For those who are confused for what is happening in the intro: think of this as just game showing you what you could build and then with the shot of the cannon at the end saying "Alright kid, let's what YOU can build". The intro might not be as action rich as others, and it doesn't have to be; but for me as a kid it was pretty engaging.
Still an awesome game, for some reason it feels a little inferior compared to the original armored core, original had 50 missions while phantasma had 16.
Project Phantasma was just an expansion to AC1, in those days you couldn't do DLC so they had to release it as an entire new game but its basically just DLC for AC1, it's intended for you to transfer your data further proving that. Master of Arena was also the second expansion to AC1 and why it has very few story missions as well. It wasn't until AC2 Another Age that the games got proper sequels with more missions than original game.
@@tropixx_xlr1549arena made me mald, but that's probably just my skill issue, mostly cuz i just stomped almost all of them with a fast flying bunny hopping laser build. 9ball i only beat because karasawa and extra ammo.
I like how there's all these different mech's they show off and then there's just straight up a tank with flak cannons. Im really hoping that style of treads gets added into AC6 where the torso is placed more towards the front of the tank just to make some semblance of a recreation to this.
The thing about this intro is that it truly showcases the gap that exists between "normals" and "nexts" Normals and MTs are feeling more mechanized, bulky and overall, clunky. But the next is agile, it's movements are fluid and the human-like feature of it's "glare", even if those look nothing like human eyes, somehow tip you off on the fact that the person in that mech is fused to it and not just piloting it like others. What is great about this is that it doesn't tell a story, it shows it instead. But good lord the camera angles are atrocious and confusing... also fore shadowing gameplay I guess!
I think a lot of those angles were meant to simulate the perspective from a human, also this was a time when movies had close ups in fight scenes that were too close at times.
After digging around, I found out that these two ACs exist in the game, but not as characters within Last Raven's story. They're both AI opponents that can be fought in the arena. The bipedal AC is Cascade Range (rank 7) while the quad is supposed to be Scarlet Spider (rank 14) with the only slight change being a rocket launcher as the left back-mounted weapon instead of the laser canon featured in the intro.
I dont think its scarlet spider execatly, thanks to the AI upscaled version I can make out the core amd arms are different from the 14th ranker, the core being Uranus and arms are Macaque, along with the left hand machinegun, missle launcher and linear gun. Then again its not unheard of pilots changing their loadout to suit different needs.
Armored Core IV was really good, but besides the intro, it generally had terrible music. It sounded like the theme to a knockoff of a james bond movie.
In the story they didn't want to contaminate the launch pad area by fighting there with the primal armor (Force shield on the mech), so they launched the mech on an intercept course to fight mother of will (the walking fortress) further away. It was a first attempt that turned out to be unsuccessful. In the game you get to do a mission to take it down for good in the desert.
Not a word of dialog or narration and it perfectly conveys what the world and the Ravens have descended into after the end of Nexus. Before the fight might have ended after the quad leg AC was thrown through the building, now it ends in a merciless execution.
2:29 - Is that the AC4 intro cinematic's area? I feel like that's the building that got shot up in the last intro. - I guess it doesn't exist anymore now..