As predicted, took me less than minute to S rank the final mission, and i'm now all set for NG+:
I tried my best to S rank every mission with the gear available only up to that mission but some just seemed impossible without Stun Needles (specifically Attack the Refueling Base and Eliminate "Honest" Brute"), not because they were particularly hard but because even if you play well and take little damage, ACs can take a long time to kill purely due to how spazzy they are and timing is really crucial for ass ranking so i had to relent for those two, not the least because Stun Needles felt overpowered even on missions AFTER the Ice Worm so whatever.
Right now i'd rank this game an 8/10 by FromSoft standards and a 9/10 by regular industry standards (no game deserves 10/10 though modern AAA standards are so abysmal i'd be tempted to give it to this game lmao). There are some flaws to be sure. Some lack of options compared to the previous games, a lack of a debt system and thus a lack of "tension" when doing missions the first time (in AC1 and AC2, most missions felt like Intercept the Reduguns just because you couldn't afford to waste resources which made even the weak enemies feel like a problem. Also, missions were short in previous AC games precisely because of the debt system all though to be fair i found the lenght of Armored Core 6 to be in the main pretty good, and i haven't even unlocked the alternative missions yet), and the game could have afforted to be a little harder. Presentation was good despite running on an old engine (FromSoft is all about art direction rather than graphics anyway), but i found the music to lack presence. It's not bad in itself, quite tecnical actually with all those wierd harmonies etc but it felt something that would have been more appropriate for an atmospheric sci-fi RPG or something. In a game where everything is blowing up all the time it just got buried under the avalanche of sound effects and from what i've seen there were some real bangers in the old AC games:
Best thing for me i think it's just the gameplay. It was just so damn polished that the game felt addicting and even now i actually want to jump on NG+ even though i know i'd better that i take a break.
As for the story, it was ok i guess. Typical ghost in the machine crap mixed with typical grim dark Armored Core tropes (corporations bad, greed good etc). Compared to Souls there's not that much in it that was cryptic or hard to grasp. I think in the main the story was nondescript but also neither stupid nor cringy so i guess that's a plus. Voice acting was mostly good, and eventually i even came around coming to terms with Balem. Yes the way they talk its ridicolous but at least they were different from the other factions. I can see this game could have run into a problem where you wouldn't have been able to tell which one was which with all those endless briefings that all look the same so Balem being so outlandish made them stand out at least.
I think a DLC could potentionally fix a lot of the problems with this game, by adding more missions that are super hard and intense, add some more unique arsenal, and possibly add an hard mode as well. We'll see if FromSoft can play their cards right or if they are just going to abandon this like they did Sekiro for whatever reason lmao.
All in all it was a good game and i'm glad they released it. At least it wasn't Souls or a variation it. I think even FromSoft themselves probably realized they can't just pump out Souls games for the rest of eternity.
