"Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon" Review

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Developer: From Software

Available for: Playstation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Playstation 5

First things first: It has been said in review after review, but I feel the need to re-iterate it here. It's important to keep your expectations in check, and if you go into Armored Core VI expecting something even remotely resembling the flagship franchises that have made From Software the household name it is today, you're going to be sorely disappointed. We'll get into that when we discuss gameplay, but I don't just mean in terms of gameplay. I also mean in terms of overall quality. The fact of the matter is that this is not likely to be my GOTY, and I confidently predict that it won't be at the top of anyone's list. To some, that might seem like a significant step down for a studio that has put out GOTY-winners back-to-back-to-back for a decade at least. But you know what? It's not a step down. It's not trying to be the next Elden Ring, Sekiro, or Dark Souls. It's just aiming to be a damn-good mech game. And that, dear reader, is exactly what this game is. So, let's get in the f***ing robot, Shinji!

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is the sixth installment in the Armored Core series, which was From Software's best-known series in the days before our lord and savior Miyazaki made a deal with Sony to try out a new idea exclusively on the Playstation 3. Evidently, the games were known for being middling affairs in regards to their stories and lore. From what I understand, there basically was none of either. So, how does this latest attempt perform after over a decade with nary a peep and several games worth of trial, error, and wisdom? 

Well...not any better. There are characters, some things that happen, and some uninteresting, vague backstory, but nothing you're going to expect from From Software. I know that I said not to compare this game with other From products, but one can't help but feel like they would've learned a thing or two at least on the lore front. I mean, IDK. There might be interesting stuff to uncover, but I didn't see it. The reason for this is that exactly 100% of the story is delivered either at a bad time or in the most boring way possible. Some lore details get dropped in combat, but combat is so high-speed and noisy that it's impossible to pay attention to what's being said. Meanwhile, 90% of all things story (lore, characters, motivations, plot details) are delivered in static screens of audio messages being played. One after the other, pretty much. So every time I could skip dialogue, I did. Did I get the bad ending as a result? Yes. Do I care? No. See, that's why this isn't as much of a problem as you might think. Yes, I was skipping through everything other than combat because I was bored by how terrible and meaningless everything other than the combat was...but I was also skipping because the gameplay is so good. So...a double-edged sword.

On the subject of combat, the first thing to know is what I've already plainly stated: this isn't a souls game. In fact, there's no similarities at all. There is some degree of focus on skill, but unlike in other From Software titles, the stats matter far more than your skill. Being good at the game definitely gives you an edge, but it's only half the equation. The emphasis in this game is on your mech's build. Your mech has a head, a core, a right arm, a left arm, a leg set (not an individual right or left part), a booster, an operating system, a right hand weapon, a left hand weapon, a right shoulder weapon, and a left shoulder weapon. For each of these pieces, you have a variety of parts to purchase and mix-and-match. For the non-weapon body parts, every piece influences your stats. You have overall health, defensive capabilities, energy capacity, weight capacity, booster speed, and a couple others that I forget off the top of my head. There's a lot to keep track of and it's really easy to get lost in all the numbers and all the options for mech parts, but aspects of this system just make inherent sense. 

Your legs largely determine your weight capacity, to give an example of what I mean. The leg options you have range from super scrawny bipedal models that emphasize speed to a literal tank that moves slowly but can carry more weight than any other model. So if you're wanting to be a lightning-fast mech that can dodge faster at the cost of higher damage taken if you fail to dodge, you might want to start out by choosing a suitable set of legs and build up from there. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you want to be an indestructible war machine and don't mind moving slowly in order to do so, you might start out with the tank and go from there. You'll notice I didn't say you should go with all the light options or heavy options respectively. That's because the legs are just one part of the equation. 

See, to stick with my current example case, the legs do determine a lot of what makes up your total weight capacity...but they also have weight amounts of their own. It's not like they're weightless and just set the ceiling. They do set the ceiling, but they take up comparable percentages of those ceilings. It's just enough to ensure that you can't just equip anything you want willy-nilly by equipping the tank for legs while not having your choice of legs be insignificant. With that in mind, when you've decided what your ideal speed vs damage vulnerability vs firepower ratio looks like, the rest of your decisions for mech parts and weapons will be mixed and matched for that result...you know, I said "speed vs damage vulnerability vs firepower" ratio, but that might not be what you choose to base your build off of. You might instead try to build for as much hp and speed as possible and nothing else matters. You might also try immense firepower at the expense of everything else possible. Or you might try to balance hp and firepower. There are plenty of build possibilities, and your way of getting to each of these possibilities depends on each and every piece of equipment you choose. It's far more complex than I can possibly explain, but I hope this has given a fair high-level overview.

To give some details for how I did things by the end of the game, I decided to be as all-around as possible. So I went with one of the leg options below the tank but several options above the bipedal models. This was to give me a respectable weight limit while still being able to move fast enough to dodge at my leisure. From there, I chose my weapons based on what felt right. I had a minigun in one hand, a sword in the other, and I had the same precision laser rifle on both shoulders. The weight of those weapons was just the right amount to give me wiggle room to have options for each remaining body piece. From there, I chose my arms, head, and core in such a way to maximize health, energy, etc.

And you know what? I've already said that I've discussed only the tip of the iceberg, but I'll talk just a little bit more on this before moving on. With the aforementioned weight limits, you can't go into battle with a mech that surpasses that limit. The same goes for energy limits, and what mech parts contribute to that limit is far less predictable than weight. So, there's plenty to think about when it comes to your build.

Now, with all that said, I need to remind you all once again that this is not a souls-like. You aren't going to be grinding to put a point into hp or weight or energy. You'll instead be grinding for cash to purchase mech parts and weapons that you can swap in and out at will in the hub and before restarting a mission. And realistically speaking, you don't really have to grind that much. If you make bad purchase decisions (like I did) then you'll want to grind to open up some avenues, but otherwise, you aren't going to have to worry about that. Whatever the case is for you, you'll want to get as many parts as possible. And the reason is that this game is, once again, not about skill. It's about builds.

When you deploy to a mission or engage in a boss fight, it's not about using your skills to overcome the odds. It's instead about gauging the situation and tweaking your mech to be in the best possible condition to overcome the specific challenges you may face. For instance, if you learn that a level is full of super slow high damage enemies, you might swap out the parts you're used to in favor of parts that will let you avoid those attacks or absorb the damage, or anything in between. Or, if you learn that a level is full of super fast low damage enemies, you might swap out the parts you're used to in favor of parts that will let you take the chip damage the enemies will do and lock onto the enemies you'll face...or anything in between. As the game progresses, you'll find that the stakes are combinations of those two kinds of scenarios (and many more), so your part and weapon decisions aren't as straightforward. But suffice it to say: you will have to change your mech at some point. Don't believe me? Well, every time you die, you have the option to re-make your mech from scratch. So From Software wanted to make that process as simple as possible. 

So, that's an overview of the whole build process. Now let's talk about how the combat you'll apply your build to actually works. This game is mission-based, meaning that you'll be dropped into an area with an objective or two, and once you accomplish whatever objectives you have, you'll be removed from the area to rest and make tweaks to your mech before deploying onto the next mission. No given mission takes more than 10 or so minutes at most (or less than a minute at least) to accomplish, so all of this combined should let you know that this is going to be the kind of game that you play in short bursts. And that's a good thing, because combat rolls at a dizzyingly breakneck pace. Basic enemies are nothing in terms of challenge...you can beat them all just by firing in their general direction for a handful of seconds. 90% of enemies are there just to contribute to the power fantasy of being a badass mech pilot in a mech better than anyone else's. This is further emphasized by the presence of the occasional mini-boss that can deal and take some damage, but still isn't too difficult. It's the main bosses that you'll need to earn your victories against, and that's where your build comes into play the most. But regardless of where you are or what you're fighting, combat consists of shooting and dodging, which doesn't sound special, but in the moment, it is. You dash with insane speed, and the feel of the guns combined with the excellent sound design makes combat feely weighty and impactful. Really, the only way you can describe combat is to describe it the way a child would describe what happened in their Saturday-morning cartoon. "And then the good guy mech was like BAMBAMBAM and uh-he shot the bad guy mech with a machine gun and two rocket launchers at the same time and then uh-he turned on his booster jet and started flying toward uh-the bad guy mech but the uh-bad guy mech shot a laser beam at him so uh-he uh-barrel-rolled out of the way and sliced through the uh-bad guy mech with his laser sword WHAAAAAM and won the fight." That's the only way combat can be described. It's straightforward, simple, and (as Dunkey asserts) stupid, and that's what makes it as great as it is. 

There are, however, some downsides. At the end of every level, you're graded based on your performance,  and this impacts the amount of money you earn. You have a base pay and pay for completing bonus objectives as well as expenses that take away from the sum of those amounts. Firstly, there's a damage repair expense. Fair enough. If you perform poorly and get hit a lot, it stands to reason you'd have to pay to fix the mech again. But the other expense is for ammo. That also stands to reason from a logical perspective, ammo isn't free after all. But what it does in practice is de-incentivize engaging with enemies. You're bound to earn more money if you don't engage in combat except where required. It could be a lot worse, as the penalty amounts aren't too bad...but it does suggest a lack of understanding of what the game is all about, which is pretty weird. Then there's the fact that it seems kind of impossible to avoid taking damage. Like your own mech, enemy mechs have several weapons at their disposal, and when it comes to the smaller arms fire, it's simply not possible to avoid damage from those. This is a smaller complaint because I think it's an intentional design choice to make you focus on avoiding the hard-hitting moves, but it still bothered me to see chip damage piling up no matter how well I was playing. 

In terms of the technical side of things, Armored Core VI is almost a complete success! Sure, the environments are ugly, but From Software games aren't known for their visual fidelity in the first place. And besides, in a game like this, I'd much prefer that the attention go towards performance stability, which this game absolutely does. Given the dizzying speed of combat and the amount of individual animations that fire on your mech and enemy mechs with every little input you make, it's nothing short of incredible that the game runs 100% smoothly 100% of the time. And those little animations really do make a difference. It's not like in Red Dead Redemption 2 where your character is so overanimated that they're unwieldy to control. Rather, as you turn your mech and alter your height, various little boosters fire and cut off at intentional intervals, and it just contributes to the idea that you're piloting something truly massive. Beyond that, I never experienced texture pop-in, asset pop-in, audio glitches, animation glitches, hard or soft crashes, basically none of the technical issues you'd think to check for. I've already alluded to stellar sound design, but it bears repeating: the bullet sounds as you blaze through combat are second to none.

However, the game does have several problems that are technical not so much in terms of competence or fidelity, but in terms of design decision-making. Let's go in order from most to least offensive, shall we? By far the biggest design flaw here is the checkpoint system. It's not nearly as bad as the one in Baldur's Gate 3, but at this point in gaming history, developers have to be mindful of those of us who don't have as much time as high schoolers on summer break. When you start up a mission, depending on how many side objectives you plan to do or how much exploration you plan to do before x point in the mission, if you die, you may have to restart the mission entirely. I say "point x" because checkpoints aren't triggered when you complete objectives...there seems to be no rhyme or reason to determine where the checkpoints are placed. So, barring existing knowledge of where you get your progress saved, you stand to lose everything you do in any given level if you dare to die. But it's not just dying that will wipe your progress: you also lose all progress if you have to quit your session for the evening. I have a job outside of this reviewing hobby I have, and I have to be in the office by 9am every morning. If I go to bed too late, I run the risk of arriving at 9:01 or 9:00000001 and having my poor boss get screamed at by my micromanaging CEO. Being able to put a bookmark in the middle of a mission so I, as a busy adult, can pick up where I left off when I get off work, isn't too much to ask. Could people potentially game the system if it were made with people like me in mind? Perhaps. But what's the actual problem? Well, like every argument where a Gamer(TM) complains about the concept of "easy mode", there is no actual problem. Sure, people could simply reload manual saves to pretend they beat boss x in one attempt, but people like me would be able to enjoy the game better. Say I have a bit of a harder time in a mission and time gets away from me. I could've gotten to checkpoint 2 out of 3, then gotten a glimpse of the clock, and realized I needed to log off for the night. I have two options in those cases: I can either keep trying until I complete the level entirely, or I can do what is necessary for my personal life and give up all of my progress for the level. I've been in my current work environment for a couple years at this point, and this is the first game I've ever had this particular complaint about.

Beyond this issue, despite how great the feedback for everything else is, the feedback for reloading and healing is basically nonexistent. When you run out of bullets in a clip/mag/whatever, there isn't like a "chk-chk" signal sent through the controller or some kind of standout sound effect, you'll just be pressing the button to shoot to no avail until it clicks that you're reloading. And as for healing, there is a sound effect involved, but it's easy to lose it in the mix of gunfire and explosions. It really needed a vibration or a use of the dualsense haptic feedback or something. In addition, the healing also lacks the responsiveness it requires. Anytime you get hit with any significant damage, the mech becomes unable to move for a second or two. But even when you're able to move again, there's another solid second or two where no matter how quickly you press the heal button, nothing happens. And it will get you killed. If you stay on top of your dodge timings you can wriggle your way away from enemy fire long enough to be able to heal, but in a game as fast as this, I would've preferred a more instant response time. 

Another issue is that while the sound design is excellent, it can also be legitimately overwhelming sometimes. I'm specifically referring to the sound effect for high-damage enemy attacks. It's a two-note alarm that plays every couple seconds at most, and this alarm played as many times in such rapid succession as it'll be played during a boss fight, for example, can be pretty distracting and irritating. 

Finally, there's an aspect of the game's sense of scale that doesn't quite work. That aspect is some of the city locations. With the exception of the city locations where buildings are bigger than your mech, the game tries to establish your size by making the buildings small. The problem is that the buildings don't seem small because you seem big...they seem small because it legitimately looks like they just plopped you in the middle of a model city. It's obviously not a huge issue, but it was a thing I noticed. 

Folks, it's as I already said. With Armored Core VI, From Software isn't trying to reinvent the wheel or earn all the top GOTY spots and all the accolades in the world. With this outing, they simply wanted to create a damn good mech game that speaks to as many people as possible. In that regard, they 100% succeeded. It's far from a flawless game, in fact, it sports several flaws that might turn some people off. But if what you're read thus far has piqued your interest, I think you'll find something to enjoy here.

Let us review:

Skip-worthy story/dialogue - 0.3

Minor combat gripes - 0.2

Checkpoint system - 0.5

Minor technical gripes - 0.5

The final score for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is...

8.5/10 - Near Fantastic

Great work, From Software, great work!