Armored Core: Project Phantasma – lazy and embarrassing second entry in the Armored Core franchise

Frustration of Project Phantasma

When you start a new game you’re met with familiar main game menu of the first game. But here first suspicion comes to mind. Something is wrong.

There is no mail in your mail box that kicks up the story. No message that you have a new mail. Only menu.

You have access to the arena. Your basic AC is the same as it was in the first game. You have 100 000 credits of initial money to spend on modifications. This already allows you to buy nice equipment.

The only one good improvement I noticed is control over your AC. It became much better, quicker, more responsive.

All the other stuff in Project Phantasma feels like a downgrade.

Even the length – I’ve completed this AC game one hour faster than the original AC. Not because of difficulty, I had some minor problems with some arena ACs, but because it’s simply shorter.

Arena

Arena is something that just asked for it to be in the AC series during the playthrough of the original game.

Especially considering first game had a ranking system but it was more story related. It looked like just a list of pilots with associated scores.

How lazily arena is made in Project Phantasma is just beyond my comprehension.

First enemy is a basic AC that was just a copy pasted version of your initial AC with different color. Rocket launcher got removed from the shoulder while radar was left intact for some reason.

And even more this enemy still has a laser blade.

Meanwhile until some point there will be no other enemies with laser blades.

Their weapons just make no sense.

For example there is a four legged AC that is almost unable to charge the energy to shoot his hand plasma cannons (four legged type legs require a lot of energy). And he is presented in description as someone who has potential.

Or AC with just a shoulder rockets bay. I’m unsure if he is even able to destroy any target

More you battle them less it makes sense because if you just let them fight each other the structure of arena will change dramatically. Why FromSoftware simply didn’t do that makes no sense to me.

At some rank enemies start having more than one weapon on them. They don’t just gradually appear with more weapons and options, they just appear and never change back.

And they get better AI system. It’s also switched like a tumbler instead of something more gradual. They just start shooting much more precise with their weapons than before.

And the first enemy in this part of the list is noticeably more difficult than some enemies higher in the ranking.

Probably the most difficult one just has two shoulder grenade launchers and should be much closer to the top than he placed.

Some weapons like the vertical missile launchers are not presented at all. Feels like developers just excluded some weapons from the arena for some reason.

Number one Necron is one of the most boring and one of the easiest pilots in the top ranking arena.

For winning new ranks you get money. For beating some enemies on the arena you get part rewards.

When you take the first place you get a short range weapon that annihilates everything including the final boss of the missions chain.

It feels completely unbalanced and simply stupid.

Story

Level of graphics improved in the missions and you got more monologues and engine based cinematics. Some missions are more entertaining story vise with more intrigue involved.

At the same time there are no missions in the acid environment. No missions with bombs planting. Missions in Project Phantasma are mostly just fighting with some additional rules. It’s a plus/minus in comparison to the first game in this regard.

But there are worse things if dig deeper. There is a mission, for example, that completely ruins the world building.

During original game we learned about the great destruction. In second game there is a human who just casually walks on the surface.

And you may think that maybe it is what happened before the great destruction but you also have completely annihilated cities. Presumably destroyed by nuclear explosions.

Overall game doesn’t provide you with much information about the world at all. There are still locations for the arena battles from the first game so it looks like similar times.

What it provides instead is an employer in pink AC. She is Raven as well and for some reason she wants to stop the most generic protagonist – Stinger. You rescue her at some of the missions and she hires you to destroy Stinger.

Why? Who the hell knows.

Why is he dangerous? Who the hell knows. I beat him without any issues.

Why is he evil? No reason. He is just evil.

Why Project Phantasma is so dangerous? You can take it out with just one AC.

Game Over if you die? No. I died only once at the final battle and didn’t even lose any money.

Heavy message about corporations? None existent. There are simply no corporations in this games. There is even no Raven’s Nest. You talk mostly to the pink AC lady.

By the way there is no women at the arena and no other pink ACs.

There is no explanation behind it.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of female AC pilots is great. But how it’s shown here is just terrible.

Project Phantasma is some kind of a machinery that Stinger is looking for using really bad level of character writing. Worse than my school stories about werewolves.

English voice-over is just the other side of the nightmare. Sumika, the pink AC lady doesn’t even try to sound believable. Sadly I can’t share the pain though the written words.

You don’t even meet other ACs. I mean, real ACs. Sumika pilots something that looks like an MT, not something you can assemble. The same is for Stinger.

Conclusion

It was a terrible experience. Original game is simply better. How it’s possible, considering FromSoftware already had a game engine and most of the AC parts were already integrated into the game, I don’t know. I just simply don’t understand this release.

All they needed to do is just to hire a good writer and make a compelling story instead of what they made.

Project Phantasma is just a lazy game and it doesn’t worth anyone’s time.

Disappointment made by FromSoftware.