Happy to hear you enjoyed the game and the documentary! It's been decades since I first touched Xenogears and many worthy contenders have tried to dethrone it, yet it still holds the distinction of being my favorite game of all time.

As a filthy gaijin, I appreciate this sort of perspective. In light of this, would you say that the Gundam wiki has it listed incorrectly? A cursory google search will yield this gundam.fandom.com/wiki/CAMW-13_MW-Rai which clearly shows it labelled as "Rai" instead of "Rei" and since I cannot read Japanese I relied upon that.

@@TheWeebinar It's (awkwardly) transliterated as "RAI" in English in the Sunrise Mechanics CG book as well as the Newtype 100% G-Saviour book, when a more appropriate transliteration might be be "RAY" as that's how it's literally pronounced (as well as in the script). The successor suit in the game is called "Reid" (レイド）, as in "raid".

Thank you for setting the record straight. Going forward, how would you recommend that I get these pronunciations correct? Should I always double check the Japanese with the English? or is there some sort of definitive source that you recommend which I can use to get the accurate pronunciation?

Very true, there are a plethora of incorrect translations and omissions. Hard to tell if his Japanese proficiency was to blame or not. Personally I think Richard was saddled with an impossible task due to the time crunch and all of the staff quitting on him, so really, we probably got the best we were going to get from just one guy who was asked to translate a 60 hour JRPG that was sleeping in the office just to get it done on time.

Maria doesn’t have any, sadly. From reading interviews about it she was supposed to but they were cut due to budget constraints. You can see all of her special abilities in the special abilities showcase here on the channel if you’re interested.

@@TheWeebinar ahh yes yes i remember now. Im sorry. Yeah she only have "magic" attacks.

No sweat, actually really glad you asked because now this comment can serve as information for anyone else that may be wondering about it!

Elly's too, at least as playable gear outside of cutscenes and the Battling Arena. If you're interested here's a good collection of all the stuff that was left unused in the game files: tcrf.net/Xenogears

@@TheWeebinar I knew there was quite a bit of unused content that fell on the cutting room floor. I just wasn’t aware of how much. We really DID lose half the game because of Squaresoft being more dedicated towards making FFVIII. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Let me know when it's finished and maybe we'll review it and do a comparison if I can convince Zack.

No sweat, it was my pleasure! Will actually be reuploading this whole thing all over again in the not-too-distant future. This one is missing one Special Option and I have much better recording equipment now so it's only a matter of re-recording all of it again. Thank you for watching and commenting!

Frankly, it was really easy to enjoy. As it stands today I think it's the greatest Armored Core game ever made and I'm looking forward to playing the other installments to put that theory to the test.

@@TheWeebinar glad to hear that, i truly love AC4A the most to this day. While AC6 had better mission structure (mostly), and AC3 has a lot of nostalgia for me, there is just something special about AC4A, missions are quite short, but also quite action packed and to the point, there is very little time wasted which i like, and also kinda fits, you have this huge super robot, things should just resolve fast and violently.

Very true, things have evolved drastically since then. It's hard to believe we are already up to the PS5. Thinking back to those times I can empathize with how you felt because I can remember wondering how graphics would ever get any better after the PS2/XBOX came out, hahaha.

Sounds like you have quite an impressive collection. As someone that has a deep affinity for the female form I am quite partial to the works of Mr. Sidaris, Hard Ticket to Hawaii especially, and although I don't own any of his movies that will change sometimes in the future. We have not done either Bubblegum Crisis but we will add them to our list. Yes we both love survival horror, are there any games you would like to see us take on?

@@TheWeebinar Bubblegum Crisis is like the anime love-child between Blade Runner and Streets of Fire (setting BR like, and pacing of SoF, musical numbers included), the original series (2032) is only 8 OVAs (the company had a lot of troubles and had to leave it incomplete, and then it split in two), then eventually one of them released Bubblegum Crash, 3 OVAs that finished the story (kinda), they are quite low quality overall though. Bubblegum Crisis 2040 is a 26 episode reimagining/remake, its ok, they have a better time pacing the story since it has more episodes, but it loses a lot of the grit from the original and the artwork looks too clean (and changed some of the characters personalities a lot) 2040 also loses the awesome soundtrack, the original series had tons of original songs on each OVA since the series was at times, almost a quasi-musical (as in, the music and the action synchronized and almost played as a music video, this was taken from Streets of Fire) As for survivals, you have the standart and better known Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Alone in the Dark and Silent Hill games (and i guess to a degree Parasite Eve 1,2), however there are others that are also awesome and not as well known, like Haunting Ground (PS2), one of my favourites (its Capcom btw), there is also Martian Gothic (PS1, PC), this game its more like a point-and-click mixed with survival horror, its fun but too many items and some horrible glitches. There is also KUON (PS2), a very rare survival horror from FROM software. Also, one called Cold Fear, this is super interesting, it mixes fixed camera angles with over the shoulder shooting (PS2), and Fear Effect and Fear Effect Retro Helix, this 2 come in 4 discs!!!, its crazy because they are quite short, the thing is that their backgrounds are kinda FMVs and makes them take a lot of space, its like one of those FMV games on pc but with survival horror characters running around, its also more action packed. I however believe that both Haunting Ground and KUON are only really worth it if you find other means on PC, why?, look at the prices of the games... if you get them for cheap, might be worth it to add to the collection and play them, if not, find other ways. That being said, Haunting Grounds is truly a fantastic game! (KUON is so-so, an interesting experience with a nice story, but Haunting Ground is much better game)

Okay, we will cover at least the original series, possibly more. Will definitely look into all of what you mentioned here game wise. After looking at it, I can swing getting Haunting Grounds but I can't guarantee that I'll be able to record it right away due to the difficulties presented by recording PS2 gameplay. Been meaning to get that figured out anyway so I"ll do that and then grab Haunting Grounds provided the price doesn't go too much higher.

@@TheWeebinar hey no problem man. And if needed just try the PC, some of this games are just expensive (fkng scalpers and hoarders, nothing but scamming fks), and for example, KUON, is not worth it at the stupid prices it can fetch (same with another called Rule of Rose). Interesting games, sure,but not 500$+ interesting. And there is no rush. So many games out there!

Thanks for watching and for preparing me so well for it! Just finished up the editing on the last episode and have been playing through it again in my spare time. You were right, playing out ORCA's side of events is rather revealing and fighting the Arms Fort Answerer was epic. Gonna give it one more go for the 3rd ending and then move on to the Zone of the Enders stuff. Will be posting the playthroughs as Longplays in the near future. Will probably pick For Answer back up and do a Hard mode playthrough of ORCA's missions in the Hangar somewhere down the line.

@@TheWeebinar prepare yourself, because the last mission of route 3 is quite the ordeal to S rank, specially on Hard. I really like Hard mode in this game, many mission change quite a lot, some are just extra enemies, but others have more than that. Many missions in Hard have more dialogue too, and you might face even more NEXTs. I think ORCA's path is my favourite overall, i think its fun that Otzdarva/Thermidor are the same person, and no matter which route you pick he decides to go for the other side, makes you wonder who's side he really is, is he playing double agent for ORCA or COLLARED?, or its all the same?

Yet again, you were right. "Occupy Arteria Carpals" might be the hardest thing I've tired to do in this game. Tried for hours last night to beat in on Normal with 1.2 regs and it was quite brutal. Tried a lot of different strats and haven't been able to do much but tomorrow I plan on giving it another shot. From what I've read you have to fight 5 ACs at once on Hard Mode so I see now exactly what you mean after getting trounced on Normal. Do you have any recommended tactics? I would like to keep it on 1.2 regs if possible.

@@TheWeebinar for 1.2 On normal, i would use the back unit vertical Kojima Missiles (the huge blast ones, similar to the BIGSIUX, also must be Vertical, since the front one might be exploded by incomming fire easily) and a couple of rifles on my hands, the missiles are very expensive and so i used basic rifles (the best ones you can get, the ones White Glint uses, i think the 051ANNR) and kite around. The only problem is that rank is determined by money earned, and since the missiles are so expensive missing only a couple might prevent you from getting S rank, also, avoiding damage is super important. A tip for the missiles is that they keep your momentum, so if you boost and shoot them they move faster, so before you shoot boost to give momentum to the missiles, this huge missiles need it. This missiles are super powerful, the first hit will deplete the entire Primal Armor bar and deal heavy damage, if the second hit while the PA is down, it can deal 50% their entire AP in a single blast. (try them in Arena and check them out), you need some luck, but sometimes the NEXTs will be colse enough to each other that a single missile might hurt 2+ in a single blast (stay away from them), what you want here is to destroy 2 at least as fast as possible and maybe hurt the others, and then change to rifles an kite them (to save some money), mind you, if you are able to get them with a couple more missiles thats fine. As far as i remember there is also an exploit, but i was never able to pull it out, enemies always broke the glitch (basically, you shoot them through a wall, im certain there are videos out there, but never worked for me) - There is also one thing you can do, as soon as the level starts, rush towards the wall and wait in front of their spawn point, the NEXTs wont attack you until they reach certain point in the estructure, so you can shoot them as soon as they spawn, one technique i used was to use the Primal Armor Explosion right in front of them and catch them all, this will remove their PA and deal some damage too, as soon as this is done turn around and keep pressure while they dont have PA to max damage.However, remember that you also lose all your PA, so you are also vulnerable. In 1.2 however you recover PA faster after doing this than in 1.0. Another option is to use x2 AXIS (i think its called, its a hand held Kojima Rifle), just like before, wait for them to spawn, but have both rifles charged to the max, as soon as they spawn aim for the 2nd or 3rd in the middle (Otzdarva) and shoot both at him, this should 1HKO that NEXT making it 3 v 2 from the get go (I recomend Otzdarva because there are a couple that wont die to this, only him and another one i forget right now, maybe its Reitterpalach. And then focus on your 2 shoulder weapons (Kojima Missiles for example), i think you can do the opposite, use the 2 biggest back unit Kojima Cannons, and then discard them and focus on x2 rifles, im just not sure if they can also 1HKO. For HARD, basically the same, but its just harder :/, the Kojima Cannon strategy will make it 5v2 a 4v2, the Primal Armor Explosion strategy might help, if you do it and manage to land a couple of huge missiles you might kill 1 or 2 more dast, but again, needs luck. If everything fails, maybe will have to drop to 1.0, here you can basically try missile spam with the White Glint missile launches (SALINE05), they are incredibly broken in 1.0, i would still recommend using the dual AXIS to kill 1 as soon as the mission starts, and then kite and use SALINE05s to destroy them, and in HARD basically the same, but you still need some luck because you basically have just enough to kill the others, so missing a few and not having weapons outside the Kojima Cannons on hand can make it impossible. You can also try with dual SALINE05 and dual rifles, and use the PA Explosion, and try to get them as fast as possible. In the ends, its just a very hard mission.

@@TheWeebinar That mission is infamous, its simply one of the thoughest missions in any AC game, specially Hard mode. I remember seeing a streamer a while back (few months ago) getting just broken with this mission, and was playing only in normal. Completed all AC games up to this mission, but that was the breaking point, i think the streamer tried for like 6+ hours if not more, and just dropped it for being too frustrating. I get it, mind you, it took me a while, completing it in Normal with no S rank was doable, but then S ranking it was kinda like a rythm game or speedrun strategy, you had to start the mission in a certain way, reach a certain point, do some things at a certain moment, and then hell broke loose and it was both skill and luck that eventually allowed me to get S rank.... and then Hard diff happened... HOLY.FFFFFFFFFFffff.... Yeah, 5v2 is really frustrating, Kasumi Sumika (Your own operator) joins the fight together with the others: - Kasumi uses rifles too (i think one solid, and one Altair) and a small missile launcher. - Otzdarva uses a couple of machineguns and a really bad missile launcher (its a running joke how bad Otzdarva NEXT is overall, his NEXT in ORCA is way better) - Lilium Wolcott uses a rifle + grenade launcher in hands, and a slow movin missile launcher. - Wynne D Fanchon uses a small railgun, a blade, a small plasma weapon on theback and a big laser cannon. - Roaddie uses a slow moving missile, a missile launcher of 8, and then Bazooka arms. Its a huge pain. I remember Hard mode gave me a lot of grief, sometimes things went well at the start, but then enemies would avoid everything spended too much ammo to prevent me getting S rank, other times thing went right and just got hit too many times and lost the S rank that way, other times things went just wrong from the get go, and so on. I thik the time i got it was with Rifles+Kojima Verts, PA exploded and shot 2 missiles and got either 3 or 4 of them all clumped together and managed to deal so much damage that it saved me tons of money in the end.

Thank you! Yes indeed, happy to report ACFA is finished and currently in the editing bay. Will have the first episode done tonight. Can see why it is your favorite, I think it may very well be the best Armored Core ever made. Thank you for explaining what you did, I played (almost)the whole thing on 1.2 regs and it was a blast. As for Omega Boost, the only thing I fear is that some of it may have to get muted if I get hit for using Static-X's music, will definitely try to work around and wriggle around these things though so rest assured that it will find its way to the channel one way or another.

@@TheWeebinar Awesome, for Omega Boost, i dont remember if you can mute the music on the options, i do remember the title music plays in the intro, menu and very last boss section, i think the rest is just the original game music and should be no problem (i absolutely love the music in this game, specially level 5) if not, maybe splicing the JP version of the song could help, i think Shade from Feeder is less likely to get hit than the Static-X song. (while i love Static-X, the sequences where synched with Feeder, so Static-X song feels out of synch in comparison)

@@TheWeebinar Hey, i forgot to ask, but did you get the 3 endings in AC4A? (just in case)

Those are great ideas, thank you for suggesting them. Definitely looking forward to the challenge and playing Omega Boost. No, only got one of the endings in The Hangar, but as soon as the replacement PS3 controller arrives I will be going back and recording a longplay for the other two endings as well as two larger videos that have all 42 missions for each difficulty setting.

@@TheWeebinar Cool. AC4A is great, having diverging routes was a welcomed suprise back then when i played it, there are a few new conversations and videos, and also new missions and arena matches. Also, Hard mode changes things around too, some missions become quite different and also has some of the most difficult matches out there, like the last mission for ending 3, S ranking that mission in Hard mode was a pain (and some missions in hard mode even add more conversations/lore too)

Smart move on your part. Later on in the series, especially in the Simulator fights, you will see that I eventually arrived upon the same conclusion except that I favored the high powered rapid fire stuff combined with missiles in order to mitigate how well the CPU can dodge things.

@@TheWeebinar the game dose encourage you to be more flexible when it comes to builds, but most of the time when I was playing Armored core 6, high speed was all I needed, aside from a few boss fights when I needed some extra fire power.

Interesting, thank you for sharing your experience with me. Eventually we will tackle Fires of Rubicon in The Hangar and I will keep this in mind when that day comes.

Thank you so much for this sage advice. Sadly I soldiered my way through this whole playthrough with the original control scheme mostly intact, haha. From what I've read, the regulations are stuck at 1.0 unless you have a back up save because the servers no longer exist. At any rate, when I start playing AC:4A in the next few days I will definitely be switching up the scheme to what you mention here because it is obviously more manageable that way. Thank you again for saving me from another full playthrough of that.

@binar Hey there. Yeah, being able to see around and aim while fighting makes things way smoother! In AC4A (unlike AC4) you can choose regulations without the need to update!, (updates do go beyond the in-game available regulations, however, this regulations where HEAVILY balanced around PvP and completely messed up the campaign, since many NPCs had their ACs become super overweight/Energy hungry) in the options you can find them, i think the game starts you at 1.4?, so many people never realizes that and just play the game with the default version set by the game. Regulation 1.0 is fine, most things work nicely and has good pacing. Regulation 1.2 is super fast (boosters and energy generation are through the roof), some weapons as result are not as good (missiles, and other slower proyectile weapons), however there are weapons that get considerable balance buffs (like the Gatling Guns strenght) Regulation 1.3 is horrendous, they overcorrected and made things super heavy (and killed off tons of NPCs making them a joke) and slowed the game a lot in general (everyone hated this regulation). Regulation 1.4 is more balanced in terms of power for weapons, and speed is an inbetween 1.0 and 1.2, however weights for internal components where adjusted again and this is exactly what made NPC ACs not work well since 1.3 forward. Id say 1.0 works fine if you only want single player to play the game as it was intended at its release. 1.2 on a second run would be interesting since the game gets so fast its very different what works and what doesnt. AC4A being a game with more AC duels/fights than AC4 using regulations that actively worsens the main encounters of the game is not great. Oh yeah! and AC4A has 3 endings, and depending on what mission you choose the playthrough changes! Also, Hard mode changes some missions quite a lot! (you can switch at will between normal missions and hard ones on replay! Cheers!

Your knowledge of Armored Core is both comprehensive and impressive! Thank you so much for this information. You have now ensured that I will definitely have a lot fun and that you will receive a shout out in the first episode of the AC:4A playthrough! Is there any specific Mecha-themed video game that you want to see us cover in The Hangar? If so please let us know and we will add it to the list!

​@@TheWeebinarOne thing i forgot though is where exactly the regulations are located, I think you have to start the actual game and access the options from the menu inside the game (not on the start screen one), i know there are 2 sets of options, so check well because its kinda on a sub menu for what i remember. Also, starting AC's determine your main parts provider, this only maters early game, but parts available will be different for a while. In the end you unlock everything mind you. Also, you will, from time to time, earn FRS points, this will let you customize parts and make them have better performance (about 10% with max points), you earn them at certain points of the game, but you also earn extras on Hard missions, completing a mission gives you 5, S ranking a mission gives you 6 (or +1 if you already completed said mission). Repair costs is the main factor on geting a good rank or not most of the time!, ammo might be a factor if its too expensive or spend too much, but most of the time is repair costs. Also, unlike in AC4, here time doesnt mater for rankings. As for mecha games, there are a lot, from stompy robots to super fast ones, strategy games to action!, i particulary love AC4A and cant wait to see a playthrough, that being said, i also really like Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner, its more zoomy robots though (no customization which is a shame, its more like an action-arcade-mecha), i dontparticulary care much for part 1 though! lol Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner can be played on PS2, PS3 and PS4. PS2 had some performance issues, but wasnt that bad except a couple of areas. PS3 was horrid because the people that made the remaster screwed up and ran even worst than PS2, however after updating it it ran perfectly. PS4 its called Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner MARS and the game runs smooth, probably best option. Btw, even on PS2 i think the game can run at 60FPS! Other game is a short arcade game on PS1 called Omega Boost, no idea if you have heard of it but its a very interesting game!. Its a short game, made by the people that made Gran Turismo, in fact, the game runs on a modified Gran Turismo engine, and i can tell you its a crime they didnt made more! The game runs super smooth and its not janky at all imo, the music is fantastic too! (and has 3 versions of main theme, according what region you got it, best by far is the JP one and then the NA, one with a song from Feeder and the other from Static-X! EU got shafted though!) Only way to play it is on PS1, never was re-released, not even in digital, so if you have "other" ways of playing it, it should run fine, otherwise, Ebay is around 40$, so i dont know if it would be worth it for you! (about 20 the JP version if you can play that)

Actually I have never heard of Omega Boost but after looking into it, I can't wait to play it. Depending upon when I can get my hands on it, I may do it after AC:4A. If for some reason I can't get it I will do the Zone of the Enders series as a whole because I already own several copies of each game including the HD Remastered versions. Either way, consider both of your requests added and thank you once more for all of the information you have provided. You have single-handedly saved me a ton of time and for that you have my gratitude.

😮

Nice catch, couple of other things we labelled wrong as well. Thanks for pointing out the error!

@@TheWeebinar no prob and keep up the good content

You’re totally right, Washington State is the Air Raid. This Wyoming offense is built off of that playbook. It has many Air Raid passing concepts except it focuses on executing them using Empty formations while mixing in the read option with a dual threat QB and a HB that can also play as a 5th WR. So it is some weird cousin of the Air Raid kinda like Dana Holgerson’s Empty Air Raid thing that he did/does. Since it came from those systems it seemed fitting to label it that way. Just a fun idea I had and this particular year we executed it about as well as possible.

What do you think makes it unwatchable?

Not sure what you mean. Are you saying Zack could have planned his actions better in this playthrough?

Thanks for the suggestion! Zack has recently gotten a better PC so he will be starting a new playthough and he has stated that he will look into this mod and potentially make use of it in the new playthrough.