Though it doesn’t require a copy of the original Armored Core 4, this can effectively be considered an ‘expansion’. Plot-wise, it takes place ten years after the previous game’s so-called “dismantlement war”. The Kojima particles which provide power for weapons and defensive shields have caused a catastrophic build-up of pollution on Earth – so much, that most of humanity has taken to living in the sky in gigantic flying “Cradles”, where the high-altitude air is still breathable.

The Cradles have an Achilles heel due to their reliance on ground-based power stations and resources however, and it is these that the remaining corporations and factions are still fighting over. Making things more complicated are a guerilla movement, who believe humanity should not be abandoning those still left on the ground, and are violently trying to stop the Cradle projects.

This sets the stage for a complex and interwoven plot with many possible angles to explore, but in typical Armored Core style, For Answer just sets you up with the basics and throws you to the wolves. While the game spends a good deal of effort providing narrated cutscenes to introduce each chapter of the campaign (and also opens up with a very bad-ass intro movie), that’s about all of the backstory you get – most of the briefings and physical missions just assume you already know everything about the current situation and don’t really bother explaining further.

This really gets annoying when compared to the horde of other giant robot games out there with superior plot presentation (Mechwarrior, and even the laughably cheesy Zone of the Enders come to mind), but as I said, this is hardly anything new for the franchise. I almost wonder what would happen if From Software focused its effort into just making more amazing giant robot movies and cutscenes, rather than games?

Regardless, what is new for this game (along with the expected horde of new parts and missions to play with) is a set of absolutely gargantuan enemy encounters. Throughout the campaign, several missions require you to tackle mobile “Arms Forts”. These are tremendously large battle platforms, bristling with heavy artillery, missile racks, and other surprises. Almost all of them require you to get in close enough to negate their heavy artillery so you can start chipping away at their vulnerable points, but despite the quick comparison one could draw of Shadow of the Colossus, the battles are ultimately a bit underwhelming.