Welcome to my review of Armored Core:For Answer on the Playstation 3. Armored Core is a mecha combat game developed by From Software since the Original Playstation's title: Armored Core(simple enough right?) and published by Ubisoft. For Armored Core 4 it was developed by Sega and most previous games before were published by Agetec.
The game got handled in a few different ways in all of these years, receiving massive changes from its leap from the PS2 to the PS3 including a change in the health(armor points) the damage of weapons have been scaled accordingly to do more. The Lockboxes for the HUD have been made within bounds of the screen itself rather than the smaller visible boxes.
Now onto the review itself
Story: For Answer takes place 10 years after the events of Armored Core 4's lynx war. Most of humanity is now above the sky in habitats called cradles. The world below is decrepit and stagnant due to the war and the release of Kojima particles. Lynx are now just mercenaries for an organization known as Collered who mediate between the League of Ruling Companies made up of manufacturing companies such as Global Armaments, Bernard and Felix Foundation, Rosenthal, Omer Science etc.
Orca, a mysterious rebel group wants to cause the destruction of the cradles and have humanity face the damage they caused to the planet below.
What I like about the story is it does continue the saga from AC4 but as any person who has played all the AC games since the beginning knows is that this storyline is fairly out of place from any of the other story clusters earlier.
You do have a few choices that are very subtle but do effect how the story ends for you with a total of three endings it is probably worth playing through it a few times.
Story Score 3.8/5
Gameplay: The controls did change between the old PS2 AC games and the new PS3 ones. It took some getting used to because there are more buttons to utilize this time around, not difficult to learn regardless. Everything else is pretty close to the same as you would expect, fast paced gameplay along with plenty of mecha customization that you can spend lots of time on with just that. I particularly liked making an Emblem for my AC "Dancing Bear" which I have a bear with wings on a target, had a decently original feeling to it.
The problem I had was with the missions. Most of them were outside in open terrain, they were bland, the missions as well as the arena were brutally easy with my dual back chaingun build. Along with just Arms Fort missions were just a bladefest which made them even easier than anything else. The missions lacked any real originality or feeling to them leaving a dull, lifeless sense of accomplishment when you beat them. Even with the difficulty increase afterwards they were laughably easy.
Online. Well I just couldn't find anybody to play with so I don't know what to mention about it, the community seems to have strayed away from this aspect.
Gameplay Score 3.7/5
Graphics: There was plenty of brown and bloom and dust to go around. There were few static destructibles (even Armored Core: Silent Line had this though) and some overlap terrain damage which wasn't too special. The effects were decent but lacked any real dazzle. The NEXTs looked pretty in the hangar but once again was lacking in actual combat , enemies were even less appealing due to distance and the fact you could just fly overhead and blow them away.I noticed there were alot of water related missions due to the ability to glide on water that came up on AC4 and it seems they put most of their graphical effort on this rather than what matters, such as the rest of the terrain.
Graphics Score: 3.1/5
Sound and Music: I don't want to sound like I have my nostalgia goggles on but the music just doesn't sound right anymore, it is very bland and lifeless for the most part with lots of vocals orchestra whatnot to it which gets a little irritating. The weapon sounds have little differentiation to them and actually lead to this dull bass spam when everyone is using rifles and missiles. The overboosting and lock on is the only sound I could make out through everything else.
Sound and Music Score: 3.1/5
Overall: It is by my opinion to deem this series is in need of some refreshing changes. More time and effort needs to be spent on the ambiance from the music and sounds to the story and add more exciting effects to the graphics. From Software needs to take their time and bring out something amazing that will bring the online community together and the many loyal fans of AC over the years to buy and enjoy what they have come to expect and love about Armored Core.
Total 13.7 / 20
Average 3.4 / 5
Picture 1: http://ps3.kombo.com/images/content/boxart/acforanswer_box.jpg
Picture 2: http://palgn.com.au/media/pics_inside/art_13530_id_2_mw_520.jpeg
Picture 3: http://www.ursalia.com/reviews/armored-core-for-answer7.jpg
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