Video Game / Armored Core: Last Raven

-RAVENS-

An elite group of mercenaries, these individuals carry out assignments for the highest bidder in their mechanized "Armored Core" war machines.

In a world where individual freedom is constrained by those in power, these fierce warriors answer only to themselves.

The eleventh game in FromSoftware Armored Core series, released in 2005 for the Playstation 2.

The release of the unmanned suicide weapons has devastated the world. The three major corporations, having lost everything, united as the supergroup Alliance. Not all will stand for corporate dominance, however, as Jack-O, a fiercely anti-corporate Raven from the now-defunct Raven's Ark, has summoned those loyal to him to join the rebel group Vertex. Following months of conflict, Vertex has announced it will launch its final attack in 24 hours.

Neutrality won't save one's skin as both sides have placed bounties not just on the other side's Ravens, but every independent Raven still operating. You are a wild card, a Raven caught in the crossfire, and your choices during these 24 hours will make history.

Designed as the ultimate challenge for those who had mastered the previous games, Last Raven pulls no punches. A major new feature is that damage to your Armored Core's components is now tracked and will have appropriate effects on its performance when sufficiently damaged. The game features the deepest Story Branching in the series, with both your choice of missions and your decisions in-mission impacting your next assignments and the ending you'll get.

An Updated Re-release titled Armored Core Last Raven Portable was released in 2011 for the PlayStation Portable. This version features extra parts, a revamped user interface based on that of Armored Core: Formula Front's, and multiple new Arena opponents plucked from the Armored Core: Brave New World novel.

Last Raven was the first game one Hidetaka Miyazaki worked on. He would go on to direct the series' next Continuity Reboot Armored Core 4 which would prove to be its biggest shake-up yet.

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The game provides examples of:

• Animal Motifs: The game has a bit more raven imagery than usual, such as on Vertex's logo, the game's logo, and the battle music for the final Pulverizer featuring the cawing sounds of a raven.
• Ascended Extra: Jack-O and Evangel were around in Nexus as part of the supporting cast. Last Raven gives them important plot roles, fleshes out their characterization and even elevates them to Final Boss status in some of the routes.
• Do Not Go Gentle: One of Last Raven's possible final missions is a battle with Jack-O. By the time you meet him, the threat of the Internecine has been ended, but his AC's left arm has been blown off and the rest isn't in very good shape either. He attacks you anyway because he "wants to be remembered as a Raven."
• Double Agent: Evangel deflects from Alliance to Vertex shortly into the day. Depending on the ending, it's either revealed he was sent by Alliance to destroy Vertex from within or he stays loyal to Vertex to the bitter end.
• Dwindling Party: The game starts off with only around 20 Ravens left alive on the planet, compiled on a list along with their bounties. As the game progresses, more and more names get crossed off the list as they're killed off one by one (sometimes at your hands). This is where the game's title comes in: depending on the ending, you may end up as the last Raven alive, though even in the "better" endings you can still count the remaining survivors on one hand.
• Easy Logistics: Armored Core usually averts this due to the realistic billing of ammo and repairs and the vague timespan between missions but Last Raven's Extremely Short Timespan invokes this. An average playthrough will have you play through a dozen of missions, yet parts are instantly shipped out and installed, broken parts are instantly repaired, payouts are immediate and factions are able to immediately draw attack plans and draft request for mercenaries.
• Double-Meaning Title: Besides the title's literal meaning, Last Raven is thus far the last game in the series to date to feature an active Raven as the protagonist (4's protagonist is a former Raven, whereas the protagonists in V and VI would only be referred to as "Dark Raven" and "Raven" (respectively) as nicknames/callsigns, as opposed to the Raven profession from the older games).
• Extremely Short Timespan: Last Raven takes place over the 24 hours leading up to when Vertex's leader Jack-O states his assault on the corporations will begin. As such, each individual playthrough only takes a couple of hours, but there's a variety of ways the day can go.
• The Gift: According to a forgotten In-Universe social theory, there exist people known as "Dominants" who possess an extraordinary innate talent for combat, which Jack-O spends the game fervently trying to find. Other than the player character, the best candidates for the title include Evangel (who desperately wants to be known as a Dominant, with varying degrees of success depending on the route), and Zinaida (who doesn't really care for the title despite being one of the best Ravens alive by a wide margin).
• Gladiator Subquest: Two of them. The VR Arena features its own roster of Ravens (many homages to the previous games) and requires betting on the outcome before starting a match. The EX-Arena, unlocked after clearing your first story path pits, you against the other Ravens found in the story mode (and in the Portable version, the bonus Armored Core Brave New World opponents) to acquire their emblems.
• Grand Finale: The game serves as a fairly definitive closer to the 3rd generation of Armored Core, and is also the last installment to follow the original formula. The generations that came after it would make major changes to the core movement and building mechanics.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The game retroactively reveals the force behind not only the apocalypse at the end of Nexus, but the entire backstory of the post-Armored Core 3 timeline (although the full connection is only made clear via external materials and developer interviews). The Internecine is an AI-controlled facility that maintains a host of unmanned weapons such as the kamikaze drones and the Pulverizers, originally developed by an older civilization that was on the brink of ruin by corporate warfare over new technology as an attempt to Restart the World by destroying everything and giving humanity a new chance. This was the cause of the "Great Destruction" alluded to in Armored Core 3 as well as the ending of Nexus after the facility was unwittingly unearthed by corporations fighting over new technology.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Alliance is made up of the corporations, whom Armored Core players will know very well by now to be dishonest scumbags, but they don't do anything particularly evil here besides defending their assets. Vertex would be by default the "good" faction by virtue of opposing them, but they're lead by a ruthless Social Darwinist who has no compunction about putting his allies to pasture. The independents are mostly made up of petty thieves and psychopaths. In short, nobody's a good guy but the Pulverizers are by far the worst.
• It's All About Me: Evangel's deep insecurity about not being a Dominant causes him to jeopardize both Alliance's and Vertex's plans to take potshots at Zinaida and the player.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: In one of Last Raven's possible final missions, you end up duking it out with Evangel (who wants to stop the Internecine in order to prove himself, rather than because it's making AI genocide weapons). Once you do beat him, a Pulverizer makes its appearance. Evangel chooses to stay behind and delay the Pulverizer while you stop the Internecine. Not bad for someone who was trying to kill you about five minutes ago.
• Mechanical Evolution: The Pulverizers in; as each one gets defeated a new one is made that's even faster and more powerful than the previous one, with tanks being the weakest and the strongest being a crazy airborne spidery-looking thing that gives the Alien Queen a run for its money. Interestingly, the humanoid one sits in the middle of the spectrum in regards to strength.
• Mythology Gag: Many of the ACs fought in the VR Arena are patterned after the cover ACs of previous Armored Core games.
• Nintendo Hard: Last Raven is easily the most demanding game in the series. All of your opponents have a full suite of OP-INTENSIFY upgrades you have no way of getting yourself. Missions, though usually short, will have you face intense opposition...and a Raven, or two if you're unlucky. And unlike previous installments, there are no in-mission refills of your health or ammo at all.
• Old Save Bonus: Players can transfer their parts from Nexus or Armored Core: Nine Breaker. Since neither game was ported to the PSP, Portable instead allows transfer from either 3 Portable or Silent Line Portable, doing its best to match the early Gen 3 parts to their Gen 3.5 equivalents. This is also the only way to use the new parts introduced in the Portable versions.
• Omega Ending: Completing all six main storylines unlocks a final mission where you, now the last Raven standing, are hired by an unknown party to take out the final Pulverizer that has emerged from the Internercine.
• Punny Name: Your operation consultant is a guy named Ed Weisz. Try pronouncing that one fast.
• SNK Boss: More or less every enemy AC, owing primarily to their access to OP-INTENSIFY which is mercilessly locked from the player in this game. This allows bosses to get a lot of mileage out of builds that would be far less impressive even at the hands of a skilled player. Zinaida at the end of her route is particularly infamous in this regard, running a build with a CR-B83TP booster (fast, but very energy draining) combined with infamously clunky, hard-to-aim and energy consuming weapons like the YWH16HR-PYTHON rail gun and the WB16PU-LAMIA2 pulse cannon. This setup would leave most players as clumsy, immobile boiling potatos, but thanks to her OP-INTENSIFY, Zinaida's usage of it turns her into an unstoppable Lightning Bruiser who is far and away one of the hardest bosses in the series.
• Story Branching: You can choose from three missions at the start of the game, and which missions you pick next and your in-mission choices (accepting mission requests and whether you fight or avoid Skippable Bosses). There are six possible endings.
• Team Killer: Jack-O's entire gameplan in Last Raven is finding the strongest pilots. It gets to the point that (assuming you're taking Jack-O's missions) he sends you to kill Bolt, who is absolutely loyal to him, but not too bright, and Sorcerer, who is one of Jack-O's only friends, just to find the strongest Raven. Though, this is a Justified Trope. Every Raven who is felled by a Pulverizer provides combat data that makes the next Pulverizer that comes after significantly more lethal. If that pattern continues, they will literally become unstoppable. Vertex being ordered to kill Ravens that aren't up to the task is a countermeasure against that eventuality.
• True Final Boss: The Ultimate Pulverizer fought in the Omega Ending.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: One of the three starter missions, "Distribution Center Recon", pits you against the Vertex Raven Bolt. Bolt is a Glass Cannon faster and meaner than anything you ever encountered in Nexus. For new players, he's a warning the starter AC build won't be sufficient to go through the game and you'll have to think long and hard about your build. For veterans, he's a sign things will be the toughest they've ever been.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jack-O does underhanded things in his quest to search for a Dominant, but that's in the name of shutting down the Internercine and preventing the devastation at the end of Nexus from ever occurring again
• World's Best Warrior: Zinaida is by far and away the most skilled Raven beside possibly yourself. Her entire motivation is to prove her skills by offing other Ravens, and Jack-O identifies her as a Dominant and hires her to take care of the Internercine if you don't choose Vertex.