Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon • Retrospective • [The History of From Software]

About the economy in the game being de-emphasized, I personally think that this makes a lot of sense from a narrative perspective. The corporations in AC6 are infinitely more wealthy and powerful than the ones we've seen in the previous games. They are chasing the most valuable resource in existence and are willing to pay extremely large sums of money to mercenaries, if it helps them achieve their goal of gaining control over the coral. You're not a mercenary trying to barely make a living, you're in a resource war, driven by extreme greed of already immensely wealthy entities. Therefore, money not being a big concern to you, since any amount of money is insignificant compared to the value of the coral, is very understandable. (Obviously I understand why debt and the economy basically not being a factor at all might be disappointing, I'm just saying, that there's a narrative justification for it.)

As someone who only played AC6, your retrospective series has really shown me what a unique franchise Armored Core is

A comment on C4-621 as the player name, it’s worth noting that the number 4 has bad mojo in Japanese superstition similar to the number 13 in Christianity as it has associations with death. This number is very often used in the context of human augmentation in the mecha genre dating back to the anime Zeta Gundam, which featured a character called Four Murasume, who is probably the most famous example of augmented humans in the genre. Four isn’t her real name, it’s her batch number at the Murasume institute where her augmentation was carried out, and her real memories and identity were erased. She’s got one of the most tragic and memorable plot arcs in that show and subsequent Gundam series and other mecha media often call back to it. I think 621 being 4th gen and thus “C4” is a call back to this as well as tying back into the original superstition behind the number. Ironically though, whereas in most of the rest of mecha fiction human augmentation is often seen as a tragic and misguided attempt at emulating some special characteristic, such as attempting to artificially recreate Newtypes in Gundam, the gen 4 augmentation in AC6, cursed as it is, is the special catalyst for achieving Coral Release in the third ending for the game, which is more analogous to Undead being able to link the fire or otherwise achieve world-altering outcomes in the Dark Souls series.

I think your read on what Ayre is exactly is pretty on the money. She is, as Allmind calls it, a "C-Pulse Wave Mutation". And from Father Dolmayan's story, we know she's not the only one. My reading is that Coral on a base level is a eusocial colony organism, like earth's siphonophores. The individual components are very simplistic and can't do much, but they collect together to become a sort of super-organism. The coral flow, as Ayre calls it. The mutations caused by extreme density can result in the individual coral units developing into a more distinct entity like Ayre or Seria, and Contact with a human infused with coral allows them to properly manifest, which is why Ayre and Seria both seem to have been rather undeveloped when they were first encountered.

I don't think Snail's ambush is a cheap moment for 2 reasons: 1) it's in character for Snail to best 621 in the surprising, cunning way he does, 2) you get the chance to avoid being taken down later by heeding Allmind's advice and now being the one to ambush Snail, reinforcing Allmind's power and creep-factor alongside the catharsis inherent in revenge.

Oh yeah! Grabbing a hot chocolate

I will note there does seem to be in-universe reasoning for why the economy is under-emphasized, and that's that Walter needs us out of debt to do the work he needs us to. Most notably in the NG++ mission "Escort the Mobile Mining Platform", where because we failed to fulfill the contract we don't get our actual promised pay from the RLF. But we still get a reward, because Walter pays us out of his own pocket. Definitely still kinda sucks that its become such a non-factor, but at least there's a decent reason

Allmind does tell you its motivation straight up, and often: Allmind exists for all mercenaries.

You did it! I remember way back in the day I commented something like 'an armored core retrospective would be sweet!' on one of your videos and all these years later here we are, at the end of a full series analysis. It was much greater than I could have asked for, Aesir, you sir, are the man.

I'm so excited to hear you are close to completion on your game. I've been following for a few years, and as your YouTube channel has taken off I wondered if you had abandoned the reason you'd started in the first place. I don't know you but I'm proud of you

I have 860h in Elden Ring and 135h in AC6. I'm 43 and have been gaming since I was 8 y/o. I have just this to say. I want AC6 dlc/expansion more than anything in gaming. Period. Even more than the ER Shadows of the Erdtree.

I was honestly surprised that the supply sherpas didn’t integrate part replacement functionality into them, but honestly it makes more sense to let you do it after you die and have seen what parts and weapons the enemy warrants using, and lets them allow you to do it upon each death instead of just at single supply points. An interesting thing I noted, though, is that allowing enemy ACs that duel to use repair kits as well, it elevates the repair kit function from just a gameplay mechanic to something that ACs just have, player or not, and so it ends up justified in the story. Plus, it gave them a good way to trigger voice lines without you accidentally skipping them by killing your opponent too fast.

I am sympathetic to most of your critiques of Elden Ring, but the Radahn fight is far superior to the ice worm fight. Both fights have great presentation, but the ice worm's mechanics boil down to finding an opening, which is all about anticipating where it will emerge and present its face for the player to have a chance at hitting it with the stun needle launcher. Radahn's fight, when stripped of all the heraldry, is still a mechanically fun fight.

An absolutely amazing series. Both armored core and your work Aesir. Thank you for all these awesome videos. Much love!

I really love the characters giving you their blessing to do the other ending cause I felt so bad about wanting to do them till I heard that and it was the only reason I was able to platinum it from an emotional standpoint

Also really enjoy how in depth you go in to development process

This is one of the few games that actually makes me feel bad for my usual mindset of "thats very interesting Ms. Xenos. Please face the wall."

You just barely touched on something I have been saying all along: when you said AC was not from softwares first game released, but it was their first game designed. There has been an ebb and flow between armored core, kings field, armored core, shadow tower, armored core, Evergrace, armored core, skip a few, and demons souls. People are too worried about other games influence on AC and don’t realize this. But also, I agree, AC6 is not my favorite. It’s beautiful, but I prefer the PS1/2 armored core games, which feel more chill, and have way bigger maze like facilities and caves to get lost in. I also really really miss the techno beats. I liked the contrast old armored core has to other from soft games, simultaneously more chill gameplay, and more upbeat tunes. Armored Core 6 is super stressful like a souls like, way more focused on bosses, way more linear facilities and caves, and the music is downright depressing… not my fave

Thanks for the vid! Was starting to see the similarities with AC6 and Bloodborne's story beats that I thought I was going crazy lol. Nice to see From Software constantly using similar themes and setting scenarios while presenting them in totally different ways. Really appreciated how you brought parallels with how Old Blood and Coral are used in very similar manners in their settings, with Coral's volatility being a really funny reconfigure of how Old Blood runs the risk of "exploding" into beasthood, horrifying collateral damage being huge risks in both scenarios.

Your point about Snail's cheap shot on us. To be honest I actually like the fact that it's a bit frustrating and comes out of nowhere. Much like Lautrec ruining Firelink Shrine, it's a completely in character action of Snail, and it's his actions that strip you of your AC, making him all the more irritating. From a design standpoint, I think the problem is that they wanted Snail to use the same tool the player did (stun needle), but if they had let you remain in control there's a high likelihood you would avoid the shot from just idly running around post battle. This in turn leads to a few options, they could give Snail a better weapon than the player can get in game, with an instantaneous shot, so fast it's impossible to dodge. They could have the player be forced to stand there, so as to have the shot land, just without a cutscene. That option also being one that immediately raises alarm bells to players, as every other boss fight let's you remain in control after victory. They could swarm you, but it's possible to actually win that, so the units would need to be infinite like the first Seathe encounter's floor attack. Really, there's no way for the shot to land without ripping control away from the player, so imo doing it abruptly in a cutscene actually works best, as the player is most likely to be off guard and assuming the worst of it is over after the fight. I certainly prefer it, to the notion of the man so cowardly he wouldn't reveal himself prematurely to save a comrade's life, suddenly deciding to rush us down when he knows how absolutely deadly we are. He just saw us best Ibis, it's frankly ridiculous to think that coward would do anything but snipe us from afar, if he was ordered to capture us after the fight