Story looks like trash and the missions are way too short. I still think the movement is weak and the customization is closer to a shlooter than an Armored Core
The customization is proper AC, it has fewer equipment slots than, say, AC5 but simply merges the featues of some of those slots to give the body parts more importance. E.g. you don't have a separate FCS slot but the head part has all the FCS stats so it matters much more which head you pick (I use one with shorter lock on range and a rectangular targeting area that covers like half the screen) and the legs include the land booster stats, the core includes the generator and air booster and the arms have multiple stats regarding weapon handling. All items are sidegrades (except maybe the starter body parts that suck at everything). Though there seem to be fewer parts in general.
Mission length is mostly on par with ACVD, sometimes a bit longer. It's usually one battle per mission. The story is a lot more clear than any of the Armored Cores I've played although it takes a while to go anywhere, a good chunk of the game is just spent setting up the situation and characters involved.
I think the enemy arsenal AI isn't as dangerous as it is in an AC game and a lot of the missions seem to fudge their stats to have more or less HP rather than the even fights you see a lot in AC.
Presequel had a loot shredder that you could stuff trash guns into and it'd produce something of higher rarity, I take it that feature didn't make it into 3?
Presequel also seemed to have better writing but that may be because I hadn't played the same sections as often as in 2 so the jokes weren't as tired. Also the central story was about Jack's descent from wannabe hero to villain so it had some character development by necessity.
I wish this game would pop up some franchise logos on the character select screen. This isn't Nintendo's stable we're talking about here; I don't know who's from where. Also, what's with the steady sexualization of Kawase. I just watched a trailer for a new game in that series yesterday which gave a glamour shot to her exposed midriff.
I think that started with the Vita version. Since the Vita was the anime porn machine.
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