this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023

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161

Armored Core VI Review Thread (85/100) (opencritic.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Carighan to c/games

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Game Information

Game Title: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Platforms:

PC (Aug 24, 2023)
PlayStation 5 (Aug 25, 2023)
Xbox Series X/S (Aug 25, 2023)
Xbox One (Aug 25, 2023)

Trailers:

Developer: FromSoftware Inc.

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 85 average - 91% recommended - 59 reviews

Critic Reviews

Atomix - Alberto Desfassiaux - Spanish - 97 / 100

Attack of the Fanboy - J.R. Waugh - 4 / 5

CGMagazine - Khari Taylor - 8 / 10

COGconnected - Mark Steighner - 95 / 100

Cerealkillerz - Gabriel Bogdan - German - 9 / 10

Checkpoint Gaming - Omi Koulas - 8.5 / 10

Destructoid - Chris Carter - 9 / 10

Digital Trends - Giovanni Colantonio - 3 / 5

Eurogamer - Caelyn Ellis - 5 / 5

Forbes - Ollie Barder - 8 / 10

GAMES.CH - Benjamin Braun - German - 80%

Game Informer - Connor Trinske - 8.3 / 10

GamePro - Dennis Michel - German - 86 / 100

GameSpot - Richard Wakeling - 8 / 10

Gameblog - KiKiToes - French - 6 / 10

Gamefa - mohammad hossein karimi - Persian - 9 / 10

Gamepressure - Krzysiek Kalwasiński - 9 / 10

Gamersky - Chinese - 8.8 / 10

GamesBeat - Mike Minotti - 4.5 / 5

GamesHub - Edmond Tran - 5 / 5

GamesRadar+ - Austin Wood - 4.5 / 5

GamingBolt - Shunal Doke - 9 / 10

GamingTrend - Ron Burke - 90 / 100

Geek Culture - Jake Su - 9.3 / 10

Generación Xbox - David Fernandez - Spanish - 97 / 100

God is a Geek - Chris White - 9 / 10

Hobby Consolas - Bruno Sol - Spanish - 90 / 100

IGN - Mitchell Saltzman - 8 / 10

IGN Italy - Alessandra Borgonovo - Italian - 8.2 / 10

IGN Spain - Guillermo Proupín - Spanish - 9 / 10

INVEN - Kwangseok Park - Korean - 8.8 / 10

Kotaku - Ethan Gach - Unscored

LevelUp - Víctor Rosas - Spanish - 9 / 10

Metro GameCentral - GameCentral - 9 / 10

PC Gamer - Wes Fenlon - 87 / 100

PCGamesN - Andrew Farrell - 8 / 10

PSX Brasil - Luis Guilherme Machado Camargo - Portuguese - 80 / 100

PlayStation Universe - Adam Byrne - 8.5 / 10

Polygon - Michael McWhertor - Unscored

PowerUp! - Adam Mathew - 7.5 / 10

Press Start - James Mitchell - 9 / 10

Push Square - Liam Croft - 7 / 10

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Jon Bailes - Unscored

Saudi Gamer - Arabic - 7 / 10

Screen Rant - Christopher Teuton - 4.5 / 5

Shacknews - TJ Denzer - 9 / 10

Siliconera - Kazuma Hashimoto - 10 / 10

SomHráč.sk - Karel Šír - Slovak - 80%

Spaziogames - Marcello Paolillo - Italian - 8 / 10

Stevivor - Hamish Lindsay - 8.5 / 10

TechRaptor - Samuel Guglielmo - 8.5 / 10

Unboxholics - Στράτος Χατζηνικολάου - Greek - Worth your time

VG247 - Josh Broadwell - 3 / 5

Wccftech - Kai Tatsumoto - 8.5 / 10

We Got This Covered - David Morgan - 4.5 / 5

WellPlayed - James Wood - 9.5 / 10

Worth Playing - Chris "Atom" DeAngelus - 9 / 10

XboxEra - Jesse Norris - 6.5 / 10

ZTGD - Jae Lee - 9 / 10

top 40 comments

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[–] MorgoFett 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thanks for the aggregation, OP!

[–] 7112 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Def, great job on those numbers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The numbers are just exported from open critic

[–] Carighan 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah as much as I'd like to take credit, donate a few bucks to Open Critic if you enjoy this. They offer a readymade format for this, and they're a fantastic service in comparison to Metacritic anyways.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my expert opinion as Some Random Dude who’s Only Seen the Commercial, it looks like a pretty cool game.

Edit: now I’ve seen the trailer, too, which makes me a PhD. I would like to double down on my initial evaluation.

[–] sparse_neuron 20 points 1 year ago

I never thought I'd ever see a new Armored Core game after the success of the Souls games. So hyped for this.

[–] Mikelius 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I find it funny how many reviewers complained about the story, it’s a From game. It is the equivalent of complaining about dialogue in porn.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't see why a specific studio gets a pass for story criticisms just because they are notorious for being lacking.

[–] Mikelius 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because at this point it is their stylistic choice, same as Ace Combat or like asking Kojima not to make a convoluted vomit of a narrative. You kind of know what you are getting into. And with how much long cutscenes and exposition takes you out if the game (I’m looking at you FFXVI) I like this approach to pure action games.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ace Combat and Kojima games do get criticism for their plots, though.

If you include a narrative, it's fair game.

Would y'all be lenient on mediocre mechanics of a "cinematic, narrative" game because "you know what you're getting into"? From my experience, most of a certain type of gamer wouldn't be.

85 average and 8/10 scores are hardly big knocks, either.

[–] Mikelius 10 points 1 year ago

Of course you can, but I prefer judging a game on what it focuses on. Kind of like judging undertale on its graphics, it’s not the main point. AC is all about the combat and customization, and anything that gets in the way of that is what I would judge harshly.

[–] Vipsu 2 points 1 year ago

If the story or it's presentation is lacking then it's something a lot of players may want to know before buying the game.
Now how much it should affect the actual score depends on the reviewer.

[–] Cold_Brew_Enema 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because that's not the focus of their game. That's why. Witcher 3 chose to focus on the story and the combat is bland and boring. Dragon's Dogma has great combat and a lacking story. Your point makes no sense.

[–] Yokozuna 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you really just say the Witcher 3 combat was boring? Am I hearing this right? What was boring about it to you I am genuinely curious.

[–] Cold_Brew_Enema 10 points 1 year ago

Yes. It was boring. Not sure how to misinterpret that lol. It's bland. I've tried to finish the game twice and no matter how good the story is I can't finish it because it's a drag to play.

[–] Katana314 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Witcher 3 didn’t get a pass from me, I gave it up because it was getting repetitive.

[–] Cold_Brew_Enema 2 points 1 year ago

Agreed

[–] DingoBilly 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's a completely valid criticism.

From games have tried to branch out into a different genre and didn't quite pull it off. If a racing car game dev made an RPG and it was just a game where you raced cars would you also say it doesn't matter? Makes no sense.

It shows they're not quite as versatile as their fanboys make them out to be.

[–] Mikelius 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What do you mean by branch out? They set out to do an action game like they did 10 years ago where the story is entirely secondary to the gameplay and mechanics. If anything having a super cutscene heavy character development drama would be branching out from what the series is all about.

[–] DingoBilly 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well that's the point right? It's been 10 years. A lot has changed in games and people expect more. That's reflected in why the game has reviewed ok, but for a FromSoftware game it's kinda done pretty poorly. This isn't going to win any game of the year awards and they're demonstrating that they can't just take any game and make it great.

[–] Mikelius 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As respectfully as I can say this, so what? I don’t care about it trying to be a mass appeal GOTY art piece that pushes boundaries. I want an AC game with the stupid silly robots blowing shit up. Anything that tales me out building said robots or blowing said shit up is a negative for me. If anything having more bloat with cutscenes and dialogue and exposition detracts from the experience.

[–] DingoBilly 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's great for you then!

My comment is just a reply to the original comment that someone said it was laughable that reviewers complained about the lack of story which I think is just oblivious/attempts to excuse the developer for making a certain type of game. Again, the industry has evolved to expect certain things so when it's not there it's a valid complaint and reason why this game doesn't live up to expectations.

But it's completely valid for people to just want an action game or movie without a story so if that floats your boat then great.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Didn't live up to your unrealistic expectations. It's an action game with multiplayer based around mechs.

For this type of game the industry evolved to shoving loot crates, skins, and battle passes down our throats, not a "great story". This game has none of that. Which I'm sure most people are happy about.

The "story" in Armored Core exists to give you a reason to play their mech action game. Mech action being the focal point. It gives you a reason to play the game, get used to the controls, and then maybe play some multiplayer.

[–] DingoBilly 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not just my expectations, it has a metacritic score of 87. That's good, but it's only in the top 50 games this year.

Again, I don't really care, I don't actually plan on playing it. Just saying why it's completely justifiable that reviewers downgrade the score because it's not doing anything new/has no story.

Just fyi - but I'd rate games with microtransactions as below this. I just have learnt to enjoy action games with story. Otherwise it's just another action game. If you play a hundred action games then they start all being the same unless you start doing more. Mech combat is not that exciting or new for me.

But great that you and others enjoy it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Elden Ring is their best attempt at story telling imo. I could follow most of the NPC storylines without much effort in the first playthrough. It wasn't really obtuse like their previous titles. There is a bit of hope they can improve.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So excited to play it, I just wish it didn't come out at the same time as everything else

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Between BG3, this, and Starfield, I need a 3 month sabbatical and a small bonus.

[–] Redditiscancer789 7 points 1 year ago

holy shit i know how you feel mate. Fucking went from having nothing to be excited about personally to all of a sudden getting like 5 games dropped on me in less than 2 months. My wallet and free time aint ready for this.

[–] CIA_chatbot 3 points 1 year ago

I know, like the whole year has sucked for games (at least on PC, unoptimized crap after unoptimized crap)

And then at least 2 great games drop all at once (hopefully 3 with star field)

[–] CIA_chatbot 2 points 1 year ago

I know, like the whole year has sucked for games (at least on PC, unoptimized crap after unoptimized crap)

And then at least 2 great games drop all at once (hopefully 3 with star field)

[–] Cold_Brew_Enema 7 points 1 year ago

About what I expected from critics. I'm absolutely pumped to play it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

ACG uploaded a short to YouTube covering the bare bones of their review. Their rating for this is a "buy".

[–] subq 5 points 1 year ago

Amazon actually going to have release day delivery on this one. That’s not normal for them these days.

[–] TheChancePants 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How do these games compare to the Souls games? I know nothing about AC, but have gotten way into Souls since Elden Ring came out

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@TheChancePants they don't compare at all to the souls games. Armored Core existed alongside King's Field and they were nothing alike. You could relate that to the comparison of the latest Armored Core and Elden Ring. They are by the same developer but completely separate. --edit typo

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They are both third person games where you kill stuff! But about as similar as Mario and Kirby, also both made by the same developer :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Difficulty and weirdness in the story wise? Very similar.

How the game actually feels to play? Totally different. AC is more of a hardcore arcade action game. One part MechWarrior, one part bullet hell shooter. I'm surprised to see it hasn't really changed much from AC2, the last AC I ever played.

Some of the levels are fucking epic as hell. One of the missions I've done so far, you have to take down this massive building sized tank on legs, and it's like the size of a level in and of itself. You're already in a giant mech that dwarfs a human, and this structure made me feel like just a regular dude fighting a skyscraper.

[–] Redonkulation 2 points 1 year ago

They are mission based and very fast paced. AC games are generally pretty challenging and designed to be replayed a lot for mastery and for trying out different mech loadouts as you unlock parts and weapons over time.

[–] dub 3 points 1 year ago

Never played the series before but it looks great! Kinda pumped

[–] Vipsu 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When it comes to Armored Core 8/10 is actually 1-2 points higher than the series usually gets.
The game is no Dark souls or Elder ring but not bad for previously rather niche franchaise.