Armored Core: Last Raven - Gameplay

Gameplay

In addition to a graphical update from Armored Core: Nexus, Last Raven's game engine has undergone another significant overhaul. 19 new parts have been added from Armored Core: Nine Breaker; 5 heads, 5 cores, 2 back weapons, 4 right arm weapons and 3 left arm parts. The majority of new parts are remakes of parts from previous PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era Armored Core games.

Some ballistic weapons such as assault rifles and machine guns now have a magazine loaded into the unit, meaning once a certain amount of shots have been fired at once, the weapon must "reloaded" before it can be fired again

Boosters are now affected by a new "Acceleration" stat that affects how quickly your booster is able to reach top speed.This drastically affects booster selection and gives certain boosters previously overlooked new use and meaning.

The Garage section of the game has been streamlined with the menu and assembly system being made faster and easier to navigate.The number of ACs a player has access to in their garage has been increased from 3 to 5 and a physical garage environment and has also been created as the in-game menu screen (Players have been given the option to view their ACs from whatever angle they chose using the analog control sticks while at this screen). Another new addition, is the ability to see how any part change (even ones that have not yet been bought) can affect your AC in every statistic. This has greatly aided in helping a player decisions on AC design.

The 24 hour time line described in the summary is advanced incrementally with each mission the player undertakes.The player is presented with multiple mission choices and the game's storyline will change in relation to the player's choices in the game.There are six endings to the story line because of this.

Actual in-game humans appear for the first time in the Armored Core series (Project Phantasma showed a human in one mission but the player could not interact with him). Humans in the game are minuscule in comparison to an AC and serve to reinforce the scale of an AC which is sometimes lost on players after fighting similarly sized enemy ACs and MTs for the past nine games. The opening video from starting a new game even shows the Raven Zinaida coming out of her AC, Facinator, previously unseen. Before that, players have only gotten a glimpse of the cockpit of an AC in both Armored Core 2 and Armored Core 3. This helps end a long debate of where and how a Pilot controls an AC.

ACs now take physical damage to external parts. If extensive damage is incurred by parts like heads, arms, legs and cores they will become weaker over the course of the game and eventually be destroyed. Destroyed parts cannot be used on an AC and replacement parts need to be purchased from the Shop. Losing an arm will mean the loss of the weapon equipped on it, the loss of a head will mean loss of radar functions and a damaged leg part will hamper the AC's mobility. An AC can continue operating with nearly every part of its anatomy destroyed except its Core. If the Core is destroyed in battle then the AC itself is destroyed and the game is over.

Multiple AC test options are now available in the Garage menu. Players can now chose to face two regular MTs, nine light floating MTs, four automated missile turrets, a single basic AC or no opponent at all. A VR Arena also exists in the game and allows players to face up to 30 opponent ACs in arena combat. Nine of the ACs in the VR Arena are remakes of the ACs that have appeared on the covers of every Armored Core game to date, except Armored Core: Formula Front and the Mobile Phone AC games.

Upon completing the game the player is given access to two additional menu options, "EX Arena" and "Free Mission". The EX Arena is made up of all the Ravens the player fights and kills over the course of the game's story. Playing through the game's storyline multiple times and exploring different story paths will add more Ravens to the EX Arena stable. The Free Mission option is a holdover from previous AC games where all the game's missions are unlocked after the player clears the storyline. In Last Raven's case, only the missions of the particular path the player has cleared are available. Like the EX Arena, multiple play-throughs and exploring the different plots of the game are required in order to completely fill out the Free Mission page.