Recent reviews by Capeline Cutemeister

honestly its just a fun ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ romp man

This is alot of game.
LIke this is an insane amount of game
like holy ♥♥♥♥ this is alot of game

Souls games and their consequences have been an absolute blight on the development of games and it has ruined a previously fun franchise. I want to preface this by saying that there are a lot of fun things in this game, but they are ruined by horribly implemented mechanics and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss design. I was promised that I would be able to build whatever mech i would like, to fit the playstyle that best suits me. But its absolutely hampered by how in order to progress in the game you MUST build highly specific mechs to counter certain bosses (Balteus my behated) and progress further into the game. This isn't fun, and even if you *do* make those specific mechs to counter the bosses it *still* isn't fun nor good boss design.
Defenders of the game will defend boss fight design by saying that you're just not good enough at the game, by saying that you *can* actually beat all the bosses in the game using whatever build you would like. Thats true, but thats like saying you can beat the original Dark Souls without using a single weapon. Is it possible? Yes. Is it intended? No. Does it make for a fun experience? Absolutely not.

What sucks about this game is that everything besides boss fights *is fun*. The combat and movement mechanics as well as customization with your mech build is about in line with what I expected from my time playing previous Armored Core games. So it really sucks that none of it matters lol. The game is very much so clearly balanced around playing a very quick, agile, fast mech that hops around the map and barely touches the ground. Its almost like this game was made by the same studio that made Sekiro, oh wait.
You can use other mech builds if you want but the game actively punishes you for this, and it makes boss fights even worse because all of them are actively balanced around either a very quick and speedy mech or a specific weapon type to beat them. I dont know why people defend Yhorm the Giant or Rykard but both of those fights are ass, and it appears in Armored core as the boss fight Balteus. If you dont use the weapon specifically designed to destroy his pulse fields the fight is about 10x harder than it should be. If you do use the weapon its a cake walk. Its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ excuse for a boss fight and an even worse one for balancing the game around the build players can make.
I *wanted* to play an armored core that was very strong, tanky, and could deal lots of damage at the sacrifice of some speed and mobility. The point of a tanky build is to be able to take more damage without dying and be able to take more damage without suffering immediate consequences (which in this game appears as the stagger mechanic). So imagine my dismay when i made a tanky armored core and was forced to play the same was as an extremely agile lightweight mech, because if i didn't i was actively punished for it. The perks of using a tanky armored build are negated by the fact that, because youre slower, you get hit more often. I swear you suffer from stagger faster for the same reason because of this, and as such just take so much damage that you immediately die.
A lot of souls players will just say youre not good enough at the game and thats why youre dying using a tanky build. Thats true, i am not good enough at Armored Core 6 to play a tanky armored core as a lightweight mech and win. But thats kinda irrelevant when i am playing a tanky mech explicitly because I *dont* want to play as a lightweight mech.
This isn't even getting into the fact that the type of legs you use are worthless if youre not using bipedal or reverse jointed legs. No actually for real. There are four types of legs in this game. Bipedal, reverse jointed, tetrapod, and treads. Bipedal and reverse jointed are the same except reverse jointed legs can jump higher.
Tetrapod legs are just useless. You can float around in the air with them but youre extremely slow and make an excellent target for everything to hit you. It also completely misses the point of *why* people like tetrapod legs. Tetrapod legs are an excellent design choice for when a mech is *walking* on the ground. Not when theyre gliding across it or hovering in the air. Treads are actually really really fun to use and offer the most "on the ground" sort of gameplay for armored core, so it really sucks that by the point o fthe game youre in you just can't use them because the game has bumps everywhere that are just high enough that you have to take time getting your fat mech over the gap.
I understand the appeal of having a different mech for every challenge. I like it in fact, its one of the reasons that i picked up this game. So it REALLY SUCKS that the game dangles all these customization options in front of you but then punishes you if you try to use them.

The next point is that the game is just too hard. The difficulty spike goes from 0 to 100 in seconds on the first level of the game, and every following level with a boss is exactly like this. You are pretty much forced into fighting it a certain way and if you try to fight it any other way its hard. Which is kinda against the entire point of a game where you have the ability to customize your mech to play the way that you want to play. But just in the opening mission of this game if you do anything besides constantly zip around and jump in the air and strafe and fly, you will be punished heavily for doing so. Amored Core wasn't always like this, from 1 to 5 you were able to play with different styled mechs if you wanted and play in varying ways if you wanted and you werent punished for it. People will say that the game gives you the means to fight any boss to make the game easier on yourself but that completely misses the point of the complaints. I dont want to play a cheesy min max lightweight agile build made to barely touch the ground and hop around the map, just to make it easier on myself. I wanted to play a tanky mech that the game very much so offered as an alternative way to play the game. If it is part of the advertisement and game design for the past *15 games* is that you are able to approach certain challenges in different ways depending on your mech build, then it should be the same thing for the next game in the franchise. Also the respawn points for when you do die, especially due to how quickly and how much you will die. Just start me at the beginning of the fight. "You can skip the cinematic sequence" i shouldn't have too. If im dying against Balteus 15 times because god forbid i use the tanky option the game offered me, i dont want to hear Ayra or whatever her name is repeat the dialogue.
In previous souls games that Fromsoft has made (which is very clearly the inspiration for alot of the bs difficulty in the game), the experience of beating a boss was meant to be rewarding and cathartic. It was what you had been building up too. All the struggles, death, learning, and the experience of overcoming a challenge of that nature was meant to culminate in a feeling of Euphoria for finally accomplishing something and being able to move forward. There isn't any of that here. The best boss fight in this game was the Juggernaut, but when i fought the helicopter or Balteus i didn't feel good for beating them. I didn't think that I had done a really good job and was looking forward to more. My exact thoughts were "Finally that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is over with. Now i can go and play the actual game for once."

I *do* have fun with the game
Thats what is making this so frustrating
it isn't "oh this game isn't fun" because if this game wasn't fun then the game just wouldn't be for me, just like Dark Souls and Elden Ring and Sekiro just arent for some people.
I wouldnt care so much if it wasn't made for me *but it is*. 90% of this game is an absolute blast, its just that the boss fights and horribly implemented balance really hampers how you can enjoy the game, if you even want to put in effort to get over the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty walls that are the boss fights.

rf