I like the headcannon that Strayed is just an insane person destroying everything in it's way. He does the first and second endings because someone told him to do so, and he doesn't care as he is still just destroying. While the final ending is him completely loose, having been victorious against a squadron of top pilots, nothing else is too much for him, and might as well just destroy the rest of humanity while at it. The song Scorcher, which plays at the first and last mission, and which the composer said is the theme of the Strayed, compliments this idea, as the song lyrics are: "I got a chrome head, hound it pound it, I got steel arms, turn it break it." Which for me just sounds like a madman taunting everything in it's path to try and stop him.
While it is easy to see Strayed as a mad man that wants to destroy everything, I think this is quite wrong due to the Destruction ending requiring being in ORCA which itself requires defending Line Ark with White Glint, a noble act which someone as insane as Strayed just wouldn't do from my point of view and judging by the info from the art books where it says that Megalis is still standing means that Strayed didn't finish off Line Ark's last lifeline. This all may mean that Strayed in the Destruction path may be a more of a radical extremist that wanted to do good, but has jus snapped
@@Noname-zq1rt I guess a better wording on my part would be that then, for most of the game he wants to go as further as he can, challenge the highest rated pilots and fight the worst battles. In that sense, while fighting White Glint would be a challenge, maybe he also saw fighting alongside it against armies of the best on a losing battle to be a even better challenge. Though yeah I agree that he probably wasn't that mad of a person through the whole story, and even had some nice ideals going at some point, but slowly but surely snapped into this mindset.
@@briansilva3765 Hm, the idea of Strayed joining the rebels like Line Ark and ORCA just to fight everyone in the Collared and The League does seem plausible, so I guess this all just depends on how the player wants to see Strayed as
@@briansilva3765I think Strayed was enraged by the evils of the corporations and decided to fight them directly, making them the true embodiment of ORCA's cause. How did it result in going along with Old King? They'd felt that the system was beyond saving, going along with ORCA's plan just means it'll be repeated elsewhere, elsewhen, it needed to be torn asunder and that starts with cleansing the world of the corporations.
Me personally I play the destruction ending as follows: Strayed joins Orca after defending Line Ark, still idealistic about fixing up the planet and disgusted with the way the Cradles basically put their fingers in their ears about the consequences. They are completely devoted to the closed plan, only then they find out Omer Science Technology is behind Orca's rise. They find out their fellow revolutionaries are sent out on suicide missions too late to stop them dying. The destruction of cradle 03 is not a random act of terror. When Otsdarva accuses him of being just an animal, he bites back with the following. "Oh I understand just fine Otsdarva. In fact, let me share some understanding I recently came by. Omer Science was behind the rise of ORCA. This whole war was just a game to them, and the people on the surface just disposable pawns on a chessboard. We just flipped the table. Did you really think that we threw darts at a dartboard when we selected Cradle 03 as a target? That was the home of Omer Science, where all their top brass lived in luxury. We timed it so we bagged the CEO of Algebra at the same time as a nice bonus. They thought themselves above all the suffering they caused on the surface. No more. Once your filthy system is razed to the ground, we'll finish your Closed Plan and claim the heavens for our own, without you parasites."
There really is no other game analysis channel since Matthewmatosis that makes me feel like the creator actually has knowledge and insight to share with us about the games they talk about and the logic behind the decisions made when creating them. RU-vid is overflowing with hour long video game essays where narrators just give the same boring, surface level content and describe what happens. Aesir actually has something to say and thinks carefully about how he wants to say it. These videos may look superficially like other game analyses, but they really are in a league of their own.
Probably my proudest moment in all of gaming was when I finished the genocide ending with my blade core. The last fight took forever. After they ran out of ammo it was just me chasing them for like 15mins smacking them with Moonlights.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised you haven't touched on the music of For Answer at all. Yes - all ACs have bangers, but For Answer is just something else altogether. Feels like a missed opportunity to not get into just how *good* Someone is Always Moving in the Surface is, Or Cosmos, or Scorcher - and so on. The way the soundtrack swaps along from melodic, angelic choirs to darker tracks like Scorcher is absoluetly peak. I've still got the game on my old PS3 - and I've replayed it a few months ago. Just hearing the title screen theme after so long made my hairs stand on end.
This is probably one of the most depressing games I've ever played. Old King counting "20 million... 40 million..." is something no other game even attempted, ever. Not only that, but the whole concept of having absolutely no hope whatsoever in 2 of the 3 endings with only a tiny little fraction of a percentage hope in the third is just... dark. Whoever came up with this story did an excellent job. EDIT: Also, screw Otzdarva. All my homies hate Otzdarva.
Finally! Been with this series for some time, haven't been able to get AC6 yet and I'd honestly love to play the old games too. Absolutely love these videos, I am working on a commentary on Dishonored inspired by you, mathewmatosis and Vangeris and it is mindblowing how much time and effort it takes to produce this stuff, thanks for the inspiration and the great content! Gonna keep watching!
Good work once again! On topic of lagging: I played the ‚inferior’ PS3-version recently. And the slowdown wasn’t that bad against most Armored Forts. Except for the Answerer. The Answerer was near unplayable st times. But good little league loyalists don’t deal with THAT headache to begin with 😇😇😇
I'm pretty certain that its entirely due to some of the plasma cannons. The mission with answerer, and the mission where Wong Shao Lung shows up are the worst. Both involve a lot of energy weapon spam.
Not going to lie, I've been waiting for this retrospective since you started with ac1, as this is the only one I've played personally. Just gonna sit back, grab some popcorn and delve into another great video from some aesthetically aesir productions
While officially AC6 is its own continuity, I'd like to think it does continue from AC4 (and others in the grander continuity). It's as if AC6 asks "Your optimism and faith in humanity has erred. Humanity still thirsts endlessly for power at any cost. What will you do, Raven?"
One video closer to Fires of Rubicon, nice! Your coverage of AC franchise has been immensely helpful for a newcomer such as myself and it's great to see a new interest shown to such an old franchise in lie of its recent revival.
19:30 im sure you already know this by now but AC5 and VD are sequels to this game. Not going to spoil it but especially in VD there are few things that confirm it. Great vid.
I don't think 5 was intended to be a sequel to 4/FA. I think it was originally intended to be it's own thing... but Verdict Day? Oh that was absolutely a saving throw, a way to put 5 and VD's story into 4/FA's continuity. Which honestly? I think it worked.
The after effects of the kojima particles are only seen in Verdict Day which bridged the gap that 5th gen AC takes place in 4th gen continuity but I think you already knew that
Joshua destroyed Anatolia and we destroyed Rubicon home of our friend Rusty. Our roles might be flipped and our motivations complicated but our relationship and respect will never be forgotten.
Just a quick question: Why did you decide to make retrospectives specifically about 4A and VD as the only expansion-type AC games? No judging here, I love every additional video i can get on the AC games, just curious what your reasoning behind that is.
They are so much more different than to the basic numbered title that I found myself able to talk about them more than I could for something like Project Phantasma or Another Age. They're also just 1 spinoff so the workload is much lighter than if I tried to cover every title
Holy shit dude, i watched this video randomly cause Armored Core 4A but then i noticed the voice and was like.. "Wait, isn't this the dude that covered I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", genuinely surprised you touched the AC franchise, great video 🙏 P.S Otsdarva biggest fraud and jobber ☠
@@AesirAesthetics I am convinced that Otsdarva lies to you about dying in the Orca ending. He faked his death before, and this time we're not even there to see it. Ostdarva is, above all else, self serving. He has _you_ to sacrifice to get the job done, why should _he_ die to save humanity's future? No. I fully believe he sold us a lie, let us do the dirty work and then took the money Omer paid him to live a life of luxury in obscurity, smugly patting himself on the back for 'saving humanity' the entire time. After all, the League kills us and Wynne in the League ending, ('glowing eulogies' and all ) so why wouldn't he screw us over? Then again, perhaps he assumed it would work out for him, and it was he who the League had put down quietly. It'd be fitting for the treacherous, self righteous man he was. Still, he's not an insane monster like Old King, and I am not sure if that makes him _worse._
Imo the good ending is as Fiona puts it to let humanity dream across the sky. It's implied that Fiona and strayed were assassinated after saving the cradles, thus receiving medals of honour
4:30 Last Raven and Nexus didnt have tank controls. Those games differentiate themselves enough from 3 to where I still think they deserve their own video
I "fixed" the PS3 version by deleting every updates and setting the regulation to 1.00. Still, the best way to play AC4 and For Answer is through RPCS3, they run at 60 fps 95% of the time and the only flaws are that in FA there are random crashes once in a while (saving after every mission or tinkering in the hangar is higly advised) and in random missions some random parts of your AC have glitchy textures (it doesn't happen very often).
Another great entry into the retrospective series. I look forward to ACV and if you do Verdict Day. After that, I don't know if you're going to do AC 6. I'd love to see your opinion on it though after going through V and VD.
"The script for this video and that video were written at the same time" YOU SLY SNEAK! Pretending in the last video that you decided to skip this one!
@@AesirAestheticsI might have confused it for Another Age. Because I remembered you saying you wouldn't cover the spin-off direct sequels in one of the vids
Commenting at the spoiler warning: Is this video going to push the idea that FA is a "shadow of the colossus-ification" of Armored Core? I hope so. I've always been a fan of your similar theory about the design interplay between Kingsfield, Ico, and Demon's Souls.
I'm over 50 hours into Armored Core VI and while I'm enjoying myself, I still call Armored Core 4 Answer the best Armored Core game. You can make an argument for AC 3, but no, it's this one.
The Assault Cell satellites bear more than a passing resemblence to the Justice orbital weapon from AC 1. Just saying... And I'm grinning like an idiot at your mention of AC 2'S Disorder units
Imo the Arms Forts were always the lower points of the game. They were just big… things. That you shoot till they die. It didn’t make the player think much past “find the thing that lets you do damage” and don’t challenge you movement wise at all.
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