Armored Core 6 too difficult? Do the coolest thing possible

Dark Souls is a game I’m not good at. The game that I played. Armored Core 6,.

To be frank, there were a couple of moments when I worried my time with FromSoft’s new mech mayhem simulator would end as the majority of my Soulsborne experiences end: With me bashing my poor reflexes against a “skill test,” and unceremoniously moving on to something easier.

When I was desperate, I came up with a bold strategy to unlock Armored Core 6,Make nearly all boss fights a breeze. I’ve done the coolest possible thing.

The effectiveness of this simple method is undeniable. I think the game – without verbalizing it – wants to force this epiphany. These are the two hardest boss battles. Armored Core 6,’s early hours (and arguably the entire game, excluding the final boss) are the tutorial’s XXXL helicopter and the already-infamous Balteus, and both can be more easily overcome when you take a similar “ADTCTP” (Always Do The Coolest Thing Possible) approach.

FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

The HC Helicopter isn’t a helicopter so much as a warship, filling the bulk of your field of view. The first thing I did was use the industrial complex where the chopper lives as cover. I would boost from building to building, firing cheaply when an enemy opened up. The strategy only dented the helicopter’s health bar before the ship’s payload of heavy weaponry turned my AC into a pile of glorified paperclips. Worse, it looked silly and wasn’t fun.

When I realized that my mech was equipped with a weapon, it made sense. Fighting a death-machine nearly 10 times my size with a sword seemed ill-advised, but also – as someone who has watched their fair share of anime – cool as hell. Reader, I beat a steel deity in a duel.

I’m ashamed of how long it took me to approach the Balteus fight with the same mix of courage, exhaustion, and taste for the dramatic. Then, after a few hours of testing weapon combinations against the personification of frustration and getting destroyed by the wall of dozens missiles it threw at me, I did the most cool thing. Balteus would launch countless missiles at me, and I’d boost full-speed into the firestorm. Naturally, the plan worked. The missiles went off behind me, as expected. The developers had wanted me to do this from the beginning.

FromSoftware/Bandai Namco image via Polygon

“Do the coolest thing possible” doesn’t always mean “bull rush anything bigger than you.” Sometimes it means literally dunking rockets into a boss’ basketball hoop-shaped head. Other times “doing the coolest thing” means converting your mech into a slow, impenetrable tank and patiently rolling down factory corridors, delivering sin and punishment upon all you meet.

Armored Core 6, is, for me, the most welcoming of FromSoftware’s recent games. I think that’s because the creators get the obvious difference between this mecha fantasy and the masochistic ardor of Soulsbornes. In AC, you’re not a weakling human prepared to die. You’re the pilot of a mech with enough artillery to start your own nation. Don’t forget that and you’ll be just fine.