TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Go To

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: V.VIII Pater is directly stated to be a sociopath in his arena bio created by ALLMIND. But some of the player base wonders if this is true. In the mission where he is fought alongside his superior, V.V Hawkins, he seems genuinely distraught if Hawkins is killed before Pater's AC is destroyed. This has made some players wonder if he is a sociopath, or if ALLMIND was just off the mark. On the other hand, Pater rather quickly gets over his apparent grief upon realizing he can take over his number in the organization, and upon defeat only expresses anger that he was taken out so soon after ranking up. Two interpretations were made: Pater really is a sociopath for brushing it off so quickly, or it's a coping mechanism to deal with the sudden loss. It's also implied that he may have Dissasociative Identity Disorder, his mood swings along with his AC's name ("Dual Nature") and his emblem (a dual fetus) lending some credence to this.
    • Walter gets this treatment as well. Part of it comes down to cultural differences between the East and West. For the Japanese, Walter is seen like a master, senpai, and/or a highly strict and demanding parent by the end of the game. In the west, Walter can be viewed like a master forcing people into indentured servitude which is just one step up from slavery and, by the end, maybe a benevolent boss. The latter of which is especially true in the Liberation of Rubicon ending in the most tragic way possible. Either way, four things between the cultural views is consistent: he dehumanizes Gen 4 humans until they prove themselves, Walter holds up his end of the bargain if you work for him, he grows to respect and care for 621 if they do well, and Walter can't be considered 621's friend since he's your boss/master (the power dynamic doesn't allow for friendship at the moment, hence why he says 621 "found a friend" in the Liberation of Rubicon ending). Either way, the game goes out of its way to make the player feel bad for Walter regardless of what ending you get.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Duels against other ACs can be hit or miss, and not even for using a Game-Breaker build that would make anything an anti-climax, and especially so in the Arena. Because they use the same parts and statistics as you do, this also means that unless they're a special boss encounter that specifically cheats their design a bit, most don't hold up against the same kind of punishment that regular bosses can; fights should rarely last even a full minute unless you and the AI keep boost-dodging around each other, trading weaker hits. It reaches the point that the Rank 1 Arena position, V.I Freud, is considered one of the easiest opponents of the entire Arena simply because his build doesn't have the eccentricities or gimmicks that pose danger to an experienced player. As a straightforward AC fight, he gets chumped easily by that point. It's somewhat more difficult against multiple ACs, but those fights are featured on New Game Plus routes, which by then, the player would have ready access to Game-Breaker builds anyways. On the upside, AC fights are also significantly more difficult outside the arena (especially the aforementioned V.I Freud), as the pilot AI can actually use the full range of moves they were programmed to use.
    • Pater serves as the boss of the "MIA" mission. The mission is short and not very difficult, which makes the inclusion of a Resupply point near the end of the level give off the impression that a difficult boss is coming, but Pater is encountered alone in a High Mobility LC at a point in the game where a lone LC is likely no match for the player.
  • Award Snub: The game only getting nominated for (and eventually winning) "Best Action" in the 2023 Game Awards has attracted this sentiment, especially since From Software's previous work, Elden Ring, won Game of the Year the year before. That said, most acknowledge that it was a very packed year as far as quality releases go.
  • Awesome Art: As expected from Fromsoft; the art team certainly used the studio's newfound production values to deliver a truly visually stunning experience, from the mechanical designs and animations of the ACs to the visual effects of the weaponry. However, special mention goes to the fact that everything in the game is modelled to-scale, as evidenced by videos like this, which have the game's assets ported to Elden Ring.
  • Best Boss Ever:
    • AAP07 BALTEUS shows how to properly do a Wake-Up Call Boss. A Lightning Bruiser through and through, the fight is a complete thrill as you learn to dodge its Macross Missile Massacre and keep up with its fast movement. And the fight keeps escalating as BALTEUS brings on new toys, from even more missiles to a flamethrower. A suitably epic duel to conclude the first chapter, and a great introduction to Ayre.
    • AAS02 CATAPHRACT. It's basically the EC-0804 SMART CLEANER on steroids: a hulking tank whom you must Attack Its Weak Point. However, it stands out due to its sheer speed and its incredible amounts of More Dakka it carries, to the point that it's the best possible variation of a "Get Back Here!" Boss, and its insane collection of weaponry, whether it's its numerous Gatling Good or its multitude of missiles, make the fight unpredictable and exhilarating.
    • The AAP04 ENFORCER is a boss with no major gimmicks or any eccentricities associated. It's just a big robot that's really, really good at fighting. There's no real way to defeat it other than being good at the game's combat, and makes up for it by having one of the most varied, most fun movesets in the entire series. Agile, versatile and deadly, the ENFORCER is a great skill check before the game's difficulty really cranks up in its final missions.
    • The fight against the IA-02 ICE WORM is a breathtaking sequence. It's basically the best possible iteration of the Storm Ruler type boss recurrent in From Software games crossed over with a Big Badass Battle Sequence, as you must carefully aim the Stun Needle Launcher into the ICE WORM's face. This is already fun enough, but what makes the fight even better is the escalation provided as the ICE WORM pulls off more and more tricks out of its repertoire, from drones and eventually a Macross Missile Massacre. Making the mission all the more incredible is the memorable dialogue from V.IV Rusty, G1 Michigan and "Chatty" Stick. It's no wonder this boss is a fan-favourite!
    • Thumb Dolmayan is considered to be one of the best AC fights in the game. Fought only in NG++, he makes the most of his BASHO frame mecha, and as he zips to and fro around the buildings of the Xylem, and his surprisingly well-thought out weapon loadout hurts while being simultaneously treated to the voice actor Chewing the Scenery like bubblegum.
    • All of the three endings culminate in excellent boss fights.
      • "Fires of Raven" has you come face to face with a prototype, top of the line AC codenamed the ALBA, put together using tech stolen from Arquebus by several smaller corporations as well as the RLF. It's still a typical AC, but it's at peak performance, uses custom weapons you only access after beating the game, and is fought in a space that allows both combatants unlimited energy The mech's real designation though? STEEL HAZE ORTUS, piloted by Rusty. Not V.IV Rusty the muzzled dog, but Rusty the RLF wolf, bringing his fangs to bare against anyone who would burn Rubicon.
      • Ayre piloting the IB-07 SOL 644 caps the "Fires of Raven" route. Basically a NEXT from For Answer, this hulking, tanky mecha zips around at lightspeed around the battlefield, using a Coral blade to great effect, and packs enough artillery to bring down an entire nation (which it will use copiously). Things kick into high gear in its second phase, when it becomes even faster and ditches all defense for pure, unfiltered aggression, in a battle that's as difficult as is it exhilarating. The tragic nature of the boss, memorable dialogue and one of the best music tracks of the series backing it seals the deal.
      • Arquebus BALTEUS, piloted by V.II Snail It's just as formidable as you would expect, but with the experience and weaponry you've accrued, taking it down is nothing short of cathartic.
      • IB-C03 HAL 826, piloted by Walter ends the "Liberator of Rubicon" route. The deadliest AC in the game, its Coral-based weaponry can and will tear the player to shreds, aided by Walter's incredibly aggressive but skilled piloting. All of this while the Xylem reenters orbit and the light show of it disintegrating serves as the backdrop of the encounter.
      • ALLMIND, or more specifically, G5 Iguazu hijacking ALLMIND, the True Final Boss. First encountered in the MIND GAMMA AC, it starts off already with one of the best AC fights of the game. Then it sorties an upgraded version of the IB-07 SOL 644 aided by two SEA SPIDER mechs. The kicker, and what makes this fight so special, is that Ayre joins 621 with an EPHEMERA AC as a Battle Couple, and they're damn good at piloting too. And of course, ultimately it's down to just 621 and Iguazu as the latter's hate becomes essentially a cosmic force and turns up the Lightning Bruiser attack patterns to eleven as they ditch ranged weapons and just try to tear apart 621 with massive laser blades. Certainly a great way to stick the landing, and it's one of the most iconic moments of the game for a reason.
  • Best Level Ever:
    • "Destroy the Weaponized Mining Ship" is basically the Arms Fort missions from For Answer taken up a notch. Traversing the gargantuan EB-0309 STRIDER (which, again, is modeled to scale–so it is actually a continent-scale behemoth) is impressive as visual spectacle as much as it succesfully captured what made the Arms Fort missions great: that is, the thrill of systematically bringing down a colossal structure, only this time even larger.
    • "Breach the Kármán Line," the penultimate mission on the Fires of Raven route, which involves breaking through an entire interceptor fleet like the PCA ships first encountered in Chapter 3. The catch? You'll ride on the atmosphere's edge with unlimited energy. You'll be blitzing between ships like a Gundam protagonist who just got their Ace Custom while hearing the enemy panic over comms. Players familiar with For Answer may find it similar to playing on Regulation 1.15, being able to quick boost to their hearts content like they're back in a NEXT again. To cap all of that off, the mission then finishes with Rusty confronting you in his own upgraded AC for an epic duel.
  • Breather Boss:
    • The SMART CLEANER is a simple fight sandwiched tightly between BALTEUS and the SEA SPIDER. Very heavy durability outside it's small weak points aside, it can't really do much to you if you keep your distance from it, and its attacks have a heavy enough wind up that you should be able to avoid them easily enough. The only thing it really has going for it is that its active grinder hands really hurt, even if they just brush up against your AC, and that being close to it becomes more and more dangerous as the battle progresses; but once again at range it really can't do anything to you that you won't see coming a mile away.
    • The ICE WORM is also this compared to other chapter bosses, especially compared to BALTEUS and the CEL 240. It's relatively slow and cumbersome, making avoiding it pretty simple. It only has 3 attacks: Ramming into you (Which can be avoided easily by just keeping track of it), sending drones at you (Which are also relatively easy to dodge), and an area of effect Coral explosion, which has a huge wind-up and is obvious to see coming. You also have backup in the form of Chatty, Snail, and Iguazu, splitting the ICE WORM's attention amongst the 4 of you and making avoiding its attacks that much easier. The only real difficulty is due to Rusty's railgun having only 3 shots in it, meaning you have to take it down by then, otherwise, it's an automatic failure. This relative lack of difficulty, however, does little to diminish the sheer awesome factor of the fight.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: One of the most popular meta builds uses a tank-chassis AC armed with dual Songbirds and dual Gatling Guns. The tank chassis gives the AC plenty of health and armor to absorb damage while the dual Gatlings and Songbirds give almost unrivaled sustained and burst damage, respectively. An alternative build is swapping out the Gatlings for shotguns, to give the AC maximum burst damage.
  • Complete Monster: V.II Snail is the deputy commander of the Vespers and representative for the Arquebus Corporation on Rubicon 3. Condescending and disrespectful from the moment of introduction, Snail hires Raven to assist V.IV Rusty in Operation Wallclimber, only to order Rusty to abandon the mission in the hopes Raven dies so Arquebus can take all the credit. If V.VII Swinburne is allowed to live, Snail considers him a disgrace and sentences him to re-education, a process that involves brainwashing and severely mutilating the victim before stuffing them inside an AC to serve as obedient soldiers who are unable to resist attacking even their closest allies. Showing no regard for the lives of his own subordinates, Snail attempts to have Raven and Rusty kill each other and later uses V.VI Maeterlinck as Cannon Fodder against Raven and the defensive forces of Institute City, ignoring her cries for help. Should the player get a game over against Snail while pursuing the Liberator of Rubicon ending, he announces his intention to subject the entire population of Rubicon-3 to re-education.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The PCA's LIGHT CAVALRY units are tough Elite Mooks. The leader of a given squad can easily stagger you if you're not careful, and you will have to get in close and aggressive as they can sometimes dodge most attacks.
    • The autonomous grinder wheels — called HELIANTHUS machines — found in the underground city have been called the return of the infamous Bonewheel Skeletons from Dark Souls, for good reason. They move fast, making aiming difficult, their charge attacks deal a lot of damage and can stagger you very quickly, and they have a flamethrower. The worst part is that they come in groups, and one particular group guards a part container containing the MOONLIGHT Light Wave Blade. They also all have Combat Logs, so destroying them all is necessary for 100% Completion.
    • The WEEVIL C-Weapon Drones, which you won't face properly until NG++, are a nightmare. Not only are they resistant to kinetic weaponry, they are also fast, faster than most ACs even, which can make hitting them a pain. They also have a unique kick move they can do mid-dash, and it will stagger. They also always come in pairs, so you can't just focus on a single one at a time without risking getting staggered by the other one.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Some have interpreted V.VIII Pater's behavior as not sociopathy, but due to Multiple Personality Disorder. The fact his AC is named DUAL NATURE adds some precedence to that interpretation, but it's otherwise unconfirmed.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • The Overseer faction has gathered a non-insignificant following due to their Anti-Villain status. While the root origin of their goals is sympathetic, they are nevertheless actively attempting to cause a repeat of an extraplanetary calamity that nearly devastated humanity before and which the player knows will constitute an act of genocide against a sentient species that harbors no desire to harm them. Rationalizations vary, both from person-to-person and in comparing Western views on the matter to Japan's, but common trends include a sense of familial duty for 621 to carry out Walter's wishes despite personal reservations, a view that the existence of Coral will continue to bring out the worst in humanity and only ever be used for weapons, and the harsh wording that the first mission taken in opposition of them specifies you will be killing "Cinder" Carla... who just one stage before had rescued you from Arquebus.
    • Balam and the Redguns have their following too, largely because of the popularity of G1 Michigan. Many players have expressed a desire for a story route in which 621 sides with Balam over Arquebus just because of how likable Michigan is, while glossing over the fact that Balam is just as much of a cutthroat corporation as Arquebus is and that their goal to monopolize the Coral would put them at odds with Walter/RLF and force a confrontation with them anyway.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • V.I Freud appears for all of one mission in one route, and that's all he needed to make an impression. His psychotic spin on the Blood Knight and his voice actor's enthusiastic and memorable performance instantly endeared him to the fanbase.
    • The Dafeng student pilot, owing to Johnny Yong Bosch's performance and copious amounts of Memetic Mutation as a money grind mission. The audible enthusiasm he puts into the fight and overall status as The Woobie gained him a lot of fans.
    • "Invincible" Rummy is an absolutely terrible fighter and overall of no importance to the plot but his Large Ham demeanour, delusional belief in his own prowess and general status as a walking fountain of Funny Moments make him one of the highlights of the early-to-mid game.
    • "Chatty" Stick is one of the game's most beloved side characters for his endearing loyalty to Carla, his polite if laconic demeanour and most of all his very high level of competence on display. The fact that he dies in all three endings in front of you is considering one of the game's hardest hitting gut punches.
    • "Honest" Brute is beloved by the Japanese fandom due to the spectacular performance of his voice actor Hiroki Yasumoto, with practically all of his lines becoming a Memetic Mutation. When any streamer reaches the mission where you encounter Brute you can expect that live chat to be absolutely flooded with his many iconic lines.
    • Osawa, Kennebec, and Albany are quite beloved by the fanbase due to their memorable banter with G1 Michigan and down-to-earth attitude, and are considered a highlight of chapter four even though their role amounts to Cannon Fodder for 621 on the way to killing Michigan.
  • Epileptic Trees:
    • The third ending, Alea Iacta Est, appears to be the game's Golden Ending... until Ayre utters her very last line in the game: "Main System. Activating Combat Mode". While some continue to consider it a hopeful and uplifting ending, others take this line as a sign that mankind's Forever War will continue after all, and possibly even more brutal than before now that everyone has the power of Coral symbiotes at their proverbial fingertips. Naturally, there's no official word on which explanation is the intended one.
    • Some fans are under the impression that Rusty may actually be C4-617 from the story trailer. Rusty somehow figured out that you were working under Walter within a few seconds of meeting you. His emblem is of a wolf, which stands out from the rest of the Vespers. All of the Vesper's names are references to artists or philosophers, and fans have found that the artist Leon Kelly has a painting named Rusty, Number 617. Also, 617 is noted as "Down" in the story trailer while 618-620 are noted with "Vital Signs Lost." However, this theory ignores some key details: Walter doesn't seem to think there were any survivors from his old team (Carla: "What happened to 617 and the rest?", Walter: "Their jobs. They did what it took to get us here."), Rusty's bio states he's been a member of Arquebus and the Vespers for some time, and it's strongly hinted elsewhere in the game that Rusty is a Rubicon Liberation Front sleeper agent who infiltrated Arquebus to stymie their efforts to exploit Rubicon 3.
  • Fanon: VI continues the series tradition of only communicating with characters with intercoms and never showing their faces (not counting some sketches you find in the game). However, fans have made various interpretations of what the characters would look like:
    • Raven is often depicted as a Bandage Mummy as a result of the many augmentations they had, often leaving little more than their eyes visible. Other depictions tend to depict them as having bleached-white hair and glowing red eyes as a result of their augmentations, sometimes with Volcanic Veins and/or severe scarring.
    • Handler Walter is often seen as either a middle-aged or old man, thanks to his aged voice and the fact that he was a child when the Fires of Ibis happened.
    • Ayre is often seen as a white-haired young woman in red and white thanks to her icon being a red sound wave. A good chunk of fanart also depicts her as being rather tall, often taller than Raven.
    • Rusty is often depicted as a ruggedly handsome man with either blonde (tying into his friendly interactions with Raven) or brunette hair, sometimes looking like a more rugged version of Lockon Stratos. And that's to say nothing of the surprisingly popular decision to portray him as a woman with Boyish Short Hair.
    • Snail is almost always portrayed with slicked-back hair and glasses. Some fans even joke that "his voice sounded with a pair of glasses".
    • Michigan tends to be depicted as large-framed and muscular with Perma-Stubble or Manly Facial Hair.
    • Most fanart of "Cinder" Carla depicts her wearing glasses, reflecting her background as a researcher for the Institute prior to the Fires of Ibis. It's also common to depict her as black or at least swarthy, owing to her VA Shara Kirby being black herself.
    • Iguazu is often drawn with Delinquent Hair, tying into his rebellious attitude and bad-tempered personality. That, or as an iguana, due to his Fan Nickname.
    • ALLMIND is depicted as an office woman with green and black as her color scheme with her hair in a bob, despite being an AI.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • The Elcano EL-TL-11 Fortaleza tank treads, partly thanks to its design origins and notoriety, is sometimes known as the "Wheelchair".
    • For anyone familiar with Gundam, the VCPL Vvc-700LD Laser Drones are nicknamed Funnels. The Sazabi and Aerial are popular cosplay builds to use these weapons with.
    • The final boss of chapter 4, IB-01: CEL 240, got nicknamed "Robolenia" after a Malenia from Elden Ring, mainly due to both being Fragile Speedsters and also incredibly notorious bosses for one reason or another. Gundam fans will just call it Qubeley thanks to its oversized shoulders and drone-oriented fighting style.
    • The AH12 HC Helicopter tutorial boss has developed quite a reputation thanks to it's difficulty and slew of angry posts lambasting it's difficulty - therefore gaining the nickname "Filterchopper" or "Filtercopter". Japanese players, meanwhile, have taken to calling it "Rubicopter-sensei" for the same reason.
    • Some people have taken to calling G5 Iguazu "Iguana" due to autocorrect changing his name to the latter. It has mostly stuck as a derisive nickname.
    • "Brainwife/Brainwaifu" for Ayre, as wordplays of "brainwave" and "wife/waifu" due to Ayre's nature as Coral wave mutation who's Invisible to Normals except 621.
    • The Pulse Blade is sometimes jokingly referred as "Butt Blade" due to its registration code being HI-32: BU-TT/A.
    • Some refer to hitting someone/getting hit with the Pile Bunker as the "Rubiconian Handshake".
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Zimmerman shotguns were hilariously brutal against normal enemies and even AC bosses. While all shotguns are fairly dangerous, Zimmermans had all of that, but also functioned well even at medium-range thanks to having both high damage and high stagger build-up. Its damage and direct hit adjustment were eventually nerfed and brought in line with other weapons while still retaining its other advantage of having an above-average ideal range, but once the 1.06.1 patch dropped they went back into this as the patch buffed most of the kinetic weapons.
    • The Hu-Ben Gatling guns are extremely effective weapons thanks to their very high DPS and the fact that their high rate of fire builds up the stagger meter rapidly. In addition, unlike shotguns and the Songbird, Gatling guns can easily engage fast-moving enemies or swarms of weaker fodder at short to medium ranges. This means they are very effective all-round weapons, allowing players to mow through regular Mooks while at the same time retaining high utility against bosses. Gatlings are also commonly paired with Songbirds, with players using them to stagger enemies quickly, so it's easier to hit them with the Songbirds.
    • The Stun Needle Launcher, despite seemingly being a gimmick weapon, still retains surprising utility; it does obscene damage and stagger, can build up Electric status, utterly obliterates health bars on staggered foes, and has the handy benefit of having its slow wind-up fake out the AI a lot of the time to take the hit. Using tank legs means they can also be used on the go, alternating shots repeatedly and obliterating most foes in your path. Because it's a mission-related weapon, one is given for free, so you always have one powerful shoulder weapon for the rest of your playthrough, no matter how much you're budgeting.
    • The Songbirds shoulder-mounted grenade launcher is a double-shot artillery piece, releasing powerful shots with a large damage radius. By itself, it's deadly; with a heavy build supporting two of them, they can stagger just about anything when fired together, or at least do enough stagger damage that you can pop off the last with your normal weapons. Combine that with taking to the air and shooting at the ground for more evasive opponents to catch them in the radius and it's not uncommon to see dual Zimmerman shotgun paired with dual Songbirds to bomb and mop up anything but the most absolute fastest foes. Its damage was nerfed in the 1.031 patch while the Earshot received a reload speed buff to bring it further in line.
    • The Trueno needle missile launchers, received by fighting the STEEL HAZE ORTUS analysis in a third playthrough, are a pure physical force projectile that hit harder than Songbirds with their needle shots on staggered enemies, while having the range of the Stun Needle Launcher and reloading faster than both weapons. This is on top of being lighter and having enough ammo to last most missions.
    • The Electric Discharge status effect. Tied to a few weapons, when the effect procs, opponents explode in a huge area of effect electric blast, dealing excellent damage. This status is a monster in duels, as it's unavoidable when it happens. The 1.031 patch indirectly nerfed it with all of the head pieces receiving buffs to system recovery, affecting how quickly an AC recovers from such status effects, while still retaining its main advantage of taking out a significant chunk of health from the opponent.
    • As demonstrated in videos like this one, the one-two punch of Laser Lance and Pile Bunker is an absolutely brutal boss killer, able to empty even the hardest bosses' health bar in two to three hits. Pack some mook repellent as your right-side weapons, practice your evasion routines for a bit in the simulator, and you can steamroll almost the entire game with little difficulty.
    • WS-5001 SOUP. It fires a salvo of ten missiles per shot. Being basically a portable Macross Missile Massacre already makes it a strong candidate for this status, but the implementation of it really shines. Unlike basically every other shoulder weapon, the SOUPs have a magazine system with a surprisingly quick firing rate; that means that the player can fire up to sixty missiles at the target in short succession, on top of obscene damage, reload time shorter than one would think and tracking that is far more effective than the low Guidance stat would imply. The main disadvantage is its relatively high weight.
    • WR-0999 DELIVERY BOY. While it suffers from slow reload times, high weight and low stock of ammo, the concept and execution of it is just incredible. Basically, it shoots a slow moving missile that periodically carpet bombs the target on its way for obscene damage, before the missile itself exploding in a blast of such power and impact it would make Edward Teller blush. The cherry on top is that the flavour text and weapon designation (WR-0999, R for Rummy) imply that "Invincible" Rummy dreamt this up in a Coral-fuelled haze.
    • WB-0010 DOUBLE TROUBLE, after patch 1.06.1, makes everything on the other end of it a complete joke. It's a chainsaw with a slow two hit combo, but what truly makes it break into this territory is its charge attack. Basically, it can be charged indefinitely, dealing contact damage along the way, and then it hits a 7-hit combo for absurd damage on opponents on release, especially ACS overloaded opponents. While it has its downsides, like high weight and EN consumption, it's basically the best thing available for stance breaker builds; it's like the Pile Driver with a powerful forward thrust.
  • High-Tier Scrappy:
    • The tank legs benefit the most from the reworked mechanics. The new stagger mechanic is very powerful, and tank legs tend to allow for stagger-reliant builds more easily, and also have high stagger resistance as well. The removal of aiming being tied to the camera eliminates the weakness of their turn speed. Lastly, this game has much closer engagement ranges than previous titles, meaning tanks benefit from being close-quarters specialists. They also have fast ground speed and can fire heavy weapons while moving. Though they do have their own unique weaknesses, mainly in lack of air mobility, the sheer amount of damage they can dish out while still trucking on is a sight to behold, so the best way to counter them is to obtain AP advantage by hurting them and simply staying away as far as possible from them and wait until time runs out, which is easy to do if drones or missiles are equipped.
    • Dual shotguns, specifically dual Zimmermans, are one of the most commonly seen weapons in multiplayer due to their extremely high staggering power and pretty high power with a semi-decent range. Combined with dual Songbirds or dual Stun Needles, and you can chunk a decently armored AC for about half their health in a single volley, some even combine then with another pair of shotguns to capitalize on damage and the 2 second reload time the Zimmermans have, because of this builds tend to have a shield equipped to parry the hits they do without building that much stagger.
    • The "Rat" builds consisting of equipping as many missiles as possible on a lightweight build are a nightmare to deal with, they will depend entirely on the missiles to deal damage while they're as far as possible from their opponent, while pursuit with assault boost can be a way to counter them most of them will have equipped the HMMR alongside the use of the Basho Arms frame which maximizes the damage melee weapons can do, without affecting hand missiles as they aren't affected by the fire arm specialization stat to punish in case they get too close, paired with the Lammergeier tetrapod legs and hitting them will be almost impossible, which lead to the Lammergeier tetrapod legs receiving a nerf in speed and weight capacity, alongside to the HMMR being nerfed in damage in hopes of making it more easier to reach and attack.
    • Builds that use Dual Etsujin like "Evil Statue" are a nightmare, as not only these are able to build up stagger quick, but also are both fast and able to tank a lot as the evil statue involves the use of lightweight parts by the exception of the torso (which is normally either a heavyweight part or the Basho core part provided the weight capacity can afford it) the result is a weird looking but really fast build able to reach kites and tank enough damage while causing stagger long enough to see their enemy's AP be reduced to 0.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A picture circulating the Internet where Karl Urban and Viggo Mortensen are carrying numerous Mobile Suit In Action (MSIA) Action Figures only becomes more awesome after the former ends up in the live-action trailer of a giant robot video game.
  • The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: The game's story is rather bleak, with the planet the game takes place on almost completely barren and in ruins thanks to a catastrophe years ago and the various characters you meet being rather awful people (with a few exceptions). The fandom, however, often ignores this, with things like shitposts about the corporations, cutesy fanart of 621 being shipped with various characters (most popularly Ayre, Rusty and Iguazu) and a whole bunch of comedic interpretations of the dynamic between 621 and Handler Walter.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: It's not uncommon to see 621/Raven being shipped with almost everyone. Aside from Ayre and Rusty (either individually or as a One True Threesome), there are people shipping 621 with Handler Walter, Iguazu, Freud, Michigan, Maeterlinck, Carla, Chatty, Snail...
  • Love to Hate:
    • G5 Iguazu has ended up on the receiving end of this due to how strong his hatred is of you, to the point that he ends up becoming the final boss of the Golden Ending just so he can kill you.
    • V.II Snail gets a similar reception due to the sheer amount of contempt he holds for you and his Smug Snake tendencies, while also being a genuinely deadly opponent. He's seen as a very entertaining villain, making it ultimately satisfying when he's finally killed in the "Liberator of Rubicon" ending.
  • Low-Tier Letdown: Rifles and Machine Guns are very lackluster. Compared to other guns, these weapons are low damage, not great on stagger impact accumulation, too slow per projectile to hit the faster enemies, and often have to reload too early due to low magazine capacity. Compounding the issue is that every other weapon type either does their job better, or does something unique enough to warrant bringing instead. Handguns deal very high stagger with good accuracy at the cost of low ammo pools, Shotguns and Gatling Guns deal extremely efficient damage, and energy weapons typically hit harder across the board and deal with Overheat rather than reloading, among just a few examples. This leaves Rifles and Machine Guns with no niches to fill that other weapon types can't do, leading to them being incredibly underwhelming to use. Fortunately, the Balance Buff during the first patch somewhat mitigated this, making at least some of them actually worth using; patch 1.06.1 even propelled some rifles like the SCUDDER and the RANSETSU-RF to top tier.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • The one born even before the game officially released: "The Fireworks of Shibuya" was chosen to play "Heavy Missile Launch Support" mission during a pre-release live event, and was given 1 minute to assemble his AC to play the mission which he got minimal information aboutNote. He then proceeded to assemble his AC in time, effortlessly finished the mission in one go, ending it with punching through the carrier's bridge to destroy it. He was given this nickname minutes after the livestream, and was treated as the equivalent to Amuro Ray among the fandom.
    • "Invincible" Rummy has gotten a bit of a reputation as one in the fanbase. There are quite a few jokes about him having survived his encounter with 621 and secretly being the strongest pilot on Rubicon.
    • 621 themselves is quite competent, but the fandom often humorously portrays them as an unstoppable force of nature of catastrophic magnitude.
  • Memetic Loser:
    • In spite, or perhaps because of being the True Final Boss, there are more than a few jokes and memes lampooning ALLMIND as being one. Highlights of the game that help reinforce this interpretation include: two separate weapons erroneously being listed as having the same weapon ID, being upstaged by a Jobber who hijacks the final battle, providing a pie-chart that closer examination has percentage values that don't add up to 100%, and most tellingly uses the implied fake identity of Kate Markson to flirt with you and subsequently praises the offscreen exploits of. The fact that their plan is entirely reliant on you agreeing to help them clinches matters.
    • The Dafeng Student Pilot gets this every now and then. While he does have a lot of people sympathizing for him, there are just as many who freely admit to using him as a test dummy for their AC builds and/or as a way to make money fast.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Handler Walter's name's being shared with Walter White has not gone unnoticed by the fandom - doubly so with the statements about Coral being a drug in the pre-release material.
    • One of the infamous Handler Walter's hounds Explanation
    • "You gotta take Rubicon's blessings raw…" Explanation
    • Filtered by the helicopter Explanation
    • "Guess you just can't beat the Institute..." Explanation
    • "Got a job for you, 621..." Explanation
    • "...Raven." Explanation
    • "I just... I just wanted a callsign of my own." Explanation
    • Many jokes have been made about the player character being named "621", as these are the same digits as popular furry site e621 (which is infamous for its prevalence of NSFW furry artwork). Multiple user-created in-game decals exist referencing it, including the site's logo and a pin-up version of their mascot.
    • The lady in my head that calls me studmuffin. Explanation
    • All Don't Mind or FAILMINDExplanation(spoilers)
    • Transgender Iguazu.Explanation(spoilers)
  • Moe: Ayre is neither a pilot, a corporate liaison, nor an operator (even if she acts as one ad hoc), and thus constitutes as one of the few true civilian characters in the series not involved in the warfare. Her idealistic nature contrasts greatly with every other character in the story. She gets a few Ship Tease moments with 621, such as remarking how missile battery explosions look like fireworks with awe. There's also a mission that's essentially an excuse for her to want to spend time with them without Walter, a sentiment she unsubtly expresses first when surveying the Floating City, but feeling bad she has no way of compensating them. Occasionally, she'll try to lighten the mood, such as impersonating ALLMIND. She even expresses genuine excitement when she tries testing a theory to pilot a Coral AC for the first time through the Integration Program files in the "Alea Iacta Est" route. Little surprise, then, how it affected fan-artists' depiction of her as a cute, youthful girl.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • Destroying V.II Snail's ARQUEBUS BALTEUS during the "Liberator of Rubicon" path. After dealing with Snail's insufferable narcissism for the entire game and witnessing the atrocities he commits, bringing his machine down and hearing him die screaming makes for an extremely cathartic end to his boss fight.
    • V.IV Rusty's voice (courtesy of Yasuyuki Kase in Japanese and Chris Hackney in English) has been unanimously praised by fans for how soothing it sounds, helping his status as the Token Good Teammate of the Vespers. His dialogue in the ICE WORM mission in particular gets a lot of love.
  • Nightmare Fuel: See here.
  • Nintendo Hard: While VI largely streamlines some of more frustrating series-wide mechanics such as the debt system and adding replayability, the game significantly ups the difficulty of missions with challenging, dynamic boss fights. In FromSoftware tradition, the boss fights are easily the biggest threats in the entire game, and will leave you a pile of scrap in record time if you aren't on your A-game and/or packing an AC build that readily counters their patterns and output.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • The Reveal that Coral is a sentient alien lifeform has many people believe that this is the first time the Armored Core series features extraterrestrials. Except aliens have existed in the series has far back as Armored Core 2. Granted, the aliens in that game were extinct, so Coral being alive marks the first time that intelligent nonhuman lifeforms have appeared onscreen in the series, not to mention being a major focal point of the plot.
    • Due to the existence of highly effective builds, some players have complained that the game is too easy since said meta builds can destroy bosses rather quickly and suck the fun out of the game. However, Armored Core itself is no stranger to game-breaking weapons, such as rockets and grenade launchers in For Answer and the RF-220 assault rifle in 3 (the latter being an egregious example since it's one of the starting weapons).
    • Both series veterans and newcomers tend to exaggerate the unprecedented nature of VI's anti-frustration features, making the older games sound a lot more unforgiving than they were:
      • Every game between the original and Armored Core: Silent Line would refill the player's health and ammo on the second part of multi-part missions.
      • Every installment between Armored Core 2 and Silent Line has one or more Marathon Level that lets players refill their health and ammo from a supply truck.
      • The story missions in Armored Core V let players call down a supply chopper at designated locations to refill their ammo and health and change their build. While this is not free, it could be done multiple times per mission.
      • The debt system has been de-emphasized for a long time: Armored Core: Nexus introduced extremely generous advance payments that made unsuccessful sorties still profitable, as well as several "testing" missions that automatically refunded the player's repair and ammo expanses, and the games from Armored Core 4-onward would offer players to replay a mission if they lost money on it.
    • Some fans were afraid that Fires of Rubicon would take too many elements from the Fromsoft's Souls games and lose its unique identity. While this game does have more of these elements than previous entries, Armored Core had hard-but-fair difficulty, Story Breadcrumbs world-building, and extensive Character Customization long before the Souls series. Even some of the new elements like the Break Meter have less-polished antecedents in the heat system from Armored Core 2 through Armored Core: Last Raven, Last Raven's own Subsystem Damage, and Primal Armor in Armored Core 4 and Armored Core: For Answer, which all serve similar purposes in allowing sustained damage to keep up with heavy hitters and preventing Padded Sumo Gameplay.
  • Player Punch:
    • "Chatty" Stick's death occurs in front of you in all three endings and you cannot save him no matter what happens. Made even worse because he dies by your own doing in two of those routes.
    • Having to fight V.IV Rusty, one of the kindest and friendliest characters in the game, at the end of "Breach the Kármán Line". Especially painful because Rusty clearly resents having to put an end to 621, and only expresses his admiration when 621 defeats him.
    • For similar reasons, fighting Ayre in the IB-07: SOL 644 at the end of the Fires of Raven route, is universally acclaimed as one of the game's hardest hitting and most effective gut punches. Even those who doubt the motivations of Ayre and the Coral admit that the fight is an incredibly somber moment.
    • Similarly, Walter dies in Liberator of Rubicon ending and is defeated in the Alea Iacta Est ending (we don't get to see if he managed to punch out or not, but it's unlikely he did). In his ending, he holds up his end of the bargain and gives you your freedom, implying he paid to fix your body and mind as well. Given that he grows to care for 621, putting him out his misery in the former ending and being unable to prevent his (highly probable) death in the latter isn't fun. Given that his plan works flawlessly in his own ending, he ends up being The Extremist Was Right.
  • Polished Port: The PC port runs like a dream and supports 120 FPS as well as ultrawide resolution, and its hardware requirements are actually quite generously low to boot.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Going along with the aforementioned Draco in Leather Pants entry, Ayre and the rest of the Coral have been frequently hit with this by proponents of the Fires of Raven ending due to their being the explicit target of the Overseer faction. Thus it is fast becoming common to see proponents of this path to declare the Liberator of Rubicon ending as the "No Plan Ending" during streams of the game, or otherwise depict the Coral and Ayre as having sinister motives and actively manipulating individuals throughout the story notably in spite of the existence of ALLMIND, who is manipulating humanity and coral both throughout the story, something OVERSEER isn't even aware of outside Alea Iacta Est..
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • While customization of mechs and decals are beloved and the system for creating them is robust, the system sharing them is anything but and widely derided.
      • From the word go, mech designs and decals are not cross platform. So if the mech design or decal you find is not on your particular platform, you're out of luck.
      • That is, if you can find a design, as there's no official gallery or search system. You have to already know the design's sharing code.
      • Which leads to the fact that players then need to enter a 12-character code which, on a console in particular, can be annoying. And if an error is made entering, there's no changing it. You need to start from scratch and can't just change one or typos.
      • Lastly, downloaded designs are not accessible in offline mode. There are workarounds to this, but the "Downloaded" tab simply doesn't exist when playing offline thus needlessly complicating access to downloaded designs when offline.
    • Ricochet, which is what happens when your weapon fires from outside its intended range and impacts a target for negligible Scratch Damage. Makes sense for shotgun pellets or machinegun rounds at too far a range, but you'll find that this happens with way too many weapons if you're not in moderate (and enemy-retaliatory) ranges, even if you use the Manual Aim option to attempt sniping. It also only accentuates the Game-Breaker weapon types being highly abusable at close-ranges and makes less effective types even less desirable to use. This even ties into That One Level: without a long-range build you can't actually create at that point, "Eliminate V.VII" becomes a pain because you can't actually shoot enemies without being in visual detection range, rendering it necessary to shoot enemies with their backs turned or else be forced to rush the kill before they trigger the alarm.
    • Much like earlier games in the series, the lock-on prioritizes enemies closer to you than anything else, even if they're not centered on your screen— and without trying to flick a Target Assist hard lock between targets, it will stay there until the target is fully dead or outside of the aiming radius. This will lead to cases where you want to aim at a target only for the lock to aim for a weaker or less threatening foe close by, with no way to really fix the problem. And like above, this only accentuates That One Level since a specific enemy holding a Combat Log is surrounded by MT scouts, where it's entirely possible to be spotted and not be able to even target who's alerting the level because of this.
    • Scanning counts as this because it simply does not work like how it looks visually. While depicting itself like a 360 degree pulse, scanning actually works in a tight cone in front of your AC. This makes it effectively useless for any of its potential purposes, including hunting for chests or scanning enemies in obscured conditions.
  • Self-Fanservice:
    • Despite the game continuing the Armored Core tradition of never showing people directly on-screen (though this time they provided rough images for some characters via collectable in-game documents), fan artists quickly came up with their own designs for major characters, usually as incredibly attractive men and women. This includes Ayre (who is nothing more than a disembodied brainwave pattern inside C4-621), ALLMIND (who is explicitly an AI with no physical body until NG++), and 621 themselves, who is rather heavily implied to be more machine than human by the time the game starts. Ayre tends to be depicted as a Mystical White Hair Mysterious Waif with red eyes and ALLMIND as a Sexy Secretary. Depictions of 621 vary, with most depictions tending to place them in a Future Spandex suit that leaves little to the to the imagination.
    • And fans from Japan went way further than that. Ever since a Japanese X user created a mascot of Arquebus called Arqueboy, which only based on their logo and didn't appear in the game wheresoever, it sparked a whole BIG lot of fanart creations, such as another mascot for Balam Industries known as Baltaro (followed with both either fighting, hanging out, or even shown as lovers), then a character representing Dafeng, and mascots for other lesser corporates. Here's a list on Pixiv rounding up fanart categories over AC6.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: While the mission briefing overtly tells you to use the Stun Needle the game gives you to fight the Ice Worm, there is nothing stopping you from leaving it in your garage and draining its shield through other means. There's even unique dialogue that plays in the mission if you choose to do so.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: Outside of the boss fights, Armored Core VI is generally a lot more accessible than previous installments. For starters, the amount of part types has been reduced to just Head, Body, Arms, Legs, Generator, FCS, and Booster (with an optional Expansion part if you choose one in AC Tune up). Beyond that, missions no longer have to be completed in a single attempt, with longer missions having checkpoints you can reload from. Certain missions also have refill stations to refill your health, repair kits, and ammo (where refill opportunies in the previous games were few and far in-between). Beyond that, if you die, you are able to change out any part on your AC to create a new loadout to retry with. And dying on a mission does not affect your final payout in any way.
  • Signature Scene:
    • The ICE WORM mission became one of the most-talked about sequences in the game among the player base shortly after its release, partly due to the inherent thrill of fighting a vast mechanical monstrosity against the backdrop of a heavy snowstorm, and partly due to Rusty's memorable dialogue during the mission.
    • The final mission of the second NG+ playthrough, "Coral Release". Both the fight against G5 Iguazu and subsequent Golden Ending cutscene are heavily iconic in the fanbase, the former for his sheer hater energy and the latter due to the incredible Mind Screw nature of it.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: At least in terms of story telling, VI is a vast improvement compared to V. The lack of storytelling depth was a common and major critique of the fifth generation games, opting instead to focus on a conquest-style Player Versus Player setup that ultimately didn't catch on. While Verdict Day proved to have much better storytelling, it still had an altogether too short campaign that left its plot rather underbaked and underexplored, even if some characters like J or Maggy Curtis remain popular in the fandom. VI greatly ups the ante in storytelling not only compared to fifth gen, but compared to the entire series; characters have in-depth personalities to an extent never before seen in the series, and the abundance of interesting and compelling characters is unlike anything ever seen in an Armored Core game. Needless to say, while some old-gen characters like Nine-Ball and White Glint remain as popular as ever, the new cast of characters has proved to be massively popular and led to a major Newbie Boom.
  • Tainted by the Preview:
    • The initial gameplay footage pretty much caused the Western fanbase to explode in civil war. While it was assumed there would be some Soulsborne influence, most didn't expect features like a hard camera lock, mid-mission adjustments to armored cores, or any equivalent to the Estus flask. All of these changes led to an extremely vocal minority proclaiming that the game was a lost cause that had forsaken everything the franchise stood for, which persisted and drove most internet discourse for several days. Eventually, however, cooler heads prevailed and the discussion around the game settled down. It should be noted that the Japanese fanbase — the series' primary audience — was completely exempt from this phenomenon. They were more excited that a new game was coming out in their beloved series made by the same developers than whatever concerns they had about gameplay changes.
    • Another sentiment that emerged was a disdain for Namco's lackluster marketing. By early July, Namco had released a grand total of just 4 videos for the game on their youtube channel: the initial reveal trailer, a gameplay trailer, the above gameplay footage*, and... a short video of content creators giving their initial thoughts on that same footage after a private screening*. Considering this is radio silence by internet standards, many fans were worried that Namco was leaving Fires of Rubicon out to drown or expecting it to get by on FromSoft's reputation. Much of this concern was alleviated in the month to follow, marketing for the game saw a major increase and generally caused anticipation for the game to skyrocket.
  • That One Achievement: "The Perfect Mercenary" requires an S Rank on all missions. Not only does it mean that missions must be done fast, with little spent on repair and ammunition, but the mission cannot be restarted at a checkpoint. This is especially brutal for missions with That One Boss like "Reach the Coral Convergence".
  • That One Attack: The ARQUEBUS BALTEUS' plasma attack is nigh-impossible to dodge and deals heavy damage. Long-lasting and capable of covering the entire area, the boss is also very mobile while unleashing the attack, and in some cases, the boss performs physics-defying maneuvers to hit the player or continue the attack even after being staggered. This means that using lightweight builds to dodge the laser sometimes isn't worth it, as the attack will hit anyway.
  • That One Boss:
    • The AH12 HC Helicopter in the tutorial level. As an Early-Bird Boss, you only have the stock AC with basic weapons, and the AH12 is far tougher and faster than anything you've encountered yet. Also, its copious amount of heavy machine guns and missiles can easily wreck our AC if you're not on point with your dodges. You'll have to leverage every skill the tutorial has taught you to overcome this boss.
    • The AAP07 BALTEUS is the final boss of Chapter 1, and it pulls zero punches. Armed to the teeth, its true difficulty lies in its pulse shield, meaning it can't take damage until it's disabled, at which point the player has a short window until it returns. Between the heavy enemy firepower and the limited damage opportunities, many players consider Balteus the casual filter, ensuring people who can get past him understand the game's mechanics and how to build an AC properly.
    • The SEA SPIDER at the end of Chapter 2 is its sort of wall to overcome; between its mix of fast laser attacks that can hit and stagger a player rapidly and take most of your armor in a single shot, its clawed melee slam attack that is very hard to dodge unless you're over or go under it, and a second phase that utterly swamps the arena with high-damage attacks. Combine this with the sheer amount of punishment it can take, more than even BALTEUS, and the fight stands as a test of whether you have weapons with enough ammo to last and you can figure out the boss's attack habits and timings. Two of these things also show up in the final boss battle of the "Alea Iacta Est" route, but thankfully they don't necessarily need to be fought, and 621 can focus on the main body instead.
    • The Chapter 4 Boss, the IB-01 CEL 240, is a brutal Lightning Bruiser to the extreme, and all its attacks are a One-Hit Kill if you take the brunt of it. It also has a Turns Red second phase after you deplete its initial health bar. Comparisons to Malenia from Elden Ring are frequent.
    • While not as bad as the full-on boss examples listed above, Rokumonsen and SHINOBI from the mission Eliminate V.VII has been known to frustrate players due to the way the mission is set up. First, to even get the chance to fight Rokumonsen, you have to fight Swinburne who has two repair kits and you must get him down to low AP without killing him so he surrenders. Sparing him will cause Rokumonsen to go after you. Even if Swinburne's relatively easy, Rokumonsen still has full three repair kits, and has the pulse armor expansion to reset his stagger gauge which can make it difficult to phase-skip by depleting his AP before he can repair. And if you lose to him? There's no checkpoint after you accept Swinburne's surrender, so you have to fight Swinburne all over again.
  • That One Level:
    • "Eliminate V.VII" in Chapter 3 is rife with frustration. The MT units hinder reaching the assassination target, as they're equipped with capture cameras, and you cannot be spotted. If they do spot you, you'll have a few seconds to either get out of sight or destroy them. This is mostly an issue for MTs in groups, meaning if one spots you, so will the others. Packing a Sniper Rifle equivalent and skirting around the left edge of the map lets you avoid most of the MTs if you want to get to the target, but there's a tetrapod carrying a silver combat log AND a wreck with a data log smack-dab in the middle of an open area patrolled by four camera MTs. Getting both logs without being spotted is frustrating since reacting a split second too late, or your gun simply missing an MT due to random spread, means you have to start over from the beginning. And if you do manage to get both logs, you still have a fight with Swinburne and potentially Rokumonsen if you choose to accept Swinburne's deal ahead of you, and no checkpoint to fall back on.
    • "Eliminate the Enforcement Squads" in Chapter 3. Played normally, the mission is already a stiff challenge: you've got a bunch of Planetary Closure Administration MTs with rockets, then a duo of evasive LIGHT CAVALRY mechs, and then several more MTs before you get to the beefy HEAVY CAVALRY mech that serves as the boss. The HEAVY CAVALRY has a unique laser rifle with a punishing charged shot, and you confront it in a cramped room that works to the enemy's advantage by hampering your ability to dodge its laser and missiles. But this mission can become downright frustrating when you set out to collect all of its combat logs. One combat log is tied to Ring Freddie, an optional boss-strength enemy hiding in the opposite end of the surprisingly large map, and his loadout can hit like a brick. Did you take too many hits from the optional boss and burn through one or more of your three precious Repair Kits? Too bad, there's no checkpoint or supply drop anywhere in this mission, and you still have to get past the LIGHT CAVALRY and the HEAVY CAVALRY to finish it if you want to keep the combat log. In other words, going after a single combat log for the sake of completion effectively doubles the overall length and difficulty of this mission, and you'll likely be repeating it multiple times because of that. note 
    • "Intercept the Redguns" in Chapter 4. You have to kill Michigan, but there are so many enemies that the lock-on has a hard time locking on to Michigan. To make things worse, there's no checkpoint, so you have to kill everyone in one go. You will run out of ammunition very quickly in this level.
    • "Escape" from Chapter 5 is similar to "Eliminate V.VII" in that you must stealth your way through the map. Unlike the latter mission, getting spotted doesn't automatically fail you. On the other hand, "Escape" sees you forced to use what is explicitly stated to be a piece of junk AC. Not only is its Attitude incredibly poor and likely to go down fairly easily, but your only reliable weapon is your shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. The other source of frustration is the sheer number of enemies on the map, some of which can reduce your health in seconds. Fortunately, you will have backup toward the end, and you only have to kill a few enemies, but you'd best pray your energy output doesn't go out while your boosting in the air lest you land in a pack of MTs. The only saving grace about this mission besides having backup is that you don't have to go out of your way to score a combat log.
    • "Escort the Weaponized Mining Ship" from your second New Game Plus playthrough is seemingly an escort mission. Then the STRIDER is destroyed as soon as the mission starts, and you're beset by two waves each of deadly WEEVIL drones and HELIANTHUS machines. Fighting these enemies were a pain already, but two waves of them mean that most builds are unsuitable for the mission.
    • "Coral Export Denial" in the second New Game Plus playthrough requires you to be fast. The mission of shooting down weak helicopters transporting Coral is simple, as most weapons can easily one or at most two-shot them down with no hassle, and the resulting Coral explosions can also take out other targets in their blast radius. The real issue is the final area: a narrow canyon that doesn't give as much freedom as the initial two bases to run around. The jump pads to get fast vertical movement is only on one end of the canyon, so you're hooped if you're too far away from them (Not to mention it's right by the exit for the Helicopters). You're also constantly bombarded by multiple enemy sniper MTs, but you don't have much time to destroy them without losing time on shooting down your targets. The transport helicopters also come in multiple waves on both low and high altitudes in groups. And you only have five chances before you fail the mission. Without checkpoints.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • A lot of older AC fans were concerned that newer gamers who only know FromSoftware via the Souls series and its many imitators would come to this game thinking it's a Souls-like RPG and be disappointed when they found out it's a mech action game.
    • After the first patch came out, the hardcore part of the fandom wasn't amused to see some of the That One Boss entries got nerfed. A few weeks later, the third patch nerfed all of the game's most popular weapons (most notably the Zimmerman shotgun, much loved for its ability to stagger regular enemies and bosses at range with ease), and it was a different part of the fandom's turn to lament.
  • The Woobie:
    • The trainee pilot for Dafeng engaged early in the game as a taste of AC battles, where you're tasked to destroy the Tester AC he's in. He speaks like The Hero that refuses to go down thinking the Redguns desperately need his AC, but he's out of his depth against 621, and is utterly thrashed in no time flat, bemoaning in his final moments that he just wanted a callsign of his own. Shortly after, the Redguns hire 621, and their leader, G1 Michigan, cheekily gives them a nickname callsign in their ranks implying the position "just became available" — you just stole the trainee's potential position with none the wiser and the pilot's efforts entirely brushed off and forgotten. Also not helped by the fact that this mission is a quick and easy way to grind out credits, with 80k a pop that can be earned in roughly a minute if you're good; those that grind will be hearing his final words a lot.
    • While she's entirely missable and you can go the whole playthrough without fighting her, it isn't hard to feel sorry for Little Ziyi. As explained in her Arena bio, Ziyi lost her parents when they crash-landed on Rubicon-3 trying to enter illegally and was adopted by the Rubicon Liberation Force. From there, she'd go on to become a Coral Warrior. When you find her in "Retrieve Combat Logs", she's furious since she just lost many of her adoptive family during "Operation Wallclimber" and recognizes 621 as one of the people who killed them at the behest of the corporations. As if to really hit you where it hurts, Ziyi is the youngest known AC pilot in the series. As in, she's a teenager. And if you want to complete the loghunt for all the rewards, you have to kill her instead of ignoring her like Walter tells you to do.

Top