After more than 10 years in limbo, Bandai Namco decided that they’re going to revive one of their flagship series in the form of Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon. Upon its announcement, thousands of fans rushed through multiple gaming sites to get the latest news about it and where to pre-order. With so much content and new features, fans including myself are astonished at what this game truly has and fans will learn full well what we think of the game.
Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon is the latest Armored Core game for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. This new action game emphasizes how to maneuver mecha-based combat units and learn how to customize them. As the main character of the game, players will take on a variety of mercenary missions to either hunt down enemy units or destroy multiple targets.
Having successfully taken up the identity of an independent contractor, the player, along with their handler, takes part in various mercenary contracts given to them by the conflicting parties vying for control of the planet and its resources. When not on a mission, the player is able to make adjustments to their AC and even test their skills against other pilots over at the Arena.
The amount of content this game has to offer has given players such as myself an opportunity to fully enjoy the fluid combat and all the other unique features in AC 6. As such, I am deeply impressed with what we have.
There are a series of missions that players can partake and each of them has advantageous rewards that will benefit players in their progress in the game. When cleared, players can replay these missions and essentially test how well they performed. The higher the rating they receive from clearing these replayed missions, the higher the rewards will be. Most of these missions require players to seek and destroy certain targets but no matter how hard they are, completing them will give players a sense of satisfaction throughout
As mentioned earlier, players have the ability to customize various aspects of their mechs. However, most of the parts that players want to get are either unlocked through missions or must be purchased through the SHOP menu. Though these parts play a valuable role in improving the stats of one’s mecha, I feel a bit disappointed at the fact that all of the parts can’t be upgraded. Players will need to sell them just to earn more money to purchase new parts, which is a bit of a waste, in my opinion.
Arena is a key feature in any Armored Core game as players can participate in gladiator-style combat. It is one of a few places where players can earn not only cash to upgrade their mech but also OS chips to improve the performance and skill sets of their mechs through OS tuning. As each new floor is unlocked, stronger and more skilled enemies emerge, giving players such as myself as a set of challenges to test themselves further.
Since Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon is an action mecha game, its combat features are astounding and somewhat similar to that of Dark Souls. However, despite having a stamina system to monitor the boosters and speed of their mechs, there is only one issue that I find very offputting, and that is the camera. Multiple times, when facing boss battles, I have particular difficulty in adjusting the camera angles or locating the boss’ position. Most of the time, using the camera lock-on assist feature isn’t enough, and mostly, I feel discouraged from playing any further.
The enemies players will be facing in Armored Core 6 will be fighting in their own mechs as well. Some of them are going to be pushovers, especially the minor enemies. Other AC pilots can come out of nowhere, adding a challenge in the middle of the chapters. However, there is one thing I noticed in some chapters of the game, the difficulty of the enemies tends to be seemingly randomized at a certain point.
A good example was during the tutorial mission, where players were facing off against a very aggressive flying mech that seemed easy at first but was very challenging to finish off. Another is during the middle of Chapter 1 where players will need to destroy a heavily armored mech where it was straightforward to destroy. This game does not seem to follow the standard procedure of a game where the difficulty of each mission should be getting harder after Chapter 1.
Despite its drawbacks, Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon is truly a great game to play. Though the game has similar features to that of Dark Souls, players should learn that this game tests one’s skills and endurance. I recommend that players watch the gameplay trailers presented by BANDAI NAMCO first in order to get a familiar reading on how challenging and unique this game is before purchasing it.
