Armored Core: Last Raven Portable (PSP)
From: From Software
The Short Version: A chilling look at economic development and its impact on endangered species.
The Long Version: Not that at all.
Armored Core is a series known for its fast paced battles between almost fully customizable mechs, bleak, post-apocalyptic scenarios where megacorporations rule all, and needlessly elaborate control schemes. Last Raven, a spinoff/sequel to Armored Core 3, is no such exception. Let me get the good out of the way early here: I love this game’s scenario. The Companies are on the ropes and forced to join forces as Alliance to survive and remain an appropriately dickish level of bureaucratic power. The remnants of the mercenary group Raven’s Ark, devastated by the release of ‘unmanned suicide weapons’, are mainly in the employ of independent warlords while a handful band around the old ‘guildmaster,’ Jack-O.
Anyway, things get worse. Jack-O founds the anti-corporate group Vertex and starts staging raids on the Alliance. Alliance puts a bounty on any Raven (pilots) working for Vertex. In retaliation, Jack-O puts a price on the head of any Ravens who aid Alliance and declares all out war. In short, basically we have a cadre of free agents, all with prices on their heads, fighting amongst themselves, while the clock ticks down to Vertex’s final assault on the city. I love the ‘deadline’ gimmick in games like this and Devil Survivor. It kind of makes shooting for all the alternate endings less of a chore. Each mission ticks a set amount of time off the clock, and when you hit zero hour, the final battle begins and whichever side you took the most missions for determines whose side you’ll be on. Customization as always is pretty addictive. My current AC is painted up like Optimus Prime.
Fuck you, I’m reviewing an obscure game about giant robots. I can get as nerdy as I want.
Anyway, that’s the good. The rest you might call a case of “good idea, bad execution.” In going from console to portable, there are bound to be some sacrifices. Like say, an entire analog stick and two buttons. For a game that basically used all the buttons to start with. So the end result is:
Analog Nub- back/forward movement, look left/right
D-Pad- down for left arm weapon, left for Overboost, right to swap weapons, up for extension parts
L+R- strafe left/right
Square- Fire right arm weapon
X-boost/jump
Triangle+Circle- Look up/down
As you can imagine that… takes getting used to. You’ll probably get your ass handed to you a fair number of times in missions that would probably be easy if you were on a normal PS2 controller. Incidentally, all the info GameFAQs has to offer on the game assumes you do have the console version, and routinely refer to missions as an “easy S-rank,” while I refer to the same one as “OH HOLY JESUS LASER RAPE FROM ALL ANGLES.”
Just to be extra sadistic, even when you die, the game lets you control your doomed robot for another three seconds or so, THEN you explode. Then presumably some unseen person laughs their ass off at you.
Really, I want to go on more about this game, but there’s just not that much to elaborate on if you’ve played an Armored Core or Mechwarrior game ever. The mission briefings add some salient detail, but most of the time, the short of it is you’re being paid to:
- Destroy all enemies in a given area
- Defend a ship, building, or hold an allied force’s place in line waiting for tickets to Wicked
- Destroy all enemies within a time limit
- Destroy all enemies with a hat on
- Destroy all enemies, then more enemies appear
- Destroy one or two really hard enemies
- Keep stirring the sauce, watch for the helicopters
It’s just like LR has all the elements for a pretty good… one of these kind of games, then forces you to play it through boxing gloves on. I’d probably reccomend hunting down a PS2 copy of it over the PSP version, even if the latter is readily available as a download. Or you could just go download Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries. It’s free now. Nobody’ll stop you.