Armored Core: Last Raven

"Remember when Armored Core was fun?"

Armored Core: Last Raven. The last game in the series for the PS2 announces the end of the current story line which began in AC3. The series has been going strong now for quite some time, but lately it seems fans are highly displeased. Their attempts to make the game more 'realistic' were met with a nonplussed attitude as people who prefered to preform unbelievable stunts in their multi-ton armored walking vehicles now had to deal with the fact that FROM SOFTWARE felt that it was not realistic.

Listening to the fans, FROM has made Last Raven after their story lineless Nine Breaker. With new parts, enhanced combat AI, and a plethora of endings for those who like the story.

After their bastardization of Nine Ball, and yes, I know it was only called that in the american version.. but the thing is so obviously nine ball that there is no doubt, we probably should be wary of them trying to create an intricate plot. Those who were optimistic shall be scorned.

Sorry fanboys. I'm going to tell it like it is.

Graphics: 5/10

It looks good, yes, but the game features no graphical enhancement over the years of previous play. The game doesnt get a 1 for having no enhanced graphics for the fact that the levels with in buildings are no longer mysteriously just right for an AC. They now feature catwalks, roads, and pathways for humans.. who sometimes do attack you now. Thusly, you no longer have to judge your scale compared to cars alone. On the downside, the humans are absolutely ugly. Their animations and such are horrid, something I'd expect to see on a Play Station one. It sort of reminded me of xenogears actually. The game itself is passable, visually, and everything has a nice look to it more or less when you look only at the mecha.. but with graphics having remained stale and the same for years now I simply can not just turn a blind eye.

Sound 7/10

The game retains the majority of sound effects found in armored core, but the sound track is more bland than the ones found in previous installments, and no particular tune really sticks in your head. Its main theme tries to deliver an undertone of finality, climax, death, and all other such grand things.. as this is trully the end of a huge story arch which has crossed five games now, beating out the previous ones which only mounted to a mere three and two.

Controls 8/10

The controls for the game are very good actually. However I've been playing this series for quite some time now, and the new offered controls are so radically different that I have a difficult time adjusting. Both could use work. The old one a lot.. which resulted in the new.. and the new one a little. I blame the play station 2 controller though. Needs more buttons or something. The game tries to offer you a huge ammount of things you can do, but it results in a lot of synchronized button pushing. Its learn curve is slightly steep because of this. Experienced players will have no trouble adjusting. Watching my little sister try was an.. amusing.. experience.

Story Line 7/10

Passable , but confusing, and somewhat cliche for the 'dominant' deal which they spout half the time in the story. I wont spoil anything for you guys, but I suppose anyone who plays the game will realize that the concept is cliche once they learn about it. It also plays virtually no role in the over all story. Essentially when things start off it looks very good.. so lets break it down.

Pre Last Raven

Great Destruction, a war which sent mankind underground. All wartime technology is lost. It far surpasses the technology which is used to make AC's, which are derived from MT's, which are civilian mechs. MT means muscle tracer..which sort of implies we've got a Robot Jox or G Gundam deal going on here, although none of that is ever implied or even remotely suggested. AC's are your mechs, by the way. Armored Cores, they are a torso, or core, which has limb hard points, allowing it to be highly customized with any number of heads, arms, boosters, generators, radiators, back weapons, inside armament, optional slot equipment, and so on and so forth.

The ravens, or mercenaries, one of which you play as, were instrumental in mankind's eventual return to the surface world and the occurances there. For those who havent played Armored Core 3 or Silent Line, I wont give anything away. Nexus will be spoiled though. Its ending is you release some weaponry from the great destruction. unmanned suicide crafts which fly in to anything and everything with an intent to destroy all that they can.

Last Raven

This nearly wiped out the ravens, and their main employers, three powerful corporations who were constantly warring with each other. These corporations and the ravens were more or less at odds by the end of nexus, and now the corporations have formed Alliance, a three-corporation team intent on world domination. Most of the surviving ravens and many who are against the corporations have formed Vertex. There are ravens who have formed their own warlord groups as well...

From here on out, the story line climaxes in either side using a weapon found from the great destruction. The one Vertex finds seems to have more importance, and many ending appear to directly involve it in some way. Pretty much every ending leaves you wondering just what the hell is going on, and we're left as dissastisfied as most AC games.. only much more so because of the sheer ammount of story building they try to put in to this game. I was displeased pretty much every time I achieved an ending.

Playability: 1/10

You will not like this game if you are a newcomer. This game was built for the fans for the most part.. but FROM has a hard job making Armored Core simply not suck these days. The new kinds of badguy that you will eventually encounter look cool, but offer little challenge, and in any clean fight the new AI is still utterly pathetic. Most missions are ungodly hard though, with the enemy AC units always cheating beyond their stats, usually with allied units attacking before, with, or after them. Sometimes your targeting equipment is jammed it make things even harder. The AC gaming series has gone from challenging, to annoying, as they throw out every cheap move they can at you to try and issue a challenge. I have to wonder if they even intended to make any money off of this game, as the single player mode is actually less enjoyable than Custom Robo's. If you have played Custom Robo, you know just how mind rending an experience that was.

Its not just combat thats annoying, but your assistants are too. Your AC's computer never provides information fast enough. Your operator is always blathering away to distract you, and Ed, who is supposed to give you combat analysis or whatever never provides a lick of useful information before or after the fight.. he doesnt mind providing his information though. His purpose is soley to provide an imediately after the battle story line enhancing 'mission report' to explain somethings to you incase you missed something.. I have actually gotten to the point of muting my TV just to shut my operator up. Especially during one final mission.

There is also the issue of part breaking. Initially a good idea, but they dont handle it very well. It comes to the issue that you simply are unwilling to use certain good parts because of their risk of breaking. I used a head which ate up most of my check on more than a few missions. Its not really all that bad, but when your legs are damaged all you really get to see is some sparks. I wish the graphics were better in this area as well. More battle damage. Messed up paint job. Missing legs, warped metal on the core. The best we gets are sparks, smoke, and for heads and arms.. well they do infact go missing, the best part of this feature. Your abilities are also hampered because of this. I like the added realism, and makes multiplayer all the more fun.. ah yes.. multiplayer.

Multiplayer: 9/10

There are no complaints here. This is really the only reason to buy the game. Fighting other humans has more or less ALWAYS been what Armored Core is about. Two Ravens squaring off against one another in mortal combat. Their finely tuned machines trading blows against one another as the two warriors pit their skills against the other. It's as close as a mecha fanatic can get to heaven. The sheer ammount of customization you can do will make the average gundam geek wet his pants.

There are more parts in this game.. but instead of introducing a lot of new ones, they give us a lot of old ones. This is good for the fans, but since many done have a certain niche that can be used, newcomers will ask why they recieved the useless part they did. a few cores come to mind in particular. One of which I use only because I had my AC in AC1 through Master of Arena use it. Now that its back I still use it, although there's an awful lot of other cores I think are much better. Still, this offers the chance for people to make their very own Armored Core, a customized, personalized, one of a kind mech.

Too bad they let you ban parts.

Thats right. Find a part that if a friend uses it, you cant win. Ever? Well instead of getting better you can just ban it! Thats right, the one reason why this doesnt get a 10. Cowards can use this to ban parts they feel are broken as opposed to simply becoming skilled enough to over come their limitation. That just bothers me. Fortunately, I dont know anyone who actually has the gall to do such a thing.

PRO's

Want to make your own mech and fight with it? This is the best game -ever- for that. Beats out all other previous armored cores, and other games such as mechwarrior and SLAI.

CON's

The single player is annoying, with an incomplete story line and a lot of missions where you simply can not believe they had the guts to make such a cheap level. You'll be pulling your hair out since FROM felt that instead of making a smart opponent, they'd just let the opponent cheat.

Dont expect your guns to hit very often in single player. I've seen my shots mysteriously miss non moving targets. They'll just fly off to the side. Your missiles will do this alot, miss by a little. Large, slow moving missiles when fired at you have tracking up the whazoo.. when you fire them, they sort of spin around in the air acting like they are tracking the target 80% of the time.. and then poof. When they do actually follow, they have been as nerfed as most of the weapons and dont have the speed to keep up with -anything-.

Almost everything has been nerfed. They revamped the game so that it is predominantly for people who like to use bipeds with heavy weapons. The role of the tank leg unit is gone, entirely, and the quad can barely keep its own anymore. The cheating AC's can literally fly circles around you. Light weights will find themselves out turned and now slower to the cheating AI units too. It feels more like you're trying to build some wierd mecha that would belong in Gundam Wing for single player. AC units which dont have this disgusting cheating enhancement (which was once available to human players but not at such unbelievable levels in previous games) are not nearly as sickening to face.. but limited only to other human players.

Summary

The -only- reason to play single player is for the parts. Otherwise there is no need to subject yourself to this stomach churning game which forces repeated replays to get the whole story.. or as much of it as you can, as well as all the parts available. If you want a good armored core game, but dont care about graphics, play Armored Core: Master of Arena. If you want a good PS2 Armored Core game, try Armored Core 2 and Armored Core 2: Another Age. The Armored Core 3 games are all right as well, and Nexus is even acceptable so long as you dont like heavy humanoid leg types, nine breaker also offers an extensive arena. Last Raven however is by far the worste single player experience in an Armored Core game I have ever had to go through.

My suggestion? Let your friend get all the parts, then copy his save to your memory card and build and paint your own AC.

Buy or Rent?

If you are new to Armored Core or dont care for mecha series, dont do either. If you are a long time fan and dont know if you want to get it, you might as well buy it. It will take a lot of time to get everything and do all the stories because of how hard some of the missions can become, and how many times you must replay this game to get all the story elements and all the hidden or secret parts... or even just to have enough cash to BUY all the parts. Renting wont provide you with enough time unless you literally have no life.

So buy it, if you like Armored Core. Just dont expect to feel accomplished when you beat it, you will feel more like you just swatted an annoying fly which proved difficult to hit. Like spitting out a bitter taste. Just pray that the sweet taste of Multiplayer will arrive soon. Fighting other humans is really all this game is about. For fans to fight other fans, and revel in the enjoyment of the best multiplayer experience to come to armored core ever.

NOTE: My review number is not based on the numbers given to the different categories, but as to how I feel about this game when I set down the controller and get up from the game. it get s a 3/10 because I'm tempted to pop in another age and fight Stinger or Nine Ball again instead of dealing with levels where they start an enemy AC with a KARASAWA with your back turned towards him.. can you say free hit?

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/06