Why are Ravens so scarce outside Japan?

[viper]

In connection to the blandness of the story is the seemingly shallow characters, which I feel should be the cornerstone of a good plot for a game. You have only faceless opponents throughout the whole franchise even when their descriptions (at least for plot characters appearing in the in-game arena) do slightly flesh out their personalities (Royal Myst in particular from AC3 had some nice though shallow personality buildup through the Email exchange in the game), they still pale in comparison to iconic game characters like Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series. The only exception to this would probably be Nineball (the AC itself, not even the pilot Hustler One) which has become the only iconic character in the whole series which people can easily identify with Armored Core.

I disagree, because I almost only play the single player missions and arenas. I play with friends in arenas sometimes, but I don't have a hookup for my PS2 to go online. If you want more story content, go to the Front Mission series. That game stories you to death. I keep pressing the button because I can't wait to get to the combat! I do think that they could come up with better missions. And yes, after a while the missions do seem to be like other missions in previous games. Especially if you own more than one title. I don't know why more people on this side of the world don't get into AC games. I think it is a great series that has great replay value. I have gotten my AC2 game out and played it again recently. And about a month ago, I was bored and got the original out and played some missions with my very first mech-Viper