Patch the Good Luck, and apparently, it’s a game Miyazaki directed. This was in Armored Core: For Answer (which is an interesting choice for a name).

He has been in every game since, either directly or implicitly. There was a character called Pate in the second Dark Souls game that was clearly Patches. And there was a merchant/thief in Sekiro who reminded me strongly of Patches. In Demon’s Souls, he was Patches the Hyena. In Dark Souls, he was Trusty Patches. In Dark Souls III, he was Unbreakable Patches. In Elden Ring, he turns up as Patches the Untethered, and his questline is filled with pathos in a way it’s not in the others. Although he does have an interesting qusetline in the second DLC of Dark Souls III. I cannot wait to see WHEN he shows up in ACVI.