Armored Core For Answer (ugh, mangled title) is the latest installment of a series I've been playing since I got my first PlayStation.

The return of the branching storyline is great, taking me back to the days of Murakumo Millennium and Chrome duking it out. When you start a new game, you're given a selection of starting schematics much in the way of AC4, but in ACFA they come with company allegiances. Start with a GA mech, do GA missions, and GA will give you free stuff. This, however, will set you against other companies and alter the missions you are offered. If you have an eye for it, a great deal of the story comes out from the mission progression and discovering which missions ally you with the more elusive factions.

Customization is back in all its complexity, but seems more averaged out; weight and energy limits are hard to reach without getting really extreme in your part combination. They give you all the parts from AC4 and plenty more, but it gets back into the territory of the prior games: a handful of good weapons padded by a bunch of money-waster variations. There are four hand-held grenade launchers and an additional four shoulder-mounted; why? Three different shoulder-mounted chain guns, again, why? At least they're somewhat different. It's not like anyone is going to go play online without unlocking all the parts first, and even if they did, they're just setting themselves up for some completely unfair matches.



The graphics have an odd, but good, feeling to them. It's like someone wanted to make a cell-shaded Armored Core, but got turned down and did everything but. Things are crisp, smooth and brightly colored. The environments and weapon effects vary greatly from beautiful to flat and some of the environmental effects like cutting trails into the sand as you boost along the ground are missing from multiplayer/arena matches. Since they appear in missions (which can be played co-op), I can't imagine why they were omitted.

The most noticeable gameplay change is likely to be the increased speed. As a long-time fan of the series, I'm not especially pleased with this change. Even the heaviest AC can quick boost off your screen. Fast ACs can be nigh impossible to hit or even catch. A particular AI ranking opponent ended up with over half a dozen restarts because neither of us could hit the other; we'd get down to about 10K AP each and both be out of ammunition. While the speed can make things more intense, it also feels a bit sloppy. The split-second boosts to dodge missiles have been replaced by blinding speed.

As a note, you can't load your AC4 save data into For Answer, which had been a standard practice in other AC games. Each "numbered" game and it's subtitled successors could inherit saves downward. Silent Line, for example, could load Armored Core 3 files and allow you to start with your old parts and mechs. For Answer is compatible with your old schematics and paint schemes though, so you don't need to rebuild everything. I miss the full carry over, but it didn't kill the game.

All in all, I like Armored Core For Answer, and if you're a fan of the series like myself, you will most likely enjoy it too. Be prepared for change going in. New players might want to grab Armored Core 4 first, but that's strictly optional now that they won't be inheriting their secret parts.