Awesome Music / Armored Core

A great majority of this Door Stopper level of awesome music can be attributed to Kota Hoshino, composer at FromSoftware and head of its music team, "FreQuency".

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• Armored Core 1 (Project Phantasma, Master of Arena):
  • "Ambiguity" from Armored Core 1 is downright beautiful. It perfectly captures the tragic nature of every Armored Core world, and the sometimes terrible things that the player does to get ahead in those worlds.
  • "9", from Master of Arena, shows up at the end of the game, wherein you'll be facing Nineball, in his Nineball Seraph, for one last time. The only lyric is simple yet powerful enough to provide your only goal.
    Destroy Nineball.
    • Nine-Ball's remix theme from Another Century's Episode R, "Nine -novem-", in which you not only face him in a different mech this time around, but also have a PLAYABLE version for one mission later on.
    • 9 (King of No.9 edition) is unique as you'll hear the lyrics earlier than expected, on top of hearing distortions before the familiar tune comes up.

• From Armored Core 2, "King Lear". Plays during Leos Klein's Motive Rant, and sets the stage beautifully.
• Armored Core 3 (Silent Line, Nexus, Nine Breaker, Last Raven, Formula Front):
  • All four versions of "Silent Line", from the game of the same name.
  • Artificial Line sets an epic tone for your battle with the IBIS in Silent Line.

• Armored Core 4:
  • The intro and Overture, both of which are chillingly good. "Mr. Adam" is also great.
  • "Panther", which is perhaps one of the best songs for an opening stage, and comes back again in "Marche Au Supplice", which pits you against four of the best pilots in the game, and even without any allies on Hard, and the song only escalates the battle into a Moment of Awesome as you hear the enemies' disbelief if you begin to take them out.
  • "Rain" is beautiful.
  • "Thinker" is absolutely amazing. To add to this remarkable song, an OverClocked ReMix called "Goodbye, Thinker" takes this action-packed war song and makes it hauntingly beautiful. Both amazing tracks. FreQuency later remixed this track in the form of "Thinker -reprise-".
  • "Fall", the final boss theme. An intense, fast-paced fight song with an awesome Desert Punk-ish combination of guitar, drums and vocals. Then you realize that the lyrics are in English. Then you realize what they're saying...
    I've already fallen
    I don't want to fight you
    It's that I fall in you
  • "Fall -Into Grace-", an action packed remix of "Fall" from the Sunrise album.
• Armored Core: For Answer:
  • "Someone is Always Moving on the Surface", "Today", "Curtain Fall", and the Outro.
  • The "Spirit of Motherwill". It also has a more awesome remix, seeing as how its wreckage appears in Verdict Day and you can fight it again.
  • "Remember" from For Answer, its remix "Remember ~ on your memory", and another remix in Verdict Day as "Mechanized Memories" for the final boss, N-WGIX/v/ White Glint.
  • "The Answer" plays during certain versions of the final mission, and is nearly the title track of the game for a reason. The finality of what this song represents is unmistakable with the showstopping tone, and use of a chorus saying 'amen' over and over as the primary vocal component.
• Armored Core V: "V for Two", the song on the teaser page on the official Japanese website, is a pretty cool piece of music.

• Armored Core: Verdict Day:
  • "Day After Day", which plays in the "No future for mercs" trailer. Along with the live version, a cover, and its 20th Anniversary Edit, which is almost as good as the real thing.
  • "Connected", which plays when you first turn on Verdict Day, is awe-inspiring and sets the tone for the entire game.
  • "Dirty Worker", which plays during the first mission, is a perfect blend of Armored Core's old and current music direction while setting that feel of the next evolution in Armored Core.
  • "The Perfect Rose", the track for the workshop, never gets old.
  • Each of the three factions has their own theme, all of which make scrolling through the main menu an enjoyable experience; "Venide", "Sirius Executives" and "Evergreen Family".
  • "Vendetta" manages to make a five-on-one AC battle more awesome than it already is.
  • "Death Count", which is the menu music for Hardcore mode. It gets the point across.
  • The game got some Soundtrack DLC, which means more awesome music. This is mostly remixes of old songs, most notably another remix of "9", a "Cosmos" remix that replaces the final boss theme (which is also from For Answer), and a remix of "Dirty Worker" which has Fatman singing the song.
  • "Stain (A Perfect Day)" is an even creepier remix of the original "Stain" from V; a perfect match for the grueling Legacy Boss Battle with the Exusia found in the Far East's Special Sortie.

• Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon:
  • "Contact With You" initially appears to be the boss theme of the infamous Balteus and is a subtle if haunting techno piece that sounds oddly hopeful for a boss fight. However, once you know the song's name combined with the context of what just happened in the story, you'll realize it isn't a boss theme for Balteus at all. It's the theme of C4-621 and Ayre, a pair that will become the driving force behind the ultimate fate of Rubicon 3. If 621 sides with Ayre and Rubicon in the endgame, it even comes back for 621's wholesale asskicking of both Arquebus and Overseer, serving as a Triumphant Reprise by changing the context of its playing rather than the song itself. Adding to this is a deep, thumping drum in the background that gives off the impression of one's heart beating in their ears.
  • "Rough and Decent" and its reprise "Rough and Decent (Bad Joke)" from Armored Core VI combine jazz elements with the game's dark synths to create a theme that is both playful and menacing at the same time, a perfect fit for "Cinder" Carla.
  • "Stargazer" is a song that only plays after clearing the True Ending of Armored Core VI. It's very much a classic Kota Hoshino song, upbeat and very catchy, and gives off a sense of "we're back," which fits well with VI being the first game that the series has gotten in a decade.
• Sunrise remixes:
  • "Days" is an epic arrangement that combines elements of Armored Core 3, Armored Core 4, and ACV music into a track with a fantastic climax.
  • "Remain" is distinctly ACV-style, suited to a climactic battle of some sort.
  • "Life In Ash" rather neatly captures the overall tone of the franchise - pulse-pounding, toe-tapping, but unmistakably tragic. It's an impressive feat.
• Armored Core Original Soundtrack 20th Anniversary Box contains nearly all the songs listed here.
  • Fallout was eventually used for a music video centered around Metal Wolf Chaos XD.
  • Day After Day (ACVD PV edition) is a unique remix, in which the first half uses the No future for mercs side then switches to JP trailer near the end.
  • Reminiscence stands out not just for its intense instrumental phase, but for its use of soft lead-ups and equally-soft endings around them.
  • Despite being used as an ending theme for a college film project, "Cyberdive", Dive into the Flame perfectly captures the energy and exhilaration of the entire Armored Core series as a whole.

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