S1E34 - Armored Core 2

Welcome back to another episode of Disc Read Error, the podcast where every week we dive into the extensive and fascinating library of the greatest selling video game console of all time, the motherfucking PlayStation Two.

I'm Derek Kicker. I'm Ian Golding.

And this week we are throwing our controllers with Armored Core Two.

Yeah. Robot fight. Robot fight.

It.

Armored core two.

Two.

Well, you know what just came out? Out.

Yes.

And people love it.

Reviews are very good across the board, I'd say.

I went in to pick up my preorder, and the guy's like, PS Five. Did it come out on anything else?

I don't think so.

I think I remember reading something that it only came out for PS Five. Yeah, maybe you thought you were trying to pull some shady shit. I don't know.

That's weird. Yeah.

I don't think it came out on PS Four.

No.

And it didn't come out on Xbox.

No, I don't think so.

I don't think so either. Weird. Probably.

It'd be sick if it came out on Switch.

That'd be fun.

Get kids throwing their switches across the room.

But that game is wild.

Sure.

And you know what? This game is wild. And you know what? All the armored corps games are wild.

I haven't played them all.

This is the second one I've played.

I've played a lot. There's more than you would think.

Technically, this is the fourth one, right. Because there's armored corps armored corps project.

Phantasma, which I believe is a prequel. And then armored core Master of arena.

Those are all the PS one games.

Okay. And so I guess how they do it is there's the numbered titles and then that's like the generation.

Okay? Yeah.

And then they have ones that come out within that generation. So Armored core One is the first generation. Project Phantasma and Master of arena are in the same thing.

Okay. They're part of the armored Corps One.

Saga. Then armored Corps two has Armored Corps two another age.

Yes, I've heard of that one.

I heard that's awesome.

Yeah. And then Three has three silent line. And then it looks like there's the.

Nexus line of them and Formula Front.

Which is the PSP One.

But it looks like the most PS Two was armored core was eaten on PS Two because there is 123-4567 armored.

Core games on PS Two, and almost all of them are insanely expensive.

Well, I'm sure.

In fact, almost. I think all the armored core games are more expensive than you'd think.

In fact, we're going to do a.

New segment just for this game called How Much Is It?

How much is it?

How much is it? And on this, we go to pricecharting.com and look up how much the games go for. So the first armored core on the PlayStation goes complete. Inbox goes for $131.

Damn. Yes, sir.

Armored core two, the one we're reviewing today, I believe is the cheapest one.

Interesting.

And it goes for $36.

Complete in box. Okay.

I mean, cheaper than it probably sold for, so yeah.

Cheap. Yeah.

Armored Corps Two. Another age is $45.

Close.

Armored core three is $55.

Price is going up. Armored core four on the PlayStation Three is $72. Wow.

On the Xbox 360, you experience the Xbox dip. It is 36 90.

Cheap. Yeah, cheap as fuck. Armored core four answers on the Xbox.

360 is 94 99.

That's a jump.

On the PS three is $123. Yes, sir. Armored core, last Raven PS $200.

Armored core.

Master of Verena. PS, $109.

Armored core.

Nexus, $132.

Fuck.

Armored core, nine breaker, $130.

Armored core project, phantasma.

PS One, $154.

Now, I hope the audience is paying attention, because we're going to have a quiz at the end about we're going to add all these up if we bought them all.

Correct. Armored core five, PS $374.

Xbox 360, $44.

Armored core, verdict day.

Titles.

Great.

I know.

Good job with titles.

Hell yeah, they do. 112 on the PS, 375 on the 360. Silent line. The American $197.

People got to eat.

They do.

Sure.

People be eating these resellers for sure are getting it.

Fucking A. Yeah.

I have a semi extensive armored core collection. Not because I'm good at these games, because I'm not. So I'm already giving up the ghost here. That I love it. I'm horrible at it, and I love it. But I have four answers. Nexus, master of arena last. Raven, silent line. Five, three, two and formula front.

Now you have six too, buddy.

And yes, now I have six.

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

So these are very unique games for sure. And since we didn't say it already published by infamous software developer From Software, I mean, what can we say about them?

They don't miss.

Famous for demon souls, dark souls, bloodborne. Eldon Ring sekiro. A company with less than 400 employees.

That's crazy.

Absolutely. Knocking it out of the park.

Yeah. Crushing it. Killing it.

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about From Software, because this is this podcast first From Software, it is Episode. Famously, their first game was a PlayStation One launch game, as Armored Core Two is a PlayStation Two launch game.

Did not realize that their first game was Kingsfield, which is an action RPG.

That is extremely fucking bad.

Okay.

And by bad, I mean it doesn't hold up at all.

I guess it was very ambitious for.

Being a PlayStation launch game, sure. But try playing that shit now. It is rough.

Okay.

It is rough. And then there's kingsfield two.

Yeah.

And then there's Kingsfield Three, which never.

Released, I believe, in the US at.

Least, I don't think. But then right after Kingsfield, the franchise that they start is Armored Core, starting with 1997 armored core. These are third person mech shooter games, right? And we'll get into armored core more. But I just want to say that this is from Soft's oldest still running franchise. The last Kingsfield game they would do.

Was Kingsfield Four for the PlayStation Two.

In 2001, the same year that this game came out.

Wow.

And they would never visit Kingsfield again.

Traders.

That would be the end of it.

But they've done a lot of these armored core games. They've also done some weird games. They did the Adventures of Cookie and Cream, which is like a funny game. Yeah, this is a funny game that you wouldn't expect from them. They also dabbled in horror. In the PS One era, they did a game called Echo Night, which is a pretty fun game. They did a better sequel for the PlayStation Two, but they did Kuan, which of course is like the most expensive PlayStation Two game on GameCube. They started a franchise called Lost Kingdoms. They did two games. I think they were pretty well received.

But sure.

They don't seem to dwell on that kind of stuff.

They're not dwelling on it. Also, for the original Xbox Xbox exclusive.

Franchise, Otogi, they did two of those games. Wow. Yeah.

400 employees. They do this much. That's crazy.

Yeah, they have a lot of games and you look at the list and you're like, just kind of blown away. They did a ten chu game for the 360 Shadow Assault. They did Ninja Blade for the 300 and 6360 exclusive. But then in 2009, shit really pops off with Demon Souls.

Yes.

A game that I think when it first came out, people were like, what is this? And it was too hard. I mean, that's what they're known for, right? They're the hard game developer. Absolutely. They make difficult games and people associate that with Dark Souls. But it goes so far beyond Dark Souls because the armored core games are impossible. Yes, they are so hard.

So fucking hard.

And then from after Demon Souls, they really just kind of focus on Dark.

Souls and armored core up until now.

Really, they did Sekiro. But sekiro is considered a bloodborne game.

Yes, it is.

Even though I think it's a very different it has very different mechanics. But I can see but it seems like almost like souls born that kind of tag is just a way to say a game is hard.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

And I don't agree that that's what it means. I think there's like a stylistic through line with a lot of these games that make it like Woe Long was a PS Five game I think is a pretty good modern soulsborn game.

That's not done by FromSoft but yeah, FromSoft legendary developer.

This was published. Armor Corps Two was published by Agitech.

No longer around, I believe. Got it.

And if you are into clocking game values and kind of keeping track of that stuff, you'll notice Agitech as being like the publisher of some of the most expensive games on any console.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And a lot of the time they did a lot of the FromSoft games. Right. So you have on the PlayStation One in 1999 alone. Right. You have Echo Night, which is $150. PlayStation Game. You have Shadow Tower. Another from Soft game. That's like a $200, $300 game. And then you have one of the most expensive PS One games, clock Tower.

Two, Clock Tower, all published by Agitech RPG maker.

Famously expensive. They've published most of the armored core games up until a certain point when they were no longer publishing anything.

Right. Which we established.

They are all expensive.

Yeah.

So.

Weird kind of coincidence, I guess.

They publish coupon.

Yeah.

Do they just not print a lot of copies? It sounds like there would be a reason if all of their games are the most expensive.

Yeah, I mean, maybe they're expensive because they're not around anymore.

Okay, that's fair.

And it looks like they are a subsidiary or they were a subsidiary of ASCII.

Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah.

So it seems like a lot of the games they took are kind of like games that were taking a little bit of a risk, which these from Soft games are a risky proposition. They're not for everyone.

Certainly not.

But Armored Core Two was released on October 26, 2000. Same day as the PlayStation Two.

Crazy.

It looked like FromSoft released a couple launch titles, but Armored Core Two, I think, is the one with the longest.

Lasting legacy and was a continuing franchise.

So let's get into the story.

Yeah. Corporations that were all powerful during the subterranean era lost their foothold when the government was created. But with a new planet ripe for exploration, they discovered opportunities to regain their strengths.

Now, the story of this game is confusing as shit. The story of the franchise is insane, very much in the vein of from software. They're not holding your hand through this story. If you really want to dive into the lore, you can, but you absolutely don't have to. No, you don't, because it is absurd. But the story takes place 67 years after the events of Master of arena and in the first series of armored Corps games. The humans are underground and the pollution is so bad that in Armor Corps Two, they basically are now above ground. But now they're on Mars.

Xeomatrix, the.

Second largest corporation, unearths ancient Mars research plans from before the Great Destruction, which is like the inciting event of the first few armored corps games. They TerraForm Mars, trying to make it more Earthlike, and then, of course, more corporations try to get in on the money. And that's a reoccurring theme with these games. These games are about businesses trying to take out other businesses.

Right.

Corporate warfare.

Yeah. There is something to be said here.

I think that you could divine an.

Anti capitalism message from these games.

Absolutely.

And I think that you could make the argument that them being in mex is a metaphor for the dehumanization. The depersonalization of capitalism, how capitalism turns us all into just productivity machines.

Think about it, folks.

Yes, it's our blood that will be spilled on the battleground of capitalism, not the bosses.

Oh, no, they won't be anywhere near that.

Yeah. So as the rivalries between all these corporations intensify, zeomatrix plots to overthrow the government which has regained control of the elite mercenary force known as The Frighteners.

Not the Michael J.

Fox movie.

No, I love that movie, though. I think it's funny that you call it a Michael J.

Fox movie when it's a Peter Jackson movie.

Sure, of course it is.

But director of Lord of the Rings.

Sure, absolutely. Peter Jackson directed that. But it's a Michael J.

Fox Movie and Gary Busey's, kid. So Zeomatrix plots to overthrow the government and they have established government which has regained control through the elite mercenary force known as The Frighteners, led by Leos Klein, which I think it is implied that he is the last guy from Master of arena, or he's the player character from Master of arena.

Oh, interesting.

So The Frighteners betray the government, assassinate its leader and seize control of the government's technology. So it's up to us, a raven, to confront the Frighteners, rescue Mars inhabitants and restore order.

Boom.

So capitalism is run amok and it's your job to put it back together again. This story is so hard to follow.

Yeah.

And.

It is very difficult, 100% but.

It is super interesting. And I think it's one of those things you can watch YouTube videos of people who have played these games extensively and I've played these games quite a bit and I still don't understand. You know, it's like Dark Souls or like, right, you can go to Vadavidya's YouTube page and he does deep dive lore stuff on these games and there is such a deep story, but it is not handed to you at all.

No.

You have to really pay attention and go into this game with intention to figure out the story. It's never just served up for you.

No. To follow along, which I think is good.

I can see how it'd be frustrating for people who really want a crazy story out of a game, but I think it's separate. Right. You have to work for the story, which lets the gameplay act on its own.

True.

And I think gameplay is really like what these games are known for. But let's get into the gameplay, since that's what this game is all about.

100% we request that you attack the Zeomatrix transport vehicle. The target is a lightly armed transport vehicle. According to our report, they'll be traveling on the T 20 highway. This route is different from the one normally used. So do you like combat nonstop.

Do you like thrill ride nonstop action.

Going all the time? Hell yeah. This is not the game for you.

Because you will spend so much of this game in the menu screen building your mech. And that's really what this game is about.

Yes.

This is a game about min maxing.

Yeah.

There are not skilled checks in this game. There are build checks.

Yes.

And if you cannot dedicate yourself to really learning the mech system, which we cannot dive into no, it is too much. I don't even feel comfortable talking about it because I can't beat this game and I've kind of, like, stumbled my way through as far as I've gotten in this game.

But you basically have your mech, and.

Your mech has removable pieces and you can build out your mech. And one of the cool things about this one is that you have like, three slave mech slots, which you did not have in the previous armored core games, which was a huge pain in the ass.

Right.

So that's a real quality of life.

Quality of life upgrade improvement.

But you have your armored core. Right. That's the name of them. And you come across AC parts. You earn AC parts. You can buy AC parts with credits.

You can go into debt buying AC.

Parts or repairing your armored core. You can buy weapons. And every single little change you do.

To your armored core can be amazing.

Or can be catastrophic.

Yes.

This is not a game where you can kind of like half ass your way through it.

Oh, no. You almost need to have a calculator and fucking charts with you at all times.

If you have a bad build, there are levels you just literally cannot beat with your build. You could fuck up one part of your build and the game almost becomes, like, unplayable. And I want to say that I think this is one of my favorite things about FromSoft and one of my favorite things about this game is that.

It trusts you to figure it out. Yeah.

There's not handholding at all.

It believes in you enough that you're smart enough to have put the disc in and push the button to turn on your PlayStation that you can figure this out. And it might take you a long.

Time, but that also milks the game.

This game is insanely long because of just the time it takes to try to figure it out.

Trial and error.

Yes.

And there's the main mission mode. You get missions and they're basically like, you're a mercenary, kind of. And you have your mission and you get paid.

Yeah.

And then there's an arena mode as.

Well, where you can kind of hone your skill. But the arena mode is not a.

We talked about it last week with Godhand. Right. The Godhand has kind of an arena mode that serves as a way for you to kind of build up your skill.

Right.

That's not what this is. This is a whole other game mode, pretty much. And you will get your ass beat if you're not paying attention. The only way it helps you to increase your skill in the game is because you'll die a lot. You will die a lot. So the arena starts out. You're at the bottom of a 50 person arena ladder. Think Mortal Kombat and you have to fight your way to the top. And there's actually story inside of the arena mode.

Yes, there is.

Yeah.

The person at the top of leaderboard Ares, known as the Nine Breaker, you start getting emails about him because you have emails.

Yes, you do.

Yeah.

And you get emails from other AC pilots. And there are things that will shoot at you. The environment can be dangerous in the arenas as well. You can fly out of bounds and lose. You can run out of ammo and lose. There's all kinds of ways to lose. And that might be a perfect distillation of this game. Right. There is really, like, only a couple of ways to beat this game. There are a million ways to lose.

There's so many ways to lose. That's a great way of putting it.

Yeah.

I mean, Jess, this game, at every turn, gives you a new opportunity to.

Lose, find a new way to fail.

Yeah.

So this is very interesting, and I don't know what the fuck this so.

There'S a local multiplayer mode that you.

Can play split screen, right? Which is self explanatory, but you can console link oh, yeah. With the Sony iLink FireWire cable, which is something that I have never heard of.

I feel like I have heard there might have been other games that had that.

And I was like, so you need.

Two PlayStations, two TVs, two controllers, two.

Copies of the game, right?

Is that the idea of that?

Yeah.

That's fucking ridiculous.

So you can play on separate TVs.

Yeah, which is wild.

That's fucking crazy.

Players with existing saves can load their.

Custom ACS into multiplayer matches.

So your friend brings over a little memory card.

Sure.

Has their AC ready. And then you're like, what the fuck?

What is that fucking cannon on your shoulder?

Where did you find that part? Because that's another thing, too, is you can find parts randomly in your missions.

And there are tons of parts, and.

Sometimes you find a part that is.

Like, oh, my God, this is the key.

This is the key to my loadout. And you have to change your loadout depending on the mission. It's not like you can build an AC out and then, okay, this is perfect. I can go through the whole game. No, your next mission, you're like, oh, shit, I need heavier legs. I need a different type of weapon to defeat this boss. And if you've played armored Core six.

Yet, armored core six is like it's.

Hard to we're not reviewing armored core six, but I will say that armored core six is kind of where all the armored core games lead to. It is the perfect distillation of what.

All these games are to the point.

Where I feel like it's going to be hard. Like any sequels to Armored Corps Six. How do you even reinvent it anymore? They just kind of like, nailed it.

I do think probably the most interesting thing about this game is they talk about these games. This is the distillution of the From Soft style of like either love it or hate it because it's not just memorizing patterns and all that shit from the other games.

Now that you add in the experimentation.

With builds and loadouts and shit, this is an interesting kind of conceptually and interesting way, I think, of gameplay. And again, it's an acquired taste. Or you might just fucking hate it and say, what the fuck is this bullshit?

Yeah, this isn't a casual game. I think you'd be supremely disappointed if you went into this game thinking it's something you can just hop into for a minute and blow some shit up and that was fun, and then be done. You either go all in or you are probably not going to have a good time.

No, this isn't I'll be, oh, I'll play a few missions and then jump off it's like, no, that's not the attitude of how to approach this game at all.

And I think that is probably what before now kept this franchise from really.

Being like an insane juggernaut franchise.

Yeah, I think most people are surprised at just how many armored core games there are. I was and I think what's even more surprising is how many people had.

Not even heard of armored core.

I think it's one of those things you've heard of it. And I think for a lot of people, they think it's just an arcade, Mech Blasty shooty thing.

They know it's mech, but I don't.

Think they know what it is.

Yeah. And I mean, that's good because then.

If you're in, I think that's a good thing for fans of this game because then you feel and I think this is the same thing for people who really like Dark Souls games. And this is a from soft thing. We could do a whole episode on the attitude and the culture and around surrounding FromSoft.

We absolutely could.

I think if you get into this game, if you become a fans game, you kind of feel like you're part.

Of a club, right?

You're like a little club. I like Dark Souls. They're hard games. I'm a fan of that. And I think you can go two ways, right? You can go the way of the toxic get good kind of like from Saw fans who are like, oh, you just don't like Dark Souls because it's too hard for you. Yeah, but I think there's another way you can go too and be like, oh my God, this game respects me.

Enough to not tone it down.

But also and I think this is like the official line of From Soft of why they make their games like this yeah. Is you feel a sense of accomplishment when you get past something 100% true. That, I think, is what truly makes a from soft game, is that sense of satisfaction when you do be a hard boss.

Yes. When you finally climb that mountain, you go, holy shit, I fucking did it.

Yeah. And you can either be a dickhead.

About it, or you can just sit in that little sense of self satisfaction.

Of like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Or you can brag about it and.

Be and post about it on fucking Facebook gamer ever.

But like I said, I love games I'm bad at. So needless to say, I'm a huge from software fan.

Yeah.

In fact, the FromSoft game I have completed the most is Eldon Ring.

Wow.

And I am very bad at it.

But I love it. Yeah.

Put like 250 hours into that game.

I don't have a ton of experience.

With them, I'll be honest. The armored corps. Really?

I've not played a lot of the others.

Now's the time.

What for armored Corps six. For armored core six. So you should play Dark Souls.

I should play elden ring.

From what I understand what everyone tells me, I should play Elden Ring.

Yeah.

You might have a problem going back and playing Dark Souls if you play.

Elden Ring first, though. I'll be all right with that.

Well, yeah. Play elden ring. Everyone should play elden ring. Let's play. The best dance of this podcast is.

Everyone should play Elden Ring, right? Yeah.

And the controls on this game clunky. Very clunky. It's the same controls basically, as the PlayStation One games. L Three and R Three are functional, but you don't use the analog sticks to move. Not a fan, but the controllers being clunky. I will still say the movement in this game is still kind of fluid.

But here's the thing.

I think this game really wants you to feel the complexity of if you were actually in a mech, because I think the controls itself are designed to be difficult, because it'd be difficult to move and shoot and do a lot of things if you were actually in this position. I think also, too, we have to.

Remember, if you go back and play.

PlayStation One games, 90% of them are clunky as shit.

Oh, 99?

Fuck yeah.

And this is a launch title for PlayStation Two. So I think there's also growing pains with the controls, but I think overall they're fine. They will get better. They increasingly get better. And another thing that is kind of a through line through the armored core games is that the speed changes, right? So this game isn't insanely fast.

No.

Armored Core three would get a little faster. Armored Core four goes absolutely off the rails with how fast it is.

Right.

There are times where it feels unplayable. It is so fast.

That's funny.

And again, I think Armor Core six kind of is the perfect mix and.

Match of that, but, yeah, I think.

This is a super fun game. I think this is a game that asks a lot of the player.

It does.

I think Armor Corps Three might simplify it gets a little less complicated.

But I don't know.

I haven't played that one in a long time, so I don't really remember. I remember it being a little easier.

To pick up than this, but it's.

A complicated shooting game.

Yeah, it is.

It's very much a complicated shooting game.

Yeah. And the enemies are a lot more advanced in this game than they were in the previous games. There's things that will fuck up, make your lock on disappear.

Which I liked.

Yeah. Which just there's all kinds of ways.

That it sabotages you, but I think.

I'm pretty clear that I like this game. But what the fuck do we know?

No, we don't know shit.

Come on, let's get into the reception of this gameplay. It received generally favorable reviews. 78 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Not bad.

Yeah. Chet Barber of Next Gen voiced his enthusiasm, hailing it as one of the premier titles for the PS Two and worthy of ownership. Unless you're not keen on intricate mech building or harbor an aversion to mechs altogether.

There you go.

What's his name? Chet Burger. Barber. Barber. Even better.

What a great name.

Famitsu gave it a 33 out of 40.

That's a good score for them.

Yeah. The game's visual quality earned it a fair amount of accolades. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer marveled at the lighting and environment, labeling them absolutely incredible. And I will say, this game does look kind of wild for a PS Two game.

When I booted this, I was shocked.

How good it looked, especially for a PS Two game that came out in 2000.

Launched. This is launched. They hadn't squeezed the power out. This is just scratching the surface.

This game is 23 years old.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Cheap monkey of Game Pro raved that the graphics breathed life into the AC universe. Sean Sanders at Game Revolution was captivated by the impressive particle effects. And John Thompson, of all game had a different view, finding the graphics decent but not groundbreaking. Which seems like you're just being a little bitch.

No, I agree. I think that's a shitty way of being like, well, they're not. Yeah, but for the style of what they are, they're not groundbreaking, but they're good and they're functional.

You want the game to fucking slow down. Yeah.

What other launch titles are you looking at? And being like, this is actually where it's at.

Yeah, exactly.

Madden dickhead.

Yeah.

Get them.

Get them.

David Smith from IGN noted that there's occasional odd jumps in the progression curve.

That's true. Yeah, that's true.

It comes to a couple of missions where you think you're cruising and then all of a sudden it's like, Fuck.

Nick, I suck at.

This.

Yeah. Jacille Gonzalez of Planet PS Two echoed Smith sentiments, pointing out that the steep learning curve pointing out the steep learning curve and the game's demand for patience.

That's true.

It does have a steep learning curve and it does demand patience.

It does demands it does not ask for patience.

And then universally everyone bitched about the controls. Yeah, but all Game did give it a three and a half out of five stars. CNET's Game Center gave it an eight out of ten. Edge gave it an eight out of ten. EGM gave it a 5.83 out of ten, which is come on down.

That's odd. That's an OD one.

Yeah, for me, Too gave it a 33 out of 40. Game Informer gave it a nine out of ten. Game Fan gave it an 88%. Game Pro gave it a four and a half stars. That might be the highest game Pro.

Review that we've done.

Yeah.

Game Revolution gave it an A minus. Game Spot, 7.8 out of ten. Game Spy gave it 77%. IGN gave it an eight out of ten. Despite their dismay at the progression curve, next Generation gave it a four out of five stars and the official US. PlayStation Magazine gave it a three out of five stars.

Three out of 560 percent.

So that's what they thought. But Ian, on your patent pending out of 1000 grading scale, what are you giving this bad boy?

So this might be a little bit of a ramble. I'm going to start with that because there's a lot going on here. I regret that I didn't play this when it came out. That's how I have to start. Because it felt old. It didn't look old, it just felt old. The controls, it just felt like a lot of the games we play don't. They feel this doesn't to me, it doesn't feel like the classic that everyone screams that it is. That's on one hand.

On the other hand, I fucking love mech games.

I love mech combat games. Some of my formulative memory are mech warrior and mech warrior two on my home built fucking PC, playing in my dorm in high school, the private school I went to with my friends, doing fucking missions and putting different fucking cannons on our stupid fucking mechs. And someone saying, oh, try this, and blah, blah, blah. And then us just losing or winning, right? And it is the same thing, trial and error. So there's that. And then the kind of philosophy.

I.

Think this Gaddate game deserves another look from me because I was getting frustrated.

With it a lot.

And only towards the end of my play and I had some issues with a lot of us stuff with it did I start to understand what it was demanding, as that reviewer said of me.

So now, that being said, with my patent pending, patent pending thousand point reviews, I'm going to give Armored Corps 2786.

Out of 1000 with an Asterisk, which.

Means I will be back.

I'll be back.

I'll be back.

Yeah, I didn't play this game when it first came out. I played Armored Core Three when it.

Came out, and I think that's the difference. I didn't have any experience after the.

First one on PlayStation, and I had played Armored Core on the PS One and found it impossible. Yeah, I was a small child. That game was not, of course, children. It was too complicated, and I just couldn't do anything. I remember just a level of going down a freeway, like an underground freeway, and just getting fucking demolished. But once Armored Corps Three came out and I enjoyed that, I did go back and play Armored Corps Two, and it had been a long time since I'd played it, but hopping back in. My rating of this is painted by, A, my love of FromSoft, and B, the nostalgia I have for like, Armor Corps Three and all that. It's very deeply personal rating. There's probably not a lot of objectivism in it, but I'm going to give this game.

I'm going to give it 8.1 menu screens. Oh, right.

Menu out of ten.

Right.

I think it's great. I think it's great.

And I think what came from it is really like and I think that.

Might be the key, is you're familiar with what came from it and I'm not. Like I said, I watched a streamer play some of Six the other day, and it looked really fun. And I played one when it was like 1996 or whatever, and then that's it. Other than playing it for this. So I don't have the connective, and I've not played a lot of from soft games. And I know this is just more of my review, but it wasn't hooking me. So maybe further exploration of all of that will change my thing.

That's why I put an Asterisk in my review. Yeah. And I think as you dive more.

Into FromSoft stuff, you'll start seeing the hallmarks of a FromSoft game interesting.

Okay. They definitely have a style and they.

Definitely have a vibe. And I think as you dive in, you'll start seeing that and just, like, having that knowledge kind of makes the games more enjoyable because you start to see the connective threads.

Okay, I'm interested to see if I.

Dig in if my thoughts change. So.

I will have more to say, I think. Boom.

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Barbum. Barbing.