Overview
Midori-san really enjoyed playing Armored Core 6 for the first time the other day…
I thought, "Oh, there’s a game on the Switch that plays like Armored Core?" — so I gave it a go!
Apparently, Kenichiro Tsukuda, who was the producer for past entries in the Armored Core series, is also the producer on this one.
And Shōji Kawamori, who handled the mechanical design for Armored Core, also worked on this.
I had a solid time and managed to finish it, so here’s my spoiler summary and impressions.
Summary
- A piece of the moon broke off and fell to Earth. Needless to say, an unprecedented disaster. From that fragment, “femtoparticles” dispersed, causing some people to evolve into a new race called “Outers,” while others contracted “Outer syndrome” and died off. Surrounding AIs went berserk and became attacks in the form of “Immortals.” Plus, there’s still part of the moon stuck in geostationary orbit, occasionally falling—an event they call “Moonfall.” This great catastrophe is known as “The Day of Awakening.”
- The mysterious substance “femtoparticles” pulses with energy in 15-day cycles, making it an unbelievably powerful new energy resource—far beyond anything we’ve seen before. Actually, the power source of the mechs (called Arsenals) in the game is “femtoparticles.”
- This triggers a conflict breaking out among profit-hungry corporations, mercenary Outers they hire, and the Immortals. The battlefield is walled off and known as the “Ovalink,” and it’s overseen by a neutral organization called “Orbital.”
That’s what most people understand in general—but if you look a bit deeper, here’s what it really seems to be:
- The piece of the moon that fell on The Day of Awakening wasn’t natural. It was part of a mysterious being called the Dominator that lives on the moon. Its intention was to evolve humanity so we could venture into space. Indeed, some human brains evolved into Outers—proof that it worked. So it’s essentially on our side. All we need is contact between evolved humans and the Dominator to rocket into outer space. Those who can’t evolve? They’ll go extinct!
- On the other hand, what stops such brutal means is actually humanity’s ally: artificial intelligence. The Immortals, who seem to attack humans, are actually preventing contact between humans and the Dominator.
- So they were both allies………….
Impressions
- In the end, you choose: follow the Dominator’s will to expand into space, or stay on Earth as the Immortals suggest. I love multi-ending games!
- I appreciate the collection elements: replaying missions, developing new items from existing ones, collecting—I’m all in.
- I like a story where you never really get emotionally attached to any NPC: you deal with a bunch of Liberation Brigade NPCs, but you never truly join any side. Just business-like interactions while doing mercenary jobs. That vibe really works for me.
- I also like it when the protagonist isn’t invested in NPCs or world affairs: you know, someone who doesn’t read the news and only learns about major events when talking in person? That feeling when you cross a few orders and discover entire nations have fallen off the grid—that’s it. It makes me wonder if the protagonist’s personality is shaped by being built for combat. I love that kind of nuance.
- Still, the NPCs themselves are fun and colorful — they’re so vivid, I laugh watching them.
- The difficulty is easier than Armored Core, which I like: it’s simpler, but still has that Armored Core feel. The freedom of flight at first surprised me. And I like that the unlimited power is actually justified—inside the Ovalink it’s full of femtoparticles.
- I like the character customization: it helps you get attached. This time I created Mī-ko imagining an athlete concentrating before competition. So cool.
- Isn’t it interesting that you can leave the mech (Arsenal)? Unfortunately, the story doesn’t make full use of this system, but it’s still a fascinating feature.
- The missions with contradictory objectives in the storyline were confusing: The Dominator hijacks Orbital’s system to pit mercenaries against each other. It was a thrilling mystery point—why such contradictions? But in the end, I still wasn’t quite sure why the Dominator did it. Still, we hardened by FromSoftware can take this kind of mystery in stride.
- Main story (Offer Orders) only allows one playthrough until clear: Unlike Armored Core 6, which let you replay anytime, here you can’t replay the main missions until you finish. I missed that system—it was great for reviewing the story.
- Final boss runs out of ammo: As I got used to handling the Arsenal and dodging attacks wasn’t hard anymore, the enemy’s high HP felt excessive. My screenshot captures me completely out of ammo, waiting for my NPC ally to take down the boss.
- The UI lagged a bit and there was a silent bug: I encountered them, but since a sequel is already announced for Switch 2... hopefully those spec-related issues will be resolved in the next installment, so it didn’t bother me much.
- About the terrible order (data-collection mission on a giant Immortal): The person who set a time limit on that order should be docked pay for three months. And whoever approved that test — same for you.
Despite a few strong complaints, I really liked this game! I still want to play more in Ovalink, but for now, I just had to share the joy of finding a game I genuinely love again.
By the way, to celebrate clearing it, my character let her hair down (changed hairstyles) and switched to private mode:
