Finding the best way to play the Armored Core game is tough. It’s a niche series, so there hasn’t been a huge effort to make them easily accessible. However, with the announcement of AC6 and FromSoftware’s massive boost in popularity due to Elden Ring, a new generation of players want to climb in the cockpit and become mech pilots.
Best Way to play Armored Core games
Here’s a quick reference on the best way to play each Armored Core game in the main series:
- Armored Core 1: PlayStation Emulator
- Project Phantasma: PlayStation Emulator
- Master of Arena: PlayStation Emulator
- Armored Core 2: PS2 Emulator
- Armored Core 2: Another Age: PS2 Emulator
- Armored Core 3: PS2 Emulator
- Silent Line: Armored Core: PS2 Emulator
- Armored Core: Nexus: PS2 emulator
- Armored Core: Last Raven: PS2 emulator
- Armored Core 4: Xbox 360
- Armored Core: For Answer: Xbox 360
- Armored Core 5: Xbox 360
- Armored Core: Verdict Day: Xbox 360
Emulation is the best way to play PS1 Armored Core games. I love original hardware, but PS1 emulation has reached the point where you can increase resolution, upscale, use texture filtering, and other tweaks that help make early 3D easy on the eyes. It doesn’t take that much computing power either, so even a cheap laptop can take advantage of these enhancements.
Again, emulation is an excellent way to play the PS2 Armored Cores. PS2 games still look pretty good, and it only takes a few tweaks to make them pop on an HD screen. PCSX2 compatibility is great with all six PS2-era games,
The PS3 Armored Core games have performance issues resulting in a lower framerate than the Xbox 360 versions. Despite the PS3 being the more powerful console, these are among the list of multiplatform titles that run better on 360.
Unfortunately, the PS3 version also has slightly sharper graphics, so there’s no way to get the best of both worlds with this generation of Armored Core titles. There are also many reports of instability and crashes with this version.
The solution for this type of issue would typically be to give emulation a shot. However, all four PS3 titles are somewhat glitchy on RPCS3, and you can’t connect to official servers if you want to play online.
The Xbox 360 Armored Core games are stuck on that console. Microsoft never added them to the backward-compatible program for Xbox One. Also, they have compatibility issues with the only 360 emulator under active development, Xenia.
The upside to sticking to the original hardware is that you can play multiplayer on the official servers and that the Xbox 360 Armored Core titles have fewer performance issues than the PS3 versions. Unfortunately, the picture is very soft and tends to be too dark at times.
