Hello Again!

Last time we delved into the sweet, robot ant infested awesomeness of Gen 1, but where does a series go when they’ve already ended the world and killed off their antagonists?

To Space, of course!

Welcome to 2nd Generation Armored Core, this time consisting of 2 games, AC2 and Another Age. Unlike last time, however, these are actually more of a mainline entry and an expansion disc of sorts.

Turning up the HEAT

Aside from the new, undeniable hotness of the new AC designs, 2nd generation brought with it a new pressure mechanic, something which was hardly in place in 1st gen.

Now what do I mean by a pressure mechanic?

This comes up a fair bit, but Armored Core actually uses a lot of mechanics that are used in fighting games, and generally runs off of a similar premise, albeit with customize-able parts. By choosing Your parts, You are picking Your moves, engagement ranges, defenses, etc. Of course, many will still pick what they pick for looks, but the point remains. A mechanic is needed to allow one opponent to get an upper hand over the other if they get too good of an opening, something that would cause both opponents to have to worry about being suddenly overwhelmed, instead of just playing a numbers game with basic damage numbers in a slugging match.

The heat bar was their first attempt at making this happen, a simple idea that upon taking enough damage, You would overheat and start bleeding AP every second until Your radiator could recover Your systems to normal condition. In many ways, this was similar to what later became the Poison mechanic in Dark Souls, but used with every weapon, instead of being a background feature. Fittingly enough, this also saw the addition of energy shields, which helped to block both damage and heat.

What else was new?

Along with this new mechanic came the necessity of introducing the Radiator part category, which controlled how much heat You could withstand, as well as how fast or effectively You could recover from it.

Inside parts also started here, being a small subset of gadgets and trick weapons that You could store in Your shoulders (not to be confused with Extensions, stored on the outside of the shoulders). These forever changed the game when it came to missiles, as instead of just dodging, You could use decoys to avoid them entirely. You could also use this slot for bombs and mines, but it became better and better as the series went on.

Another awesome game changer came in the form of Extensions, and all the opportunities they brought with them. As with Insides, though these parts expended to some pretty nuts places down the road, for now, they are functioning the role of a passive anti-missile, retreat boosters to evade blades, a drop booster (For instantly grounding Yourself, probably voids Your warranty), and relation missiles, allowing You to use that slot for giving Your missiles that extra bit of oomph to beat down Your opponent.

Lastly, we have yet another awesome game changer in the form of OVERBOOST! THis allowed You to counter the new heat mechanic by burning a ton of extra energy to move at more than double your normal speed for a short period of time.

This could actually be taken up to 11 if You unlock use the Limiter Release function (L1, R1, L2, R2, R3 at once), a feature which…sadly never came back in the series. Depending on Your core’s limiter value, You could get 20-35 seconds of infinite energy, for boosting around and raining lasers down on everything, at least….until Your OB Down state starts, leaving You completely drained for 50-80 seconds.

Presumably, if they had left this feature in, most PvP fights would have broken down to 30 seconds or less plasma beam matches and nothing else. Oh well, we never got to see it again (Though other versions, like energy extenders in 3rd gen or the right settings in 4th and 5th did try).

But what ever happened to those sweet robot ants?

I’m glad You asked, because now it’s time to talk story!

Minor spoilers for what is basically a single email in Master of Arena, but the original trio ends with the main character getting revenge against the Nineball AI, and killing him off for good, earning the title of Ninebreaker.

Well, You are now another nameless chucklebucket in space, trying to earn an expensive buck in your odd looking stuffed bear of an AC

You are given a basic AC, and told the same old instructions they always love to start with. “If You succeed, you will become registered as a Raven. If You fail…You die.”

But wait, upon joining, something shocking and new happens. It…must be a mistake, someone actually made continuity happen? Yes, sure enough, there’s Leos Klein…the Ninebreaker. The guy who ran from earth after being too awesome to not be in space. The old You.

Hell, this also marks the first time a title AC actually almost made it into the story of the dang game. He uses a blade instead of a shield, a grenade cannon instead of a laser rifle, and different shoulder parts, but dang if this didn’t make people take a second look back in the day.

At any rate, I suppose I should explain what any of this has to do with giant android ant monstrosities. Well, in a very odd bit of continuity, the big bad of this game realized that they were far scarier than any of the super weapons or rogue AIs of the originals, and brought them along…to SPAAAAACE!

Interestingly, despite most of them just being ant looking things, some transform into Mech Warriors. It’s an odd species.

Moving along, though, 2nd generation was actually unique for the series in that it actually didn’t really make much effort to tie it’s to games together continuity wise. The story wrapped up in 2, and Another Age was…seemingly a collection of bonus levels, which could be played as opposing sides sometimes. Aside from a few returning arena opponents and some background corporations, AA was just a very effective expansion set. It was there for those who wanted more 2nd gen, wanted more challenge, more returning bosses (Interestingly these boss remakes reminded me of every time there’s a DLC capture for a Pokemon game)

Actually, it was far from unheard of for people to be quite confused what Another Age was even about, since it’s a series of seemingly unrelated events, boss fights multi-AC battles, and then just a random fight with someone they never even introduced yet.

At any rate, a bit of a personal story…

2nd generation was the first of the series that actually got me hooked. Even though my brother and I played the hell out of the AC1 demo, and later borrowed it, we never even knew of the series as a whole yet.

However, there was one awesome day where he ran into my room, giddy and excited, because he just got ahold of a new Armored Core, we could go bash our robots together once again!

We traded off constantly…by which I mean I constantly jacked up his save file (Sorry man, those plasma cannons’ drain had me paranoid, I need my 1000MG). We went back and forth, bickering over builds, but ultimately had a blast running AC2 over and over again, finally getting all of the parts and getting a 100% down the road.

When he moved out later, he left me AC2, and it started my long running trend of running these games over and over again under different challenges. Starter AC, blade and pistol, weapon arms only, rockets, blades only, etc, it was my JAM.

Years down the road, I found Another Age for rent at a nearby Hollywood Video, and man did it confuse me. My beloved arena was gone, many of the story ACs cheated, and on top of that, the missions were comparatively unforgiving. I returned it disappointed.

About 1 decade later, however, I picked it up again, and You know, Another Age is an absolutely fantastic post game bonus disc for AC2. Although I prefer the full featured sequels, like what the rest of the series did, this was still a novel way to approach the idea of picking up the cutting room floor, and making a fun fan game out of it.

Second generation is an absolute gem of a thing, and more than worth Your time. If You have a love of mechs, action games, fighting games, flying games, or just love seeing mechs that don’t try to use medieval weaponry all of the time, this might well be Your cup of tea.

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Have an awesome one, and see You next time for GEN 3 (Insert angelic choirs here)