Armored Core: Last Raven

"A HUGE Improvement Over NX/NB IMO"

KUROI KENSHIN'S Last Raven Review

Armored Core is about building a customized robot and blowing stuff up, Last Raven is the latest in a long string of AC games. Action is fast unlike the plodding Mechwarrior series, and smooth unlike the jerky SLAI.

AC is a very deep game, you'll spend as much or more time designing ACs as actually playing them. This isn't your average run and blast through levels and finish, or rather that only scratches the surface. It's easy to whip together a basic AC, but you can spend tons of time tweaking it and experimenting.

With the number of parts and weapons, combined with human VS, the amount of variety you can have is staggering. AC has replay value unlike virtually any other game on the market, if this is your type of game.

The game has a pretty good 1P but the real value is human VS. With a huge variety of parts and weapons, you can design and paint your personal AC then pilot it into battle against others. Xlink Kai can be used to play online though it requires a bit of setup.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

It's AC, the graphics haven't really changed that much IMO, but they get the job done. This isn't the game's strength anyway so no big deal. An addition is the way AC parts can take damage or even be blown off.

PLOT: 8/10

It's AC, which means who cares about plot, just shoot everything and most times you'll do fine. However, there is much better presentation this time around, with many well done cutscenes, which make the 1P a lot cooler. A big improvement is that many of these profile YOUR AC too. Other AC pilots also talk a lot more, giving a sense of a storyline actually going on.

Corporations or big organizations fighting, everything in ruins, you are a mercenary for hire, shoot everything. There's your plot.

There are multiple endings in LR and they actually did a decent job of setting them up, each have their own cutscenes.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

First, LR has had many BIG changes to the gameplay. LR is totally different from NX/NB just like NX was different from SL and AC3 was different from AA, and AC2 was different from MOA.

HEAT
First on everyone's mind is heat. Heat from weapons is no longer a huge problem, heat recovers much quicker and accuracy has been toned down so you can't just easily cripple an opponent with heat. HUGE IMPROVEMENT.

SPEED & PHYSICS
The game is sped up, ACs are much faster. This makes a lot of weapons less accurate since not all of them got their shot velocities increased to match. Gameplay for the most part feels a lot like AA, with probably a bit less accuracy from a lot of guns. However, some weapons, particularly those lacking in some areas (high drain beam weapons) or restricted in others (cannons) retained all or most of their accuracy.

The effect of this is to force players to work harder to make effective use of the weapons that are easier to use (most solids) and boost those more difficult to use. (beam with high energy drain, cannons)

In general just depressing the trigger is not going to guarantee shots connect, in this way LR kills the Rushdown game which many players hated anyway. In NX/NB players would just charge straight in holding down the fire button and whoever did damage faster won. In LR this is DEAD, and good riddance. You MUST pick your shots.

Hard landings from AC3 and prior have returned. No more flying forever then dropping like a rock with instant recovery. This is actually a big improvement since flying opponents can be among the most difficult to track, this forces them stay lower and returns more of the gritty ground pounder feel to AC. A second thing this does is separate the skilled players from the unskilled, since hard landings leave you open to punishment for a second or two - this can provide bladers better opportunities too.

PART BREAKING
There are 2 degrees of damage, yellow which indicates reduced performance (OB heats more, EOs less accurate, etc) and red which means broken, in the case of an arm or the head it blows off. Head and leg damage can affect stability a lot, legs also lose turning speed when damaged.

BLADING
Some tracking in the form of the upward pull has been returned but for the most part blading is still manual. Blades break stuff better than most weapons so the payoff for a hit is better than before. The new blades are also very powerful. Lower gun accuracy and less heat problems also make blading less suicidal now.

BALANCE
While it's too early to say, at least most of the dominant parts from NX/NB have been given some serious drawbacks in the form of breaking a lot easier. Most of the parts seem relatively balanced on a very quick initial glance through, with one or two sticking out. BIG improvement is there are almost no parts that are going to do the work for you, you will need skills to get good use out of almost anything.

Dual guns is still a little too powerful IMO, primarily due to one FCS.

Missiles have changed and require timing and aiming to get good use.

EOs seem better balanced, E2 and SELENA got accuracy cuts, URANUS got a big and much needed improvement.

Cannons retained most of their accuracy, making them weapons to be feared, as they should be, unlike NB where guns actually outperformed most of them.

The extension boosters are good again.

A lot of weapons got tweaked for better balance.

Any part can be banned.

The BIGGEST pro here is that due to all the changes people are going to need to experiment a lot again to find which parts work best for them. Second is that no particular part seems to clearly dominate everything, at least from the little VS and experimenting I've done so far. This could change if people are truly determined to break game balance, I guess we'll see.

GARAGE
Easier and quicker to navigate, can hold 5 ACs now.

ARENA
There are a bunch of ACs to fight, 30 I think. Most are Plus cheaters which is a bit lame, but for the whiners that say AI is too easy some of these should be a decent challenge.

DIFFICULTY
LR has some missions and opponents that will challenge even veteran AC players. This is no cakewalk.

VS STAGES
LR disappoints here with most of the stages recycled. There are 2 good new ones, but far too many stages (mostly from NB) are an open square. I'd hoped for at least 6-8 new stages as good as Advance Base.

SOUND: 8/10

These are ok. Nothing particularly wow, but good enough. Sound FX are really all that matter here IMO and they're mostly good enough. I find the laser blades sound wimpy now unfortunately but otherwise, fine.

FUN: 10/10

HUGE improvement, unlike NX/NB with easily performed severe heat crippling, LR is a lot of FUN to play and design in again. Tons of variety in ACs and lots of feasible weapons and playstyles to try.

OVERALL: 9/10

Last Raven is probably the best Armored Core experience since AA, maybe better than that depending how you feel. Seems to have great variety and balance. Keep in mind my assessment of balance is VERY preliminary.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/06