Armored Core 4 is a rather confusing introduction if you're stumbling onto this series for the first time. It’s incredibly hard to understand the campaign since you’re never given any background or an explanation of exactly who you are in the game. There’s a vague story about six mega-corporations taking over the world and the need to take them out using an armored core, but that’s the extent of the narrative set up. Between each of the campaign’s six chapters, you’re forced to sit through indecipherable cutscenes that attempt to elaborate on the plot; however, these end up being meaningless because you weren’t given any idea as to what was going on in the first place. Figuring out what’s going on ranks higher in difficulty than actual combat.

Look past the story, though, and you are rewarded with some solid action. Armored Core 4 keeps with the fast-paced combat for which the series is known, letting you boost across battle-torn landscapes to pummel foes with a variety of weapons. This isn’t the plodding play of an American-designed mech game—no sir, Armored Core 4 is lightening-fast, dead-before-you-know-it action. Some intense scenarios await you such as a stomach-dropping high-altitude drop into an enemy base, blinding nighttime assaults, and even a challenging submarine attack. There isn’t a lot of mission variety, but recognize that Armored Core 4 is less about that and all about blowing things to bits and customizing your mech.

Missions typically involve one, occasionally two, straightforward objectives such as eliminating a specific enemy or defending a position. It doesn’t take much time to complete these—usually a matter of minutes. You can blaze through the first few missions without much trouble, but once you hit the third chapter they become noticeably more difficult. Enemy intelligence isn’t particularly challenging; rather, it’s the increasingly powerful arsenal given to your opponents that make later missions so tough.

Opting for short-sessions of combat versus drawn out missions with multiple objectives makes sense, as it allows for incredibly intense gameplay. Some missions literally drop you into a fierce battle and task you with destroying a single enemy or piece of artillery. You often don’t need to concern yourself with the surrounding action—just your objective. Confronting a small squadron of aggressive mechs in a two-minute battle is far more entertaining than traversing back and forth on a huge map and methodically clearing it of enemies.

For multiplayer, the game offers split-screen contests between you and a buddy, system link, and full online play. Head-to-head bouts on a single system provide little satisfaction, but online matches are much more invigorating with free-for-all Battle Royal games and team-based matches for up to eight players. Aside from competition, you can swap schematics with other players for use in building different mechs. You can also use your own customized mechs online which adds depth to the multiplayer experience.

Whether you venture online or you’re simply trying to make your way through the campaign, you need to come to grips with the customization system in Armored Core 4. A ridiculous number of options are provided, allowing you to tweak everything from boosters to body parts to paint jobs. You can even tune your mech’s stabilizers for better performance and negotiate the amount of power flowing to your various boosters. There’s even a memory system that enables you to assign units of memory to specific parts of your armored core for increased performance. The depth is staggering—no other game comes close to Armored Core 4 in this respect.

Obviously, all of this customization can prove daunting. Most systems can be set to automatic, which essentially tunes your machine to your style of play whenever you unlock new parts or receive additional memory. Even when using automation, at a minimum you need to familiarize yourself with weapons customization. There’s absolutely no way you can make it through the campaign without swapping out weapons to deal with different mission parameters. You may need a sniper rifle to take out distant mechs in one mission, while another mission might require ditching the rifle for an energy sword. Part of the fun in playing Armored Core 4 is in checking out the various weapons and how they function in combat.