September 22, 2008 Perhaps I’ve been watching anime for too long, or maybe my collection of Japanese games has grown too large, but when I heard that the next Armored Core game was being subtitled “for Answer,” I honestly didn’t flinch.

After our disappointing time with Armored Core 4, we didn’t have high hopes for From Software’s latest, Armored Core for Answer.

You can fight for every side in the game with little-to-no consequences, and you have to as you make your way through the game, you’ll realize that the only way to get enough money to upgrade parts on your NEXT is to fight for more than just your faction.

Sure, you can build the ultimate mech, customizing it to your heart’s content, yet when you actually play the game, you realize its shortcomings.

The basic format starts players off in a menu from which they can access the store, screw around in the mech garage, set up online co-op sessions, adjust game options and, of course, accept missions.

In fact, there have been so many Armored Core games on so many different platforms that the developer has dropped numbering all together.

With more than 130 new parts and 400 parts total, enhance your mech to take on increasingly deadlier mobile battle stations.

A lot of the missions are so short you can beat them in the same amount of time it takes to listen to the briefing and sit through the load screen.

You do have the option to free aim, but once you encounter enemies that boost around the screen, you’ll absolutely need homing weapons, so you just have to hope the lock-in system functions as it should.

Between missions, player-controlled NEXTs can be designed, upgraded and tuned – the Armored Core equivalent of leveling up – using earned credits and, in the case of tuning, FRS Memory.

What’s odd is that while there is a general tutorial to teach you the ropes in the game, there’s no explanation anywhere of the customization screen.

The mech customization features are exceedingly complex, a morass of acronyms, abbreviations, numbers and charts which are difficult to make any sense of.

Even in the hands of a new publisher – Ubisoft – we just couldn’t conceive of any scenario in which the game’s obscenely complex customization mechanic and similarly troublesome controls could be made palatable to the average non-fan.

Yes, it’s even better than the other LEGO games!

Its kind of sad to see reviews denouncing games simply because the one writing the review is to ignorant to actualy sit down and look at the game for what it is, a highly customizable mech game.

The most rudimentary part of any third person shooter proper targeting was somehow lost on the developers.

After the abysmal Armored Core 4, who’s one saving grace was Online play for the first time in the AC series, many fans, myself included felt that was the final nail in the waning age of Armored Core.

That makes me quite possibly the only U.S. gamer in existence that didn’t laugh at the incredibly Japanese title of From Software’s latest mech action game for the PS3 and 360.

Being a mech game, one would assume that the combat can save the bland nature of the level design and generic mission structure, but it doesn’t.

These massive war machines dwarf the player-controlled NEXT, which is itself the size of a multi-story building.

Since there are corporations, that means there’s resistance to them, and it comes from groups stranded on the surface.

Once your adorable little war machine finds its way onto the battlefield, Armored Core feels more like an action arcade game than a mech simulation.

Armored Core for Answer also offers a visual upgrade over the series’ previous entry.

The story of Armored Core has never been terribly fleshed out, but the inklings that are given to players whether through mission briefings, voice-only dialogues or battle chatter hint at something desperate and nostalgic in tone.

After earning the points through campaign missions, you can assign them to help bolster things like your turning speed, booster power and weapons lock-on speed.

The plot in For Answer is paper thin and generic: it’s the future and there’s so much pollution that the surface of the Earth has become uninhabitable.

As the story progresses, more customization items become available to buy in the store, including weapons, body parts, booster rockets and control stabilizers.

It’s easy to tell that developers and fans of the series care more about customizing their NEXT than the actual combat.

Fans of Armored Core can dive right in with minimal learning time – and plenty of context – required for picking up the game’s new, more technical features.

Separate from corporate contracts are Collared Order Matches, an arena-style series of missions in which players fight one NEXT at a time as they climb through the ranks of increasingly talented fighters.