Recent reviews by Witchfinder

The systems/gameplay in place for this game are not befitting for either a Fallout game or an online co-op RPG.
Doing quests in a group requires each individual player to interact with NPCs and make their own choices - one cannot watch someone initiate a conversation and watch it play out or intervene themselves. When actually doing quest objectives, say for example infiltrating a cave and collecting 4 items; only the leader of the party may interact with quest objectives and make progress. If the other players in the party want to also get progress for their quest, they must be promoted to the leader of the group, then be the first to enter the area themselves, then have everyone else follow and repeat what had already just be done again until everyone has done so.
Seeing as quests were clearly not designed well, the next step for what to do was obvious for anyone who has played a Fallout game - explore. Starting at level 1, I had nothing to my character, and over time had leveled to 5 with some measly weapons and no armour upgrades. I stumbled across an area with a bunch of level 20 super mutants. Not only were these enemies totally incapable of dealing any notable amounts of damage to me, but I could also kill them in as few as two shots - the overworld is completely nonthreatening. Decided to just look around a bit more, I had stumbled upon a deathclaw gauntlet, which is quite a notable weapon in previous games and was exciting to find. That excitement was quickly cut short, as the weapon had an arbitrary requirement to be level 50 to equip.
If the questing is bad, the combat is bad and the exploration is bad, I cannot think of any reason to be playing this game. This doesn't even include various other negatives, such as non-responsive enemy AI, an extremely egregious cash shop, private lobbies being locked to a paid subscription for a game that already has a box cost and more.

The setting is very unique for the genre, and I found the aesthetic of "scientist creates makeshift-everything using lab and office items" amusing. The characters, while not particularly deep, are appropriately voiced and have their own personalities. There is a sizable amount story and lore present to be found within emails at terminals and a few item descriptions, but for those uninterested it can be ignored entirely.
My playthrough was done on the highest (apocalyptic) difficulty setting. The EXP rate for skills at the default settings is a bit too low in my opinion, as I beat the game at almost exactly 100 hours with barely any skills at the maximum level - however this and other rates/meters such as stamina and inventory stacks can be tuned to the player's liking using the in-game world settings, which is very nice. The combat is fine, but the most enjoyable aspect of the game for me was exploring the facility and different world, the latter of which I do hope the developers plan to add more of in future updates. I wish that the "invasions" that can occur randomly at night were much more intense, especially towards the end of the game, for at the moment all that happens is a very small handful of enemies will attack and then it's over, making many of the base defenses such as traps and barricades essentially useless and just present for RP immersion.
Sometimes the game will stutter briefly while transitioning between what seems to be area chunks, but this may be due to playing in a multiplayer world. The only bug that occurred over my entire playthrough was when I accidentally threw a sword at a wall, which then fell down into shallow water and then disappeared.
On the topic of the ending, it would appear to end on a cliffhanger so I assume the developers plan more updates or even a sequel, but were either of those to not come true then I would say it ended on a bit of a disappointing note.
A very enjoyable game.

After 57 hours of playtime I have 100% completed the game. While it's not my favourite in the series, the new return after years of radio silent absence has turned out pretty great. My negative opinions about the game can mostly be simplified down to:
・Part type variety feels a bit limited compared to other games: no weaponized arms, no snipers, no railguns, no laser machine guns, no shoulders chainguns, no ammo reserves, no right handed melee options. Outside of the gatling, automatic kinetic weapons feel to be on a weaker side to the point where they're less fun to use, though this specific point could be remedied by a regulation patch or by tweaking the next point.
・The focus on ACS stagger has made damage rely heavily on bursting enemies with high direct hit damage during the stun window, which does massive amounts of damage compared to taking most normal hits. I feel that the game would feel much better with slightly reduced direct hit damage and slightly increased damage taken from normal hits.
・The arena had both a small pool consisting of 41 contestants and a lot of them were not very challenging at all, which was a bit disappointing.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, I will mention my positive opinions:
・Controlling and playing as your AC feels great - The modern Armored Core controls are much friendlier to new players than the old layout that the PS1/2 era games had that filtered me from being able to play as a little kid. All of the different leg parts feel unique in their movement, and while the movement speed is toned down from the 4th generation (something that I am pleased with personally), you can really feel the differences between say, a sub 300 speed tank tread AC and a 350 speed bipedal AC. Questionable balancing set aside to the previous section, the weapons all feel very diverse and can change noticeably with how you apply your use of them - whether you are simultaneously firing dual wielded weapons, your legs of choice, your arms' specialization and recoil control, the energy specialization of your generator and more all have an effect on how your guns will feel to use, which leads to my next point
・Customizing your AC is a lot of fun. All of the different parts you use will make a difference, and players are free to create and use exactly what they want - whether that be the most overpowered AC that can delete enemy ACs in a matter of seconds, a weaponized trashcan that'll push their piloting skills to their limit, or just something that they think is cool and plays in a style that they find comfortable. There is also a wide variety of cosmetic choices to make from various paint patterns, different types of weathering with varying degrees, adjustable material texture appearances to give your parts a more metallic or plastic look and custom decals with a fairly freeform emblem editor.
・The non-AC boss fights are very new and only similar to a few past entries' standout bosses such as the giant sewer ceiling spider and the Massive MT from AC3, none of which could really compare to what is presented here however. They were very fun to fight against and I think just the right amount were included, not overwhelming the amount of fights against enemy ACs while also not being just a singular encounter to change things up.
・The sound design is very well done. Weapons all feel like the death machines they are - the punch of the pilebunker makes connecting the impact with your enemy much more satisfying, and the TONK of eating a Songbird rocket directly to the face makes your imminent death all the more dreadful. The soundtrack this time has gone for a more ambient approach, which is understandable considering that this game has much more radio chatter compared to past entries, meaning that the approach was likely to not make the audio cacophonous with the now more active dialogue being mixed with the already intense battle SFX. That being said, what we got was still very nice - a few songs that I've picked out as favourites are Hearing Things, Rough and Decent, Isentropic Flow, Steel Haze (and it's alternative track), Stargazer and, of course, Contact With You.
・The characters are much more prominent in this game and every single one of them was enjoyable. The English voice acting was also great, my personal favourites of the bunch being Michigan and Handler Walter.
・While the overarching story for these games are always far from the focal point, I found the Coral element to be pretty interesting.
・While the graphical fidelity isn't anything crazy, it's perfectly acceptable and, similar to other games recently released by Fromsoft, is carried by fantastic art direction. The ACs look amazing and a photomode was even included for both in-game moments as well as inside the hanger between missions to take pictures of their machines. The setpieces are wondrous too - The sprawling rusted-over rotted ruins of neglected megafactories both blocking out the sky in fractured chunks and expanding all the way down to the arid ravaged ground, wartorn cities filled with everyday human sights that give scale to the monstrous size of the machine you're piloting, and of course the futuristic colony ship of the Xylem, both while trekking through it's advanced, pristine city streets left long abandoned in its ECM fog mask and while it's being propelled through through space.

All in all, I'm very happy with what we got, and hope that they provide continued support to the game - whether that be through a second version as they've done many times in the past, or perhaps simply a DLC this time around. I would love to see more parts added to the game, especially of types that had been left out from the base game.