FA Discussion

[Black_Flame]

An AK47... that's pretty sad.... even i could think of something better

[maitreya]

I just can't help it but imagine Jehuty popping out in FA, or Jehuty take the place of an AC in FA, or an AC take on Jehuty. Those are ZOE level bad guys/bosses out there in the videos.

FA comes out in March 19, 2008.

[Black_Flame]

When do you think it'll come out in US?

[maitreya]

March 19, 2008 = Release of FA in Japan

We should be hearing feedbacks soon.

EDIT: I watched the video on the main site where a player takes on an arms fort. That big thing (Spirit of Mother Will) sured looked fragile against the AC (and the same big thing sure had weird weak points).

EDIT: Ok, I think I got what the AC was doing -- taking out the missile launchers when they open up, thus effectively blowing up the missile stores from the inside.

[Grim]

Gameplay vid.

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Very Shadow of the Colossus-like nga.

[Goat]

Whoa! What a big fucking monster. XS

[Black_Flame]

Wow.. more explosions. I really like. The fortress had more bad guys than what was in the video game.

[Lord_Leperman]

Famitsu Magazine rates AC:4A with a 29 (AC4 got a 31, same with AC:SL). In comparison, AC:LR, and AC:NB received similar scores from the acclaimed magazine with 29 points, while AC:NX still holds the highest rated AC game in current memory with 32 points.

Source: http://fs.finalfantasytr.com/companies.asp?cid=11

Total archive of Famitsu scores: http://fs.finalfantasytr.com/

[Black_Flame]

so not all that great? or.. great.. just not up there great?

[cabs]

White Glint in action

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[Grim]

for Answer fun!

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[maitreya]

So, any news on game balance? Is the game any good for vs. human matches?

Super-post!

EDIT: Looks like FA got good stuff

Taken from ACG:

Lots and lots of updates at ACO for those of you who haven't/can't check them out.
I take no credit for this information, I only bring it here.

exactly how does assault armor work? can any ac at least make a basic blast? or do you have to have specific weapons?

Some OB boosters have the AA function, so anyone equiped with those boosters can use it. In exchange the OB stats are lower compared to regular OB boosters though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AiK-qf1nREs
VS. Stigro


Heavy Core SOLDNER
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...reACFA.jpg
Heavy RJ SOLDNER
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...rjlegs.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3StUrQmAw
Using the White Glint


Laser Rifle ER-R500
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...leacfa.jpg

Back Gatling CG-R500
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...unacfa.jpg

White Glint
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...ntACFA.jpg

Blind Bold
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...edACFA.jpg

Other ACs I cannot name.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...ACFA-1.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...nkACFA.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...nkACFA.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...erACFA.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...beACFA.jpg



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhraWziBP...re=related
Vs GA water fort

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r3jGMsR868&feature=user
rematch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJHg6azZW_k&feature=user
Vs the Great Wall:


Biggest cannon in any AC game thus far. I THINK its a Grenade Cannon.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...onACFA.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsapjuE9jz8
White Glint VS. Spirit of Mother Will (Also looks like they changed the spelling of AALIYAH back. Good, cause I liked it that way)


Reports that you can no longer shoot down missiles. And, that missile tracking has been increased to problematic levels. This will probably be brought down soon.


Kojima Cannon ARSENIKON
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...onACFA.jpg

Kojima Missile BISMUTH
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...leACFA.jpg

Kojima Weapon Arms ARGYROS/XA
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...WAACFA.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgWeEw8-Dd0
ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWAH! Some Heavy/mid getting owned and showing off respawning. Also, another back-mounted gatling which is TERRIBLE. I mean, the bullets are moving at like, AC3 speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvAqckqaeK0
Some very fast blading action



Some new AC using mostly LINSTANT parts and some crazy new extensions.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...elACFA.jpg

Dual HI-Laser Cannon HLC09-ACRUX
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/t...uxACFA.jpg



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg4L8dMuE7w
You and the #1 ranker VS. White Glint. Complete with Gundam 00 soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-kHvAfFlHQ
Same mission on Hard Mode. This time its you and White Glint against the #1 ranker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvRMZyyoq...re=related
Neo-PEGASUS


Reports on for Answer Multiplayer Maps

To start things off, we all know that Armored Core 4's multiplay map selection was very depressing. Sure it had some novelty maps like the underground factory with tunnels and high cylindrical rooms. But with maps like desert and the virtual arenas, featuring vast open areas with no coverage. Sure big maps are awesome no doubt. But with no altitude cover or just plain cover, they were pretty boring and subject to lame long range hassles.

With the advent of Armored Core For Answer, From Software has listened to its fans' complains and has improved upon its versus maps quite a bit. This topic will provide commentary on the most interesting of the new featured vs maps, following a series of links showing pics of the maps while in battle. Pictures provided by Azure Knight.

I guess you should always save the best for the last, but this map cries out for attention. Why not show it first?
Line Ark is perhaps the best multiplayer map in the game. It is almost as big as the desert in AC4. While the desert was 10,000 by 10,000 in dimensions, this is 10,000 by 7,000. This is a water map, it features a vast area of numerous tall, destructable buildings that poke out from the watery surface of the stage. Stretching from end to end, bisecting the map through the center, is the large elevated highway structure, Line Ark. This structure is massive, and I mean massive. As a whole it isn't destructable, but some various platforms within it are. It has multilevels, all of which are above the ocean surface to some extent. On the very top of this structure are two massive towers on either end. These provide great sniping points as they're the highest places in the map, and can easily outlook the whole map no problem. This is THE map in ACFA.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164642
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164617
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164843
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164750
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164674
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206164797


Spirit of Mother Will is centered around the game's opening movie Arms Fort. This massive quad Arms Fort provides one great obstacle course to dance around. Lots of nooks and crannies to play hide and seek while applying strategy to your game. Or if you want an all out fight the perimeter and all of the ground features a vast desert. This is a smaller map (4000 x 4000) compared to Lines Ark, but still fun nonetheless.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165260
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165497
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165476
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165452
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165392
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165288
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165314
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165341
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206165364
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QHBSr9Rgl9w

Azure must really like this map as he had lots of pics of it. I'll see if he can get a quick pic of the top of the Line Ark later.


Shang-Hai is pretty much a collapsed city but underwater, with only the tops of the buildings visible. Again every structure is destructable. This is one of the bigger maps, 12,000 by 6000 or so if I remember right. This is perhaps a collapsed city replacer as the new collapsed city has been butchered pretty badly.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166395
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166488
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166356
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166322
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166293
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166255
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206166221
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CrCPSSuNfhM

Polluted Area N51 can be thought of as a newer rendition of the famous military district map from AC3-LR. This is relatively a small map, but still rather large. It is around the same size is collapsed city from AC4. It features a first for next generation Armored Core - blizzards.
Yes, this is a newer military district with a snow storm all around, making it hard to see aerial opponents if they get submerged in the snow cloud. All of the buildings are destructable.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206167460
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206167397
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206167497
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206220998
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206220937
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206220970
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksdnavtmr6Y


Big Box can be thought of as a massive version of Open Arena in Last Raven. This massive map takes place in a night setting, and it's composed of one huge floating box in the middle with 6 smaller floating boxes around the edges I think. The gap from edge buildings to central building is pretty massive. The central building has the same open feeling as open arena, but it has some nooks and crannies for cover play, as well as some subtle elevation differences.
Overall a good map.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206221107
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206221025
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206221046


Cradle is the game's biggest map, and when I say big I mean big. It far exceeds the sizes of any other map in the game, by a large scale. This map has the dimensions of around 24,000 by 17,000 by 10,000 I think. The map takes place on a series of massive high altitude carriers. There are 4 carriers in all, 2 above and 2 below. Each carrier consists of two main levels, with 4 wings. There are also some destructable cover and panels on the planes as well. The gap between each plane is HUGE. You pretty much have to be recovering energy while flying to have an assured way of getting from plane to plane, unless you spend minutes fighting your energy.
This is probably most likely a novelty map, but it can surely be played like a real, competitive, vs map for large BRs or TMs.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294994
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294954
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294926
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294903


Highway Junction is a smaller map, maybe one of the smallest maps in the game; but still rather large (2800 by 2800). In its center it features a huge highway cloverleaf junction, all of which, is destructable. Around the edges and corners is plain desert, so this map features a nice balance of heavy cover play and open play. All the pillars are very close together so this map can be nice for a cover game.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294724
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294760
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294798
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294869
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206294842

Parabolic Grove was one of the two maps in AC4 to use for online. It hasn't changed much in ACFA, the placement of everything is pretty much the same. However, they added a different lighting to it and added some wind kicking up sand. The new lighting makes this map look way smaller, and I mean way smaller. But in reality it's the same size.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297740
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297811
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297866
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297843

Old Peace City is assumed to be the ACFA version of Collapsed City. In my opinion they horribly butchered it. It doesn't mean that this map isn't playable tho, because it most certainly is. AC4's collapsed city featured realistic lighting and textures, with buildings spread out through the map. There was a big mass of buildings on one side, and a couple smaller buildings on the other side. There was also one lone building a bit off to the smaller grouping, and a small grouping of buildings in one of the southern corners of the map. ACFA's Old Peace City has basically the same lighting as AC4's desert map, only with a big grouping of buildings on one side of the map. However the other 2/3s of the map is all open space. However the two good things with the advent of this map are: destructable cover and buildings that line the very edge of the map. So no retreating to the edges for open ranged play like in AC4. However the fact that 1/2 to 2/3s of this map is open with no cover uneases me.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297953
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297927
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297899
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206297982
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/nikedr...ng?t=1206298007

Check out the vids, like the blading vid.

Actually, check the blading vid.

[strawhat_luffy]

yeah...I WANT THAT BLADING AC >_>

seriously. that looked soooo awesome. imagine that with dual blades and White Glint's OB.

[PhAYSe]

R.Leonhardt has offcially finished Armored Core: For Answer 100%. Rank-S'd all missions in Normal and Hard modes, beat all Collared and Orca ranks, finished all 4 endings and completed all the FRS (points used to tune the AC).

I only finished 1 ending, when you team up with the NEXT Reiter Pallasch (LINX is Wynne D. Fanchon [or Windy, as I like to call her]) to take on Orca members ShinKai and the new NEXT of Maximillian Thermidore (not sure about his name or spelling. All I know is that it looks like Supplice of AC4).

First off, some minor stuff. You can now change the color of your cockpit, much like the PS2 AC games. Now, you can also change the way your radar looks, from the standard and more detailed AC4-style radar, to the classic radar style from the PS1 games (with the colored triangles that indicate altitude)

About Assault Armor: As explained in the post above, Assault Armor, or AA, can be achieved by equipping an AA-capable overbooster. The AA-capable ones have slightly lower OB power compared to pure OB ones, but make up for it with AA's extreme damage. Each AA-capable overbooster has different AA power. However, AA is not without a drawback. Upon using AA, your Primal Armor is depleted and it takes longer for it to recover. On the plus side, every NEXT near the blast also gets their PA depleted whether it gets hit or not (normal PA recovery in their case). This actually opens up new tactics to be used by solid-round users, force-depleting the opponent's PA, then pummeling them with rifles and machine/gatling guns. With the basic overbooster KRB-Pallas, I was able to do 25,000+ damage to a middleweight NEXT in 1 blast. You can activate AA by holdling down both change weapon buttons and pressing the overboost button, exactly the same command style as dropping your weapons. There is a shoulder weapon classified as an Assault Amplifier which increases the range, or rather, the blast radius of AA. For those that know the mech Cybuster, think of it as Cyflash.

There are some seriously cheap weapons, such as the missles used by the new White Glint from the intro movie. While they are slow, their speed is redeemed by their tracking ability and the fact that the smaller missles that launch from within also have their own tracking. Very, VERY powerful with NO lock time (at least in Regulations 1.00). As of now, its basically "point and fire, no need to aim". Remember its name: SALINE05. Last I saw, it did 16,000++ worth of damage to a NEXT that lost its Primal Armor from the previously launched missles and dual-rifle shots.

That large cannon is definitely a Grenade Cannon. While extremely heavy (4000+ wgt) and taking up both back weapon spaces, it is extremely accurate and has the highest attack power among all the grenade cannons. According to R.Leonhardt, some people actually use this as their primary weapon in place of the normal weapons. And while we're at it, there is a Grenade Cannon that's actually LIGHTER THAN A RIFLE without missing out on power! 1000+ weight with 18 ammo, lightweight DUAL grenade cannon users are now a reality.

Oh, and the "Finger" is back in the form of back-mounted quad-barreled Chain Guns. They're the default weapons used by the Linx named CUBE and his NEXT, Fragile. Fragile is as its name implies, with only 17,000+ AP (practically the lowest I've seen), but makes up for it with its extreme speed.

You can actually meet with your old character in AC4. I won't spoil the details, but I can tell you, he's a monster of an opponent. You actually have an ally in that mission, but its still extremely difficult (took me 4 tries). He's definitely going on my hardest NEXTs list.

Feel free to ask me or R.Leonhardt about the details for Armored Core: For Answer (I get my info from him, by the way).

PS: For those who know the mech Alteisen, it is now a reality with single-point blade Kiku and the arm-mounted gatling gun and the proper spread missles.

[Grim]

First off, some minor stuff. You can now change the color of your cockpit, much like the PS2 AC games. Now, you can also change the way your radar looks, from the standard and more detailed AC4-style radar, to the classic radar style from the PS1 games (with the colored triangles that indicate altitude)

That's a nice touch. Personally the AC4 radar system confuses me.

There are some seriously cheap weapons... Remember its name: SALINE05. Last I saw, it did 16,000++ worth of damage to a NEXT that lost its Primal Armor from the previously launched missles and dual-rifle shots.

Insta-ban? Haha. I think I've seen this used in one of the vids in maitreya's post above? If that's the one, then it definitely makes things too easy.

Lots and lots of updates at ACO for those of you who haven't/can't check them out.
I take no credit for this information, I only bring it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-kHvAfFlHQ
Same mission on Hard Mode. This time its you and White Glint against the #1 ranker.

Argh, I want a PS3. >_<