Old games

[Mathroy]

Are the older AC games coming to Steam?

[628]

Very unlikely but possible
At least the games are free from the license issues unlike the other "AC" franchise

[AC_R4VN]

The State of Play for Sony showed they are putting the first 3 AC titles from PSX (AC1/Project Phantasma/Master of Arena) to PS Plus. Granted this probably a nothing burger, but it could mean that after Sony has become the majority shareholder of Kadokawa/FROM that they might be going around to see what older titles that FROM has and seeing about the situation about the publisher/license ordeal. But again, probably a nothing burger.

[warrior]

CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW TO GET PAST THE FIRST MISSON PLS

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by warrior:

CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW TO GET PAST THE FIRST MISSON PLS

Helicopter is either easy or a bastard depending on how often it shamelessly flies outside the invisible walls.

Your early generator has terrible capacity and your early thrusters have weak melee 'how far you boost extra swinging'. So the popular advice to be 100% aggressive means you will fall short and sputter out of gas in the air.

Instead, once the chopper is at high stagger. Hang back a second to reload, refill your energy, and then get ready to assault boost up to stab it for bonus stagger damage once you get it staggered (unless, again, if flies out of bounds like a jerk).

Anyone defending that is just hiding their trauma from the very old games, where touching a mission border failed the mission and you had to start over entirely.

chopper you CAN get a free hit in as it enters the arena zone before their health bar shows up. Do not get use to this trick, nearly every other non-AC boss is invincible until their health bar is visible, and many of them invincible during their "oh gosh, you got me down to half health!" freak out. up to an including feeding them a still spinning twinblade suddenly no longer doing damage.

If you stick with it. be sure to do all the tutorials because they unlock parts.

of note, every single hand weapon you gain from the tutorials is a real winner MVP "I have S ranked every final boss with more than one of these" grade. Do not underestimate the tiny UZI if you are struggling with a later boss, and pulse guns let you down.

[Blackmage]

Originally posted by warrior:

CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW TO GET PAST THE FIRST MISSON PLS

You should not be bringing this up in someone else's thread regarding a completely different topic. The first thing you should have done is look up older threads about this topic. Failing that, create your own thread,

That said, I'm going to assume the helicopter is what is giving you trouble. This boss fight is about teaching you about using managing distance and energy, and being resourceful.

Your best weapon for this fight is your sword. It's not intuitive, and that's one of the worst parts about this fight. The game also isn't going to teach you about optimal firing range until after this mission - a major error on FROM's part.

Quick boosts, flying, assault boosts, and your energy sword all use energy. It doesn't help the starting generator is ass, and all of your boosts guzzle your energy. This means you need to learn to maximize your attack potential using the fewest resources.
If you try to dodge every attack or assault boost over a long distance, you won't have enough energy to attack with your sword. Stay on the ground and use cover while you wait for the helicopter to get close to you. Then you assault boost from the ground, not mid-air, and strike with your sword. Rinse and repeat.

Your second best weapon is your missiles. They are best used to help build stagger, do not rely on them to deal damage.

Shooting the helicopter with your rifle is a complete waste of time. Its only function in this fight is to keep the helicopter's stagger/posture from dropping. But that's only going to work if you're at a close range - at which point you might as well just attack it with the sword.

[Blackmage]

Originally posted by Mathroy:

Are the older AC games coming to Steam?

When pigs fly.

There are probably some major licensing issues, because Armored Core has had several publishers. And some of the old game publishers don't even exist anymore, like ASCII Corporation / Agetec. Then you also have to consider the matter of convincing the publishers who do own the licensing rights to spend the money to do a re-release. Armored Core is a niche series within the already niche mecha genre. You can easily find some of the old sales data. None of the old games ever broke 250,000 sales within Japan.
In summary, too many mouths, not enough pie.

Find and buy a working PS2 and used copies of the games if you can.
Failing that, use an emulator.

[TrueWOPR]

They'd need to be remade or emulated.

[Citizen of Zozo]

As announced during the latest PlayStation State of Play presentation, all three PS1 Armored Core titles will be coming in 2025, but no release date was confirmed.

[REBirthTheEdge]

Originally posted by Citizen of Zozo:

As announced during the latest PlayStation State of Play presentation, all three PS1 Armored Core titles will be coming in 2025, but no release date was confirmed.

Hopefully this is a sign.

[AC_R4VN]

I got bored and asked Deepseek about the publishers of the old games, here is the answer the AI gave me:

Armored Core Series Publishers

Armored Core (1997)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) (Japan), ASCII Entertainment (North America)

Armored Core: Project Phantasma (1997)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) (Japan), ASCII Entertainment (North America)

Armored Core: Master of Arena (1999)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) (Japan), ASCII Entertainment (North America)

Armored Core 2 (2000)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) (Japan), Agetec (North America), Metro3D (Europe)

Armored Core 2: Another Age (2001)
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) (Japan), Agetec (North America), Metro3D (Europe)

Armored Core 3 (2002)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Agetec (North America), Metro3D (Europe)

Armored Core: Silent Line (2003)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Agetec (North America), Metro3D (Europe)

Armored Core: Nexus (2004)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Agetec (North America), Sega (Europe)

Armored Core: Nine Breaker (2004)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Agetec (North America), 505 GameStreet (Europe)

Armored Core: Last Raven (2005)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Agetec (North America), 505 GameStreet (Europe)

Armored Core 4 (2006)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Sega (North America and Europe)

Armored Core: For Answer (2008)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Ubisoft (North America and Europe)

Armored Core V (2012)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Namco Bandai Games (North America and Europe)

Armored Core: Verdict Day (2013)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Namco Bandai Games (North America and Europe)

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023)
Publisher: FromSoftware (Japan), Bandai Namco Entertainment (Worldwide)

Notes:
FromSoftware is the developer of all Armored Core games.

Publishers varied by region, especially in the early years of the series.

Starting with Armored Core 4, Bandai Namco (or Namco Bandai) became the primary publisher for international releases.

Edit:

I noticed on the bottom that it said Armored 4 is when Bandai Namco took over publishing, so pretty sure there could be some issues with the answer. Cleaned up the text a bit.

[Lukecis]

Probably not but you can emulate them all fairly easily

[Mathroy]

Originally posted by Citizen of Zozo:

As announced during the latest PlayStation State of Play presentation, all three PS1 Armored Core titles will be coming in 2025, but no release date was confirmed.

Exactly! Could mean PC is next... Or is a nothing burger as below mentioned lol...

Originally posted by AC_R4VN:

The State of Play for Sony showed they are putting the first 3 AC titles from PSX (AC1/Project Phantasma/Master of Arena) to PS Plus. Granted this probably a nothing burger, but it could mean that after Sony has become the majority shareholder of Kadokawa/FROM that they might be going around to see what older titles that FROM has and seeing about the situation about the publisher/license ordeal. But again, probably a nothing burger.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by AC_R4VN:

The State of Play for Sony showed they are putting the first 3 AC titles from PSX (AC1/Project Phantasma/Master of Arena) to PS Plus. Granted this probably a nothing burger, but it could mean that after Sony has become the majority shareholder of Kadokawa/FROM that they might be going around to see what older titles that FROM has and seeing about the situation about the publisher/license ordeal. But again, probably a nothing burger.

Sony can't afford Fromsoft.

[AC_R4VN]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by AC_R4VN:

The State of Play for Sony showed they are putting the first 3 AC titles from PSX (AC1/Project Phantasma/Master of Arena) to PS Plus. Granted this probably a nothing burger, but it could mean that after Sony has become the majority shareholder of Kadokawa/FROM that they might be going around to see what older titles that FROM has and seeing about the situation about the publisher/license ordeal. But again, probably a nothing burger.

Sony can't afford Fromsoft.

Believe when I say it: I want to agree with you. But fact is, even with the amount of F-ups Sony and Microsoft have done, they still have unfathomable amounts of money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZdHA5P7CzQ

If Sony didn't do it, MS may have moved in on Kadokawa. Both Sony and MS are terrible, but supposedly Sony will be making moves to go back to their Japanese roots so maybe this will be healthier for Kadokawa/FROMSOFT but it remains to be seen. Let's just hope that FROM's games don't become exclusive to Playstation, because it would suck for Armored Core 6 to be the first and last AC game on PC that didn't require emulation.

[Episodev]

walloftext tldr didnt read yadayada
seeing early ac titles being sold again is nice esp. this fast after kadowawa/fromsoft got brought by sony, and not some mobile-game company or whatever it was that was trying to get the rights of fromsoft, but the fact remains that 4 titles from 2006-2013 are locked behind older consoles which rapidly are deprecating of both old age wear and tear, the only way currently to experience these games is to either be a pirate or buy a ps3/360 and the 4 game discs from third party sellers which does not benefit sony or fromsoft

and considering what everyone wants is just a 1080p 60 fps experience baseline(minimum effort porting) it remains to be seen if fans of Demon's Souls engine engineered mech games made by fromsoft can be seen in modern light

currently the only way legally to play these games is to hope whatever thermal paste was in these old concoles last or find a ytube vid that gives you steps on how to do general service on old consoles so they dont croak and we are not even considering the issues of the disc reader component randomly not being able to do its sole function

now what kind of respect to great games is that, ..if bundled together a 4 games for 1 price remaster collection would sell alot considering Fromsoft has its name on the content.

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another issue is that any new player going into trying to experience these old games also misses out on alot of features and even content that is locked behind multiplayer servers being up also

if you get a ps3/360 and the 4 game discs from third party currently you atleast get a baseline experience with most content able to be experienced, but i will write wall of txt what ps3 psn and xbox 360 store marketplace being shutdown means

with stores on consoles going off all games remain at v1.0, no postlaunch bugfixes and optimization, no avg fps increase or reduced stutter in heavy graphics sorties esp. mp content, no 1v1 matches or players vs sortie/pve content experience- theres a decent chunk of content in the last 2 games that is mp only, i got to play return of motherwill boss fight on ps3 alongside 3 more bosses way back when but you will NOT see this with offline as a new player barring a remaster collection ._.

acv has Type D. No. 5, St. Elmo, Raijin mp only boss fights
ac5vd has LiV, Grey Lotus, 2x Predator 2x Scavenger 2x Hunter(2 of 3 mp only), 2x To-605A 2x To-605S 2x To-605D(1 of 3 mp only), Spirit Class Moving Fortress, Red Exusia mp only boss fights

ac5vd also had MP sorties that was made for multiple players to tackle, some made with challenge in mind for when players would get to the last stage of territory takeover, and some of these maps would be defended by enemy players alongside npcs as support, overall i didnt see alot of this content myself, but i know for a fact that maps that was taken from a singleplayer map Biome was cut to be smaller and rearranged and different npcs was placed on these mp sorties for content that felt unique, point is, acvd with its territory mp game mode had content that would be unique to that game mode

ac4 and ac4fa had small patches with bugfixes and no dlc, but ac4fa had regulation files that came with update that let you choose ac part balance presets meaning ac parts would have different stats based on regulation you choose, in ac5, 5vd, 6 you get 1 regulation that is considered Mp balanced but its crazy that you can choose Balance in ac4fa

ac5 and 5vd there was huge patches, 5 had a 650ishmb compatibility/patch, and 5vd was 1.3ish gb comp/patch, 5vd was the only game that was also option for digital download, had double digit dlcs in store, different garages, different music bgm, more unac stuff etc, garages and bgm is deff nice, id say the 2 best dlc garages is the one where you look down on earths shape from space(ac6 premonition?) and the Painters/Crafters garage that is a mech painters hobby room with ink, brushes and mech statue boxes, in the end EVERYTHING THAT I AM WRITING IS NOT TO BE SEEN/EXPERIENCED, except the v1.0 experience, atleast the first 3 games has most of the content available to be seen in SP but ac5vd is different, its crazy what is locked away in mp, think there even as a mp sortie where a player can take the role of Commander and can send orders from a top down view of the map in a 5v5 , so technically a 6v6 with 2 commanders I DIGRESS.
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