Jesse Billingsley said:
I'm not surprised

In fact I posted this same kind of topic on another site, six replies, 4 of which actually knew what I was talking about.
I only own ACFA and AC4, and even I found the goofy gimmicks like quick boosting fairly annoying because they were so easy to abuse. From what I've seen they made this installment more like the original, mechs are slower, considerably less maneuverable when compared to the Armored Cores in ACFA and 4
It wasn't the maneuverability that was the problem. It was the game-breaking mechanics From Software kept introducing; some better, some worse. So, for a lack of anything more interesting to do, here's my take on the of Armored Core series for the PS2 games.
(this could get long, sorry)
AC2: One of the first quality PS2 games. Underrated gem. Really, it's a great game.
It's also slow and methodical compared to the lightning pace of the PSX games. There's plenty of strong/dominant builds, but the Vs is fun, the arena is fun, and the missions are good, though not awe-inspiring (even for its time).
Its "expansion game" Another Age, is heralded by fans as one of the absolute best in the series. Personally, I think it's a tad overrated, though not undeserving of its title.
(I'm partial to Project Phantasma for the freedom to create FUN, albeit, absolutely broken monster machines, and Silent Line for expanding on the already excellent AC3, which is probably the overall best and best-balanced game in the series that I've played. It doesn't do anything particularly wrong, and is coherent and scales up in difficulty very gradually. I just prefer Silent Line for that plus the huge extra parts list.)
From AC3 onward, we begin introducing gimmicks.
In AC3 and Silent Line, there was weapon breaking. Fortunately, you could turn it off for Vs mode. However fixing this one problem introduced new problems since certain weapons were meant to be overpowered, but fragile (MG800 in SL is the most infamous example).
With a few tweaks and select bans, Vs Mode was arguably at its best here in the entire series.
Numerous competitions were held under the AC3 and Silent Line banners. Some of the absolute best.
-Then Nexus came along and ruined everything. I do NOT say that lightly or as hyperbole, since it did so ENTIRELY through ridiculous gameplay mechanics.
First, From Soft ramped up the importance of heat mechanics from the previous iterations.
By ramped up, I mean CENTRALIZED. You do NOT want to overheat in Nexus; It's a death sentence.
Worse, not only do weapon-fire create heat when on hit (as they did before) but generators create heat now too. And not just a little heat, but a FUCKTON of heat. And that must be accounted for before you even begin to design the rest of your AC.
Seriously: You could build ACs that would literally burn to death on their own just from generator heat if they didn't have enough cooling. And the worst is still to come!
So why was overheat so dangerous? Because when you went into overheat, your generator stopped producing energy AND your radiator rapidly drained your remaining energy while it purged the excess heat back to normal. ("Forced Cooling Drain")
So, imagine not being able to boost or use energy weapons for more than a couple of seconds if you overheated, and you remain in that crippled state until all the heat was removed, AND your reserves recharged.
And you're taking armor-bypassed damage the entire time you burn.
Yeah, you died. Especially since the enemy could prolong your burning state by just laying on more firepower while you were crippled (the heat intake was cut down while in Forced Cooling, but not by nearly enough).
Matches became a race of landing the first micro-missile or energy weapon barrage, turning on a machinegun EO (a little core-mounted tracker turret), and chasing until the other guy died.
Twas retarded.
While that was bad enough to sink Nexus for me on its own, it got worse: Someone discovered Underweighting.
Underweighting worked on Moon Logic. The old system used from AC1 up til Nexus was you had total weight, and boosting power from the boosters. It was a mostly-linear equation; you moved faster the lighter you were, no matter how that weight was distributed.
In Nexus, the greater the difference between Weight Capacity and Current Weight, the greater the speed boost. And the speed boost was curved, not linear.
This flies in the face of logic when you realize that WEIGHT CAPACITY and TOTAL WEIGHT are not the same thing, nor are they actually scaled the same between leg chassis.
So, you could very well create an underweighted heavy-AC that could move around as fast as a fully loaded lightweight. Meaning: THE HEAVIER AC COULD OUTRUN THE LIGHTER AC.
Meaning mids and heavies could emulate a lightweight's speed, and still pack a more armor and better weapons in limited quantities. Keep this mechanic in mind, it'll come back to haunt us.
-Nine Breaker had the same exact problems as Nexus, since it was the expansion to Nexus. From Soft toned down the heat mechanics SLIGHTLY, but it was little more than a token gesture. The only bright spots were that old, gamebreaking parts were savaged by the nerf bat. However, this was akin to treating symptoms rather than the cause; the game was still horribly unbalanced.
-Last Raven had a pretty good single player story line, but NO Vs staying power since the AC parts balancing all eventually pointed to the "One True/Best AC". Since everyone (rightly) bitched about Heat mechanics, it was toned down to tolerable/playable levels, but then From took another bong hit and emphasized Underweighting to make up the difference.
Result: "SPEED KILLZ" doesn't even begin to describe it.
So now, you have this ENORMOUS speed gap between AC archetypes in addition to "Best Parts/Weapons" balancing.
Unless you had an equal or higher speed, you couldn't even soft-lock onto a target. Even underweighted Heavyweights and tanks were flat out worthless; they just can't track a target that flies around at over 600kph while they're chugging along at maybe 400 (due to poor turning rates and speed, respectively).
Again, this works out fine for the Single Player campaign, but for Vs, it's unplayable unless you like playing idealized mirror-matches, which kind of flies in the face of the premise for the series.
I didn't get an Xbox 360 or PS3, and I only gave AC4 and FA a passing glance on my friends' 360. By then, I was burnt out and disappointed, so my (too long) story ends here.