Ok, first things first, I played this game because I know nothing about the AC series and a friend told me it would be a good introduction to the style (also I needed to wait to be paid to get the AC 6). And, well...
For every Dark Souls, there is a Lords of the Fallen, Bloodborne has Code Vein, Sekiro has Steel Rising (arguably) and now Armored Core has the 'cheaper adjacent mellowed out copy'. Daemon X Machina's sin was simply being amateurish, having lots of good ideas but fumbling their execution and resorting to clichés.
I will start with the positives. This game has a striking sense of style, characters look memorable even if they rarely show up, due to specific facial traits that are carefully singled out, one, two features at most. One dude will have an X over his face, the other will have weird glasses, another one will have a helmet. The pieces and accessories almost never repeat. The art's work also extends to the stage's designs and color palettes, with sci-fi buildings contrasting with alien skies (sadly you can see when they copy-paste buildings over and over). Boss presentation is also quite cool, honestly, with the focus on the enemy's 'visor' as a prelude to battle reminding me of Revengeance.
The music is also quite nice and varied, with different themes, though sadly most of the tracks are isolated to one or two moments, and specific tracks will be repeated over and over and over (boss theme and the exploration/main mission themes).
Besides that? Most of it is a mess. The gameplay tries to mix elements from heavy mech games (like Battletech) with super-fast mech action (like Zone of the Enders), which ends in a wonky and floaty gameplay where maintaining altitude is annoying (because your mech 'jumps in the air' instead of 'press button to hover/elevate') the weapons don't feel like they have any impact, and using heavier guns is counter-intuitive, because enemy mechs have a long, long invulnerability frame whenever they are knocked down. Their A.I doesn't help, either enemies spam dashes left and right far too fast for the camera to follow (breaking lock-on), or keep corralling themselves so badly that the best strategy is to literally wait for them to start slamming their faces on a wall or corner like a fly (I used this to kill the penultimate boss). And god help your patience if they have dialogue, because till their end their long, long speeches, they are invulnerable.
Speaking of, writing in this game is what would happen if Hanzel and Gretel found a house made of clichés instead of candy. There are tons of characters, no way to keep track of who is who (because there is no in-game encyclopedia), and each one of them is a living embodiment of a cliche, sometimes there are multiple characters that share the same cliche, with corresponding never-wavering dialogue. Its hilariously bad. Add that to a wonky pacing where the first act is slow as molasses, the second act introduces many questions with no answers and the third act opening a Macross Missile Massacre of bad plot twists that come from nowhere, I was so detached from the story and characters I could be in Mars hanging with John Carter. Did I mention that the story structure was so wonky, bosses that should be in the main story were relegated to side-mission contents? And I haven't even touched how awful the grinding is.
In the end, I wouldn't recommend it, unless you're really thirsting for some 'so-bad-its-good' afternoon with friends, though I do think that the team has potential and, if they learn from their mistakes and polish things better for their next game, they can deliver something good.
VideoGame "We have Armored Core at home."
Ok, first things first, I played this game because I know nothing about the AC series and a friend told me it would be a good introduction to the style (also I needed to wait to be paid to get the AC 6). And, well...
For every Dark Souls, there is a Lords of the Fallen, Bloodborne has Code Vein, Sekiro has Steel Rising (arguably) and now Armored Core has the 'cheaper adjacent mellowed out copy'. Daemon X Machina's sin was simply being amateurish, having lots of good ideas but fumbling their execution and resorting to clichés.
I will start with the positives. This game has a striking sense of style, characters look memorable even if they rarely show up, due to specific facial traits that are carefully singled out, one, two features at most. One dude will have an X over his face, the other will have weird glasses, another one will have a helmet. The pieces and accessories almost never repeat. The art's work also extends to the stage's designs and color palettes, with sci-fi buildings contrasting with alien skies (sadly you can see when they copy-paste buildings over and over). Boss presentation is also quite cool, honestly, with the focus on the enemy's 'visor' as a prelude to battle reminding me of Revengeance.
The music is also quite nice and varied, with different themes, though sadly most of the tracks are isolated to one or two moments, and specific tracks will be repeated over and over and over (boss theme and the exploration/main mission themes).
Besides that? Most of it is a mess. The gameplay tries to mix elements from heavy mech games (like Battletech) with super-fast mech action (like Zone of the Enders), which ends in a wonky and floaty gameplay where maintaining altitude is annoying (because your mech 'jumps in the air' instead of 'press button to hover/elevate') the weapons don't feel like they have any impact, and using heavier guns is counter-intuitive, because enemy mechs have a long, long invulnerability frame whenever they are knocked down. Their A.I doesn't help, either enemies spam dashes left and right far too fast for the camera to follow (breaking lock-on), or keep corralling themselves so badly that the best strategy is to literally wait for them to start slamming their faces on a wall or corner like a fly (I used this to kill the penultimate boss). And god help your patience if they have dialogue, because till their end their long, long speeches, they are invulnerable.
Speaking of, writing in this game is what would happen if Hanzel and Gretel found a house made of clichés instead of candy. There are tons of characters, no way to keep track of who is who (because there is no in-game encyclopedia), and each one of them is a living embodiment of a cliche, sometimes there are multiple characters that share the same cliche, with corresponding never-wavering dialogue. Its hilariously bad. Add that to a wonky pacing where the first act is slow as molasses, the second act introduces many questions with no answers and the third act opening a Macross Missile Massacre of bad plot twists that come from nowhere, I was so detached from the story and characters I could be in Mars hanging with John Carter. Did I mention that the story structure was so wonky, bosses that should be in the main story were relegated to side-mission contents? And I haven't even touched how awful the grinding is.
In the end, I wouldn't recommend it, unless you're really thirsting for some 'so-bad-its-good' afternoon with friends, though I do think that the team has potential and, if they learn from their mistakes and polish things better for their next game, they can deliver something good.