Question about Armored Core

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

For the record, I've never played an Armored Core before but after seeing 4 in action I wanna play it now.

That said, what would be recommended? I'm looking for something on the PS2, leaning more towards Last Raven.

[Zangetsu]

Before 4 Last Raven was the hardest. I would suggest either Silent Line or 3 for beginers

[Jak Stoller]

Silent line would be your best bet, but myself personally, i always thought Project Phantasma was the best.

--Jak

[J-Lead]

Just to let you know, there's a pretty big difference between the previous titles and AC4, in that there's not quite as much freedom performance-wise.

[VR7]

I'd highly recommend playing Armored Core 4, because it looks and plays better than any other of the titles.

If you want a PS2 game though, I'd say Nexus and Formula Front are pretty good. If you have the patience, you can also give Ninebreaker a shot, though you should have a full clear save of Nexus before you try that. I have yet to try some of the older ones, but Armored Core 2 has me interested.

Also, contrary to what most people are going to tell you, avoid Last Raven unless you only care about the multiplayer aspect of the game, (honestly the single player is some of the worst I've seen in the series) but most netplay AC players have already moved on to Armored Core 4.

[ZeBaron]

For the PS2, I'd have to recommend Armored Core 2 and AC2: Another Age to start out. The hidden parts aren't near-impossible to find in those like they can be with Last Raven or Nexus, and they have the same degree of customization as the later PS2 games but without trying to add a heat mechanic to every damn thing. Lastly, there are more than enough parts to let your brain run free and wild, and you could still get Human PLUS upgrades in AC2 and port them into AA

[quasadra]

i would recommend Silent Line. the later titles heat management are quiet troublesome. play silent line first if you dont like it get a ps3 , you would not care about the rest if you dont like silent line.

[bluemax151]

Armored Core 2 and Another Age are my favourites of the series but Nexus is probably your best bet. It has basically a compilation of the older game's levels remade and should be fairly easy to find now. Truthfully AC4 is a totally new beast though and nothing previous in the series plays like it. The older games tend to be more "slow" paced.

[Mwulf]

AC4 plays a LOT like the other games. A LOT. Basically all they did was remove heat and greatly increase the amount of time to boost.

Sure, you don't see the big FCS box... but it's still there.

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

For the record, I don't own own a PS3.

[J.E.]

Just get Silent Line or Last Raven, they're the only ones being played in the PS2 nowadays. Don't get high expectations from armored core, the game requires skill and it involves a lot of customization and it doesn't play like what you've seen in AC4, there's no quick boost and the ac's can only fly for a few seconds. If you want to have fun, play ZOE or ACE titles instead.

[Seraphic]

On PS2,

Get Silent Line if you want to figure out what AC gameplay is like. It pretty much runs the smoothest in terms of gameplay and balance. It has really fun missions from what I recall, and it still has howitzers which were removed from later editions. In this edition, we get into the part where we first start having varieties of left-hand guns.


Get Last Raven if you are a tech junkie and like tweaking your mech. There are some gameplay balance issues like how the accuracy of hand weapons are reduced dramatically. Sometimes you can watch your bullets veer away from your moving targets for no apparent reason, but don't let that deterr you. Just make sure to keep close if you're using machineguns. It can be rather difficult and challenging, you'll find yourself fighing other ACs often (you'll want to kill yourself if you end up fighting Zinaida at the end) and the missions seems rather short for my liking.

There are several features that Last Raven has developed since Silent line, so knowing the differences will help. I'll list them here:

Booster Heat- using your boosters now causes your AC to gradually heat up, and therefore, it actually matters what radiator you equip. Howitzers were also removed because of booster heat. =/

Part tuning (at no cost!)- tuning was introduced in Nexus, but it's a free service in LR, which is great. Basically, you can tweak stats on all the parts that aren't weapons or software. I recommend tuning all of your parts to MAX COOLING if you like to boost a lot. I do. =)

Hangar units-basically, if the ammo on your hand weapons runs out, drop them and pull out a backup weapon! There is a hangar for each hand, and you can store small weapons like pistols, submachineguns and laser blades. I love this feature because it's one of the things that makes my ACs complete monsters.

Analog control scheme-in LR, you can turn using an analog stick just like in an FPS, so you may find that to your liking. You can also use the old control scheme, too. The only problem I have with the analogs is that I tend to slip from the nubs when I'm trying to strafe in really tight situations. I was hoping the PS3 analogs had better grip or indentures, but they don't, so it seems. >_>

Magazines-most ballistic weapons now have magazines, which means you can't just sit there and UNLOAD your machineguns on people. (For instance, there's a machinegun with 1000 ammo, you can't just hold your trigger until it empties. It lets out a short burst, auto reloads with a small delay, and starts firing again. Don't worry, the reloading is automated.) That's unfortunate, because I love unloading my guns on people. It's kind of annoying, but you can always work around it like I have. Energy based weapons do not have magazines.

And duh, more weapons variety- stuff like micro-missiles, railguns and linearguns have been added. Awesome.

Did I miss anything?

The only true con to LR is the accuracy tweak plus the low capacity of the magazines. My favorite weapons until then had been chainguns, but they were rendered useless. =/ Even still, I've been able to build extraordinary ACs.

Have fun with it, challenge yourself, and let us know how it turns out. One day, we'll both have AC4 and we'll team up online. =)

[Mwulf]

The only true con to LR is the accuracy tweak plus the low capacity of the magazines. My favorite weapons until then had been chainguns, but they were rendered useless. =/ Even still, I've been able to build extraordinary ACs.

Did I miss anything?

Actually, yes. One thing. Ironically, it's the one thing that's probably MOST important for someone looking to get into Armored Core.

The difficulty spike. ACLR is very, very HARD. It's aimed at people that go into the game experienced enough to know what they're doing. If it's your first game, it's very unlikely you'll get past your first AC on you first, second, third, fourth or fifth try.

For a new player starting out, you want something easy to get into, something that looks good, and something with interesting features. I'd go with AC3 or Silent line. You get lots of parts, and (in the case of AC3) a coherent story and a nice, normal difficulty curve. The difficulty curve in ACLR is like running headfirst into a brick wall.

[Seraphic]

Precisely, Mwulf.

When I first got LR, I just started off with some simple mods to my AC then looked at the first three missions provided. Simply picked the most interesting sounding one and started the sortie.

THERE WAS A GOD DAMN AC IN THERE WITH THE LINEAR BACK CANNON!! I must have gone down in less than 12 seconds!! WHAT KIND OF SICK FREAK PUTS THAT KIND OF OPPONENT INTO YOUR FIRST MISSION?!?!!?!

To adequately describe the difficulty curve, LR is cheap. It's not difficult. It's just plain cheap. All the AI controlled opponents can fly around with back cannons while you have to kneel. AI opponents don't get booster heat. They really really like to spam you with linear guns. And some opponents have infinite boost for whatever reason.

For instance, this Zinaida I had mentioned in my earlier post:

In your last fight with her, she has infinite energy, can use back cannons, has linear guns and pulse guns and machine guns and missiles, and has all of the parts on her AC TUNED TO MAX. You can only tune one category to max for each part. All of her parts had all categories tuned to max. Oh, and before you even fight her, you have to run blindly through a tiny cooridor with remote flying suicide mines, and then you have to free-aim (no auto-lock) and destroy some generators which can beam-spam you if you don't work fast enough. It took me over four hours of tries against her before I finally got it, at which point I literally decalred aloud "I AM THE MOST POWERFUL AC PILOT IN THE UNIVERSE!!" But I just made it overly hard for myself because I was using machineguns, which don't hit worth a crap unless you're pretty close. (Hadn't figured the key to using MGs at that point, you see.)

*And I should really add this story to the Greatest Moments topic, hahaha.

So in short, LR is cheap by throwing all kinds of unspeakable BS at you. But if you can overcome, I truly commend you. If you can ace LR, you're either pretty good or just really really bored and like to tweak ACs until you have an unstoppable death machine (like myself.) Just PM me if you need some tips for strategy or something. Happy hunting.

[Recon 5]

I'd recommend you start with Master of Arena. Why? Because thats the only one I've really played, and it was fun enough.

[quasadra]

i doubt you can still find Master of Arena. but its do have THE most entertaining final boss fight i have ever played(for detail refer to my greatest moments post).