Armored Core 6 may be a very different game from developer FromSoftware’s popular Dark Souls series, but an enemy that shows up late in the game makes it clear that the same DNA is there. Armored Core is a long-running FromSoftware franchise, first appearing in 1997 on the original PlayStation. Armored Core saw a long hiatus in recent years while the studio focused on games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring, with over a decade passing since the release of Armored Core 5 on seventh generation consoles.
Gameplay in Armored Core 6 revolves around mecha combat, with the ability to customize mechs and modify loadouts playing a major role in the strategic aspects of mastering its challenges. This is a world apart from the Castlevania-like action of Dark Souls in some regards, but it shares a focus on difficult encounters and memorable boss fights. Not all of the hardest enemies in these games are the ones that seem the most intimidating, with unique attacks and movement techniques that are difficult to encounter often proving more threatening than a large pool of health.
The ”Reach the Coral Convergence” mission in Armored Core 6 is likely to bring back bad memories for any FromSoft veterans thanks to the surprising appearance of a large wheel enemy. Bonewheel Skeletons are the bane of many Dark Souls playthroughs, terrorizing their targets with fast rolling attacks and proving especially problematic when striking in a group. Although the wheel enemies in Armored Core 6 lack the intertwined skeleton that gives the Dark Souls enemies their name, the sight of one spinning into action is no less stressful.
Although most Armored Core 6 enemies bear little resemblance to the classic terrors of the Dark Souls series, the game shows the influence that it’s taken in other ways. There’s a bigger focus on boss fights in Armored Core 6 than ever before, with a greater emphasis on learning telegraphed attack patterns and outplaying them rather than the HP race that dominated fights in the first three Armored Core games in particular. Armored Core 6 also features increased verticality in design — the wheels, for example, spawn on a bridge but can also fight in the shallow waters below — and structures missions in a way reminiscent of how Dark Souls guides players forward through exploration.
Despite coming from the same studio, Armored Core 6 and Dark Souls are still very different games at the end of the day. Even small similarities, however, can act as memorable trademarks that imprint some form of a FromSoftware signature on any of the titles that the developer produces. In the same way that influence from Armored Core and other great FromSoftware games once bled into Dark Souls, it can now inform the return to this classic franchise. Enemy wheels may not exactly be a welcome Armored Core 6 inclusion for fans of Dark Souls, but the frustration that FromSoftware foes can inspire is ultimately all part of the fun.
2023-08-28 17:00:04
Article from screenrant.com
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