At least I hope so anyway… cough, cough.

 

 

 

 

I warn people sometimes about the dangers of getting me started on Armored Core.  Possibly the hardest thing for me to not ramble on forever about is when someone actually gets interested in what I’m talking about and asks what game is the best to begin with- I mean in all honesty, most games I love to death are kind of niche, and I don’t want to turn someone off to the series on the whole by suggesting wrong. So that usually segues into a lengthy diatribe about which installment does what best, since AC (mostly) reboots itself with each numbered installment then follows it with direct sequels in the same timeline, so “Just start from the first one” isn’t the best advice.

Anyway, after digging out my collection to take a picture for a stupid Tumblr project, I got to looking at my copy of Nexus again, and even though the game itself isn’t my favorite, I love what they did with its release.

In addition to the ‘real’ game, Nexus also includes a bonus disc containing remade classic missions from earlier games with more unlockable parts. And if that wasn’t enough, the bonus disc also offers alternate versions of missions, playing for the opposing force from the original, or in a harder setting.

The crazy thing is it seems to have been just thrown together “just because.” It doesn’t seem to be tied to an anniversary event or anything. It wasn’t the first game on the PS2 by a long shot, and it doesn’t advertise itself on the packaging as anything other than a chance to relive classic (mostly PS1 era) Armored Core-ness in their newly overhauled engine.

Wouldn’t it be great if more series could take a hint like this? Sure, we get HD Remaster collections sometimes, but that’s not exactly the same thing as being handed a bonus disc of pure fan service as thanks for picking up the new installment.