Recent reviews by Bau Down

the devs are amazingly tone deaf to the actual balance problems in the game (like nonstop terminid spawn rates, or fire tornadoes making extraction literally impossible), but the instant something becomes slightly viable for players the nerf hammer comes down immediately and makes sure to make it completely useless.

the devs literally cannot stop themselves from making the game worse with every update.

easily the best game series CC2 has ever made, and shows that they can make something absolutely amazing when they're not just copy-pasting existing IPs into the same 3d fighting game over and over.
.hack// is my favorite series of all time, and i've probably clocked over 1000 hours on the ps2 games doing multiple playthroughs and 100%ing them. now i really hope they eventually decide to fully remake the original 4, preferably with better combat.

I went into this wanting to like it, trying all kinds of different things and thinking maybe I'm doing something wrong since I haven't played AC in years, but like other people who have played the previous AC games have said, this isn't Armored Core. This is what could have been an Armored Core game ruined by terrible decisions to cater to From's braindead Souls fans. It's painfully obvious that 90% of the positive reviews haven't played an AC game before and are from that group of monkeys who will spam "git gud" and other Souls memes while fellating anything that has janky, artificial difficulty.

It's over, the dream is dead, FA (or VD if you prefer slower gameplay) was the last true Armored Core game, and from now on we'll get Armored Souls (if they keep making them) because of the same people that ruin everything.

From another review, comparing this to true Armored Core games:

Originally posted by Dusty Mayalith:

If you're expecting classic armored core stuff; only a little bit of that is here.
There's no more radar.
There's no more AMS.
There's no more Map.
Tutorials come AFTER missions; usually when you've already had to figure it out.
You can't sell the starting equipment.
A LOT of equipment is given for tutorial completion.
There doesn't seem to be any cost to failing a mission? Makes itemized profits seem trivial or grind inducing?
Energy weapons still have ammo costs.
Targeting seems too be much MUCH shorter range now. (Seems to be based on head scan range?, not sure)
FCS lists long range at 260 now. This seems bonkers to me.
The generators only function when not using power (can't make energy neutral builds anymore).
Blades, Shields and other items are once again limited to specific arms or slots.
Stagger is now a buildup bar for critical hits instead of impact ratio of bullet vs body mass.
There's magic repair kits you can use at any time.
Fights are much MUCH more dodge dependent (health jumps up and down like crazy).
There's checkpoints with assembly screen option; So you're kinda building per fight instead of per mission.
Explosive damage is now it's own type instead of aoe Kinetic.
Swords are now gigantic, with long 'reloads', and so strong they feel almost necessary.
There's a OS upgrade system that's straight RPG like. it's perma stat boosts.
Expect MAJOR shifts in enemy difficulty. You're no longer planning a mission for a tons of varied targets; it's a bunch of paper chainsaws with a crazy boss at the end. Project Phantasma (considered one of the worst AC games) stuff.

And the thing is, on its own I wouldn't consider it a terrible game. Not a good one, but not bad. But they labeled it an Armored Core game, which puts it up there with Project Phantasma and V for being the worst in the series.

this just further convinced me that the devs don't play their own game
only good things in this dlc are the trash panda (and she gets boring really fast) and the brick

and i feel like the brick is what they were capitalizing on because 90% of the reviews are "hehe brick so random so op xdd" from reddit manchildren

cease.

best game from humongous

i didn't even pay for this and i feel scammed just knowing that someone did for me.

it looks complicated on the surface with all the things you have to do, but then you start to think it's pretty simple when you realize you can get most things done real quick with upgrades, and then you realize it's complicated again because you'll be at 99% done and can't find the part you're missing, but in a good way that's not overly complicated because then you learn you can see exactly what part isn't done by looking at your pad.
it's a good game with a lot of content if you really like WWII era ground vehicles, and the devs seem to constantly be working on new content for the game. definitely worth the price even if you only play it every once in a while to relax.

bad port of a bad game, if you want pc monster hunter stick with world.

the ui is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and tells you absolutely nothing, i ended up blowing up my whole field when all i wanted to do was equip something to my monster.
they also went really hard into the whole gacha thing, which, while it worked out well with the old DS and PSP games, only worked out because you got plenty of money in those games to spend on packs. in this one after a certain point you'll have a hard time getting points to get new cards without putting money in. if i wanted to spend money on cards, i'd spend it on ACTUAL, physical, cards.
i'll stick to ygopro, thanks. keep up the good job ruining the game i used to love konami.