Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon • Retrospective • [The History of From Software]

Finally someone giving the AC6 soundtrack some well deserved attention. It’s absolutely amazing and it’s sad seeing so much hate for it!

With the plant related moniker related to the vascular plant and xylem, and with AC6 assets being modelled to scale in comparison to Elden Ring, you could say Vascular Plant is the biggest "Tree" From Software has ever made.

IMO, A6 is not a good AC game. It's so bare bones and hand-holdy it barely qualifies as an AC game – and it was made the way it is because it's made for onboarding. From Software didn't want to scare off new players with AC6 as all the past entries did. So I get I'm not the target audience, as someone who has been playing Armored Core since gen1.

Despite my reservations, I am more than willing to agree it does do combat quite well. It's a fair action shooter game. It is by no measure perfect, as there is too much emphasis on the easily abused posture system, lack of checks & balances like heat and turning speed, etc, but it's the most responsive and fluid combat system AC has ever had. It's polished. It's the audio cues. It's how the bullets and missiles feel like they have impact because the targets are responsive. When your AC takes hits, it's responsive.
I don't think it has anything to do with comparing it to tank controls, or the lack of, or the difference between controlling the pilot instead of the mech. Tthe PS1 controller didn't originally have dual analogue sticks, and tank controls simply carried over in gen2 and gen3 because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" even though dual analogue is superior.

I think you overstate the value Balteus has to the game. I didn't learn anything from that boss fight. To me, he was just a huge difficulty spike I wasted an entire day on. What was I supposed to learn? To be hyper aggressive? The tutorial helicopter already did that. To use dual shotguns for the rest of the game and cheese every boss with the overtuned stagger system? Because that's what I did.
Who sent Balteus, and why? Why is Balteus hostile to the player? Why am I fighting this boss at all? The game doesn't answer any of this, as far as I'm aware. So to me, Balteaus is a boss fight who exists only because From Software decided they wanted to put one there. AC6 is about showcasing recycled Souls bosses.
The classic games handled difficulty better in this regard. They started off easy and steadily increased in difficulty with occasional spikes, but you were always being pushed a little further. The entirety of AC6's difficulty is like a cool gentle breeze on a summer morning until you get to a boss, and you feel like you get sucker punched if you're not prepared. To me, this made the game one-dimensional, poorly paced, and in some ways, unfair. I wanted a game where I was pushed to use all of my available resources at all times, like the classic games did. I was sad to discover we didn't get that.

I can’t believe I didn’t recognize Sulla’s name, the Roman historical parallels are crazy! Thanks a bunch! I’ll buy ur game 🙂

I also feel like Iguazu might actually be more similar to allmind than first appears. Allmind seems really clinical and detached but the further you get with her the more you realize she is very jealous of humanity. She even has her own OC!

This video just validates my opinion that the Ayer ending is objectively the best ending.

With how many times I have seen the game being compared to Sekiro due to the stagger system, I'm glad you've drawn more comparisons with Bloodborne, because both it and AC6 occupy pretty much the same mindspace for me – both manage to make the combat so engaging, entertaining and visceral that playing them is like a more agressive and mobile version of comfort food. And it's impressive in both games' unique way, because Bloodborne's cannon fodder focuses more on taking you out right then and there, while AC6's fodder focuses more on whittling you down on the long run, especially if you play with self-imposed old-school rules and don't use repait kits until you're in a boss battle. I wasn't a fan of Sekiro's hyperfocus on stagger (or rather, enemies having HP bars that don't really matter), so AC6's method of making both regular damage and stagger bonus damage reasonably big enough to not let one overshadow the other was a neat addition to the combat's agression, especially against enemy ACs.

In regards of the economy not mattering much, I find this to be case ever since Nexus, altough I think AC6 is the best version of the post-Silent Line economy with how the focus is on two things. One being that AC parts and weapons are arguably the most indvidualized in their stats and roles for a generation starter game; and other being that everything is expensive enough that you do have to make decisions about which parts/weapons to use, and which of them being put in "storage" for when you want to swap something after dying to a miniboss/boss. And speaking of, I really like how you can access the assembly screen after death but not the shop, so you have even more incentive to test stuff in the test room and finding out what works for you and what doesn't.

This isn't related to a specific thing you mentioned, but I do like how OG Raven, Freud and Iguazu together feel like intentional callbacks to certain aspects of AC as a whole. To me, OG Raven represents doing immoral things for the sake of having a job and income, Freud represents the AC mentality of changing AC equipment every now and then and seeking ways to test them, and Iguazu represents the way Human+ used to be the sort of failstate in AC1 – a punishment for having too much dept, being stripped from your individuality and thus freedom, while other AC pilots of your caliber can get by, being free and debtless.

EDIT: Forgot to mention it, but you said you hope that detractors of AC4 will find their complaints addressed with 6, and to me: yes, absolutely. It's not only what ACV's correction towards a more grounded game should have been, but this is how AC4's and FA's increased speed and sense of action should have been done in the first place, period.

Sekiro is the ONLY modern FromSoft game I haven't beaten. Stuck on the Fire Demon side boss, I just want to beat him before I actually fight the final boss because I'm a stubborn man.

I don't think Snail's ambush is a cheap moment for 2 reasons: 1) it's in character for Snail to best 621 in the surprising, cunning way he does, 2) you get the chance to avoid being taken down later by heeding Allmind's advice and now being the one to ambush Snail, reinforcing Allmind's power and creep-factor alongside the catharsis inherent in revenge.

Your voice almost sounds like Daniel Southworth's version of Vergil, at a lot of points. It's almost like hearing Vergil nerding out about a giant robot game.

Aesir is revealing the awesome power of a true fromsoft nerd!

Algorithm plz bless this video. People need to see this

Probably one my most favorite games ever.

22:40

The only connection I could find between 24-621 and C4-621 is that C is the 3rd letter of the alphabet, so it's number 2 if A = 0.
It's a stretch, but that's the only thing I could think of

Bro literally doesn't know what retrospective even means. Hint: a two month old game doesn't get one.

I have 860h in Elden Ring and 135h in AC6. I'm 43 and have been gaming since I was 8 y/o. I have just this to say. I want AC6 dlc/expansion more than anything in gaming. Period. Even more than the ER Shadows of the Erdtree.

sorry if that was already asked but will your game be on steam ?

Great insight, as always.

Thank you for proving the "X amount of time later" theme in game review thumbnails is absolutely overplayed.

Reviewing something only 2 months after it came out and pretending this is some important amount of time to have passed to make a judgement on it or whatever is absurd.

Also, AC6 doesn't just crib imagery from Dune, the whole scenario is nearly a total copy of the scenario in Dune. To wit, you have:

– an absurdly important resource on a far-away planet that drives the action, Spice Melange/Coral
– two extra planetary factions at war with each other but ultimately on that planet for the important resource, with one of the factions being notably more devious and the other being notably more honorable than the other, with the honorable faction losing to the devious one, seen in both the House Harkonnen/Atreides dynamic vs the Arquebus/BALAM dynamic
– a "native" faction of humans who live on the planet and who are religiously devoted to the resource, fighting a guerrilla war against all other factions that come to the planet, seen in the Fremen/Rubicon Liberation Front
– a governing authority for the extraplanetary factions that tries to mediate disputes between them/lay down the law generally in the Padishah Emperor/Empire in Dune, and the PCA in AC6
– the important resource in both is ultimately truly alien in origin, generated from the sand worms in Dune and just is an alien form of life in AC6, and its usage by humans directly is both potentially very dangerous while also altering conciousness in various ways that have extremely real effects, such as how in Dune, use of the spice melange grants foresight and the ability to see forward in time/folding of space, and in AC6 there's an obvious level of psychic connection to at least the coral conciousness through coral exposure
– an ending that features two key elements: the threat of the resource being destroyed and the siding with the native faction against all other powers interested in the resource – in Dune, Paul Atreides does both of these things – he sides with the "native" Fremen and then threatens to destroy the Spice Melange in order to get the Emperor and the other Houses off of the planet, in AC6, they split these concepts into the two base endings on New Game and New Game +
– a further continuing plot thread about the evolution of humanity and using the important resource to potentially change/guide humanity's future; the later Dune books get HEAVY into this, which by God Emperor of Dune, has Paul's son being a 10,000 year old human/worm/spice hybrid thing and ruling the cosmos as a benevolent dictator, and in AC6 the benevolent dictator is ALLMIND, trying to "save" humanity by turning them all into human/coral consciousness hybrids

And don't get me wrong, I like that they're cribbing so much from Dune here. Dune is a classic bit of sci-fi for a reason, so cribbing from Dune is generally a good thing. Not nearly enough people do it, to be quite frank. Most games crib from Star Wars, and I'm just tired of "evil Empire vs noble Rebels" action in games. Dune at least as some different perspectives and ideas to play with.

Also, aside from my snark about the thumbnail, this is a good review. Thumbs up all the way.

Your point about the economy is just incorrect, you just didn’t buy many parts if you “never thought about the economy again” after getting 1 million early on lol. You will always be out of money if you are buying things and testing new mechs

i wish they would have hired some more unique sounding VAs for the English dub. It sounds too generically AAA to make me care, too Critical Role. Ended up playing it in Japanese

lmao is this the new trend now?

Another Aesir banger!!!