Late to the Party: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

ou know—some trends just don’t live past their 15 minutes of fame; Zombies? Played out, Vampires? Done to death, & Superheroes? We’re approaching terminal velocity on that can of worms soon, just give it some time. There are, however, some exceptions in Pop Culture that’ll just never NOT be rad as all hell, and one of those things is giant mech-suit robots.

Where mainstays of the genre like Gundam, Macross, and to some loose extent, Transformers have populated the public headspace in the genre, one particular property has commanded an underground yet dedicated peak of fandom in Video Games like no other IP specifically has—Armored Core.

Riding on the wave of new fandom that Dark Souls and Elden Ring have afforded them, FromSoftware unveiled the next entry in their long-dormant series that hasn’t seen a release in well over a decade with Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and they’re giving it the red-carpet treatment to boot. This new release does ask an interesting question though; where its demanding twitchy-trigger gunplay carved out a modest niche of dedicated fans much like that of the “Soulsborne” series of games, those titles were able to steadily evolve and refine their gameplay hallmarks with the sort of resources that Armored Core has never had the privilege of receiving.

How exactly does Fires of Rubicon close such a long gap between releases without compromising the ardent quirks of its combat and difficulty? Well, it turns out that the answer is a lot easier than you’d think—Fires of Rubicon takes everything Armored Core V did and doubles down on it with all the technical performance the ninth generation of gaming hardware could afford the long-awaited sequel.

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QCF: Dark Souls III

idetaka Miyazaki’s saga of “Souls” titles has left quite an impact upon the benchmark of action games, and the expectations held of its caliber—it’s almost inspired its own sort of sub-genre of gaming. With inspired contemporaries even garnering a modicum of success, it’s no wonder that Dark Souls III was announced so quickly, coming hot off the heels of From Software’s collaboration with Sony on the PS4 exclusive, Bloodborne.

Being as this is technically the fifth go-around, one has to think upon whether or not so many entries might potentially dilute the charm that make these games so exciting, and risk the danger of recycling familiar the same dynamics under a simple fresh coat of paint.

You’d be half right, but mostly wrong (don’t make me explain the math on that one, just read what I have to say) because while the familiarity of the venture is slightly fatiguing, the rush that the gameplay is famous for delivering is ever potent. Not to worry though; Dark Souls III has plenty of new features to really give this sequel the kick in you the ass that you wanted from it from the get go, and the adrenaline keeps freshness rolling from start to finish to boot.

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QCF: Bloodborne

ow that the skill and challenge of video games has caught a second wind, the waves of difficult games have been coming out of the woodwork from both the western, and eastern hemispheres of the world. The thrill of ever stacking odds working against your favor is slowly growing into insatiable sensation that’s winning over the free time and attention of those who fall victim to it’s addictive, yet punishing taste.

A relatively new property to have come out of the last generation of video games by FROM Software is credited with pioneering the resurgence of mercilessly challenging gameplay design we’ve seen on the modern scene with their “Souls” franchise.

While still relatively niche on the whole, Sony’s involvement with the developer may have changed the game with the latest title from the mold, Bloodborne; a celebration of everything that makes the cult-style of action game so intimidating, and so appealing all at once.

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Versus: Dark Souls

James

Dark Souls is the spiritual successor of the love-it-or-hate-it game Demon's Souls on the PS3. And when I say “love it or hate it,” I cannot stress that enough. You either fall in love with Dark Souls, or it becomes the bane of your existence. I have pumped more than 100 hours into Dark Souls across multiple characters and different play styles, and have every intention of jumping back in again soon.  This is a game for old school players who remember how games used to be.

Andrew

When Demon’s Souls was released for the PlayStation 3 in October 2009, critics and fans alike praised the title, stating that it was “the first truly great Japanese RPG of this generation”. However, whenever I heard about Demon’s Souls, its brutal difficulty and uncompromising mechanics were mentioned in the exact same breath. At the time I didn’t own Sony’s console, so I never experienced this so-called “classic.” That changed in 2011, when Dark Souls made its multiplatform debut. After only an hour of this pixilated poison, I realize that this title is for the most hardcore gaming masochists.

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