Gonna try and curb future comments with this now, since I've gotten so many comments about it: *I am aware that snail has different dialogue when you try to kill him in Xylem* I just wasn't able to replicate it when I went back to record the isolated voice lines.
@@synical69 Relax, I'm not attacking you, demanding you to do anything, or insulting you, berating you, or anything like that. My previous comment I actually enjoyed the content you produced.
@@aickavon I didn't think you were, I was just erk'd by the suggestion. I'm sure that works, but I just am not going to go through that type of effort for that. sorry if it came off as aggressive
@@synical69 It's fine, we all have our bad days and our triggers. You just keep making good content like above and try not to let people get to you and I'll keep watchin' whatever comes out
@synical69 agreed, especially impressive, given that we never see anyone, just the big ol war machines. This is easily my goty, haven't enjoyed a game this much in a while.
@@swarmofhungrydeathclaws yeah it's pretty impressive. Definitely carried by the absolutely *stacked* casting choices fromsoft made. G1 Michigan's VA is the same dude who voiced Albert-fuckin-Wesker in a lot of side games.
@synical69 never played RE, but my buddies who did definitely let me know, lol. The VA work is still phenomenal regardless of if I recognize them or not. Realized how good it was during the ice worm mission of all things.
@@todd3143 no way. Iguazu is the comic relief. He's the unexpected squirrel in the road that you notice seconds before it disappears under the wheels and you aren't sure if you absolutely atomized him or he just ran away crying.
I sympathize with Iguazu, like us. He's gen 4, and yet we are so much better than him. All his life, he'd have been told how inferior he is, and he accomplished a lot with what he had, and then we come in, same start and just fly over him like it's nothing. I get why he hates us.
The tiredness in his voice when he says hes feeling beat hits so hard when you relize that hes taking on an entire fleet by himself somthing that you had to split between you and carla in the other ending.
More impressively, the timing suggests he's doing that _without infinite energy_ like we had. Because we're not in that layer of the atmosphere full of Coral to draw on. Rusty is a Legend.
Also His ac is not designed for such purpose Its not an arounder Its an AC hunter Its purpose is to stagger enemies and rip then apart with the blades and an Salvo of sabot rockets
@@Kingofdragons117 Nothing in the lore suggests that. We don't know if he does or does not have augmentations, and it is presumably rare for AC pilots to not have any.
Aside from Ayre, Rusty is basically the only character who 100% respects the player’s right to make choices for themselves. Even if you make choices he can’t agree with, you’re still his buddy.
@@halosammy14 she..... doesn't??? You are literally killing off not only her but her family. She wanted the perfect symbiotic relationship between Coral and Humanity. You killed that chance both now and forever. Saying that she does is just plain wrong.
Something no one has mentioned, when Rusty was working for the corps, his Emblem was a muzzled dog. When he’s fighting with us here, his Emblem is a howling dog.
its cool that if you try to kill him on the xylem mission he has different dialogue for this mission, for me he said "you tried to kill me, kill arquebus" instead of ignore
yeah I wanted to get that into the video, but it seems to only happen once. Even when I went back to kill him in xylem again, he had the "ignore" line.
@@synical69 Yeah. Missions with minor things that change dialogue or affect future plot (IE: The Dam mission in NG+ when you get the backstab offer) lock in what version you're seeing on that playthrough based off what you picked in the Sortie version of the mission it appears.
I made a point to kill him in the Xylem mission, not for the sake of completion, but for the fact I got TWO opportunities to dunk on Snail. Way more important.
Good thing Arquebus doesn't have a habit of capturing and brainwashing people they don't like. That would make the eject option just as bad. Man, sure is a good thing that isn't something we heard about during an assassination mission or almost got put through ourselves. That'd be horriblem
@@Lizarius I mean to play the devil's advocate here, Arquebus is 'fucked', Rusty just nuked their fleet, you just took out their no. 2 in their best unit, and while Freud and the other surviving Vespers are really fucking good, their fight with the Rubiconians isn't one that is ending well for them, not to mention that Freud doesn't give a shit about anything other than a good fight. Even if Arquebus wanted to, who is going to bother trying to locate one MIA/presumed KIA that ain't Snail? End of the day, Rusty dead though, wolf ain't howling no more.
@@shirosaki97 actually, the fact that Snail is out of action is very interesting here. If I understand, he was at the forefront of the reeducation situation, which drastically lowers the likelihood that Rusty would get put through that if he did survive. Man, there's so much speculation in these endings lol
@@lynardskynard2895Nah, in this case Snail is definitely dead. Dialogues are a good tell if they're truly dead or not and that nasally scream that Snail did is definitely a good sign that he's gone.
The final battles were amazing, of course, but this fight with V.II Snail/ARQUEBUS BALTEUS was the most cathartic to me. The swelling music, the slow walk down the tunnel to fight the boss room (trust me, edge walk toward Snail next time, the song was made for it lol), Snail slinging venom at you the entire fight, all leading up to the most satisfying death scream in the game. Felt damn good.
If AC 6 could only have one ending, or if someone were to make an OVA, series or film? This is the ending to use. Balteus showing back up and the final boss make for the most satisfying ending possible as a lone arc of story experience.
It's absolutely fucking 🔥🔥🔥 when Snail is firing the giant laser, pulling out the "And worst of all, YOU. THE PEST WHO STIRRED THE CINDERS. YOU SICKEN ME, *ALL OF YOU!"*
@@Sorain1 It is honestly the best ending. It carries a greater emotional weight than regret from the bad ending and a much more interesting set of final bosses than the loser and the super computer from the true ending. No hate to either ending, but I was so much more invested in the Snail/Walter fights than All Mind, and while the Ayre fight was cool it just didn't hit me the same as the others.
Also just wanted to share for all you Rubiconians. While playing this I caught myself so many times making little R2D2 robot sounds. To find a game that can revert you back to such a childlike state of bliss & enjoyment is rare & should be cherished.
...holy shit, somehow I never realized that. I just thought he was being desperately petty only to die trying, I didn't realize he actually pulled it off.
@@BBlader Yup. It's even worse, he could have tried using that during the assault on Xylem, and he didn't. He didn't even set that pilot to 'stop the Xylem'. He set them to 'Kill 621.' Because Snail is the lowest of scum.
For some reason, even though destroying the coral convergence seemed like the right thing to do. Liberating Rubicon was my favorite ending because in the end it actually felt like you stood for something and fought for what you believed in, that being Rubicon. You do wind up having to betray what you’d believe to be a friendship to Walter and Carla, but in reality the whole time they were just using you to fulfill their agenda. Rusty never turned his back on you, even if you did something he didn’t agree with completely, you were still his buddy.
When you fight walter, he tells you to get surgery done and live as a normal human after it's all over, he wanted the best for you afterall, and he only fights you because Arquebus captured and forced him into an AC.
I feel for me the key point that makes the Liberator ending the better one, is in the fight with Carla, because Chatty gets a chuckle, unlike the other endings, specially in the Coral Release one, when he says he never learned to laugh
@@davethehusky9409 note:in the allmind ending she says the following your handler is a capable pilot and walter sounds normal so we can assume he went into that ibis series AC(the only one that can be piloted) to stop you
That's the tragic thing for me about Walter. He was a cold and calculating bastard all his life because he had to be--the legacy his father left from the Fire of Rubicon shaped Walter to fear Coral above all else, and I have to say it's for good reason. But over the course of the game he regains feelings he thought were long buried, and grows to respect and appreciate you, genuinely wanting you to be able to break free of your augmentation shackles. Carla is a self-serving wild card, and while she's dedicated to the cause 100%, her appreciation for you felt duty-driven and skin deep, rather than something genuine. I was grateful she kept coming up with creative solutions like the rail cannon and Xylem, and most of all when she and Chatty came to my rescue, but it felt more like loyalty to her and Walter's cause with OVERSEER than comradery to us. Walter hit different than that. He wound up realizing that he actually cared about us, even through the horrific torture and frankensteining that V2 put him through, even as he's probably a meat popsicle directly plugged into a deathtrap RRI AC, he feels sorrow and regret. He speaks with genuine admiration and compassion, even through the psychosis from pure agony and trauma of what he endured, even as he's compelled to try and stop you, and regrets everything that has brought you both here--leading up to the game and during it. Walter is a true homie, and in a better world I would've loved to sit down and try to hash things out, but Rubicon is unforgiving enough on its own, let alone to old dogs like us.
As another note, while it's kind of bittersweet, Carla and Chatty actually seem a little proud of 621 for making a choice of their own. Carla mentions that sitting on the fence, you won't make any enemies but you won't make any friends either. On top of that, if you take out Chatty first, during the fight you make him laugh and their dialogue gives the impression that while they are pissed you're about to ruin their plans and that this is the end for them, they understand you're doing what you feel you need to do and they can't really bring themselves to hate you for that
And he has the ALBA core part on, which means his first ending he chose Carla, and fought Rusty. So *YOU KNOW* it hits like a truck when he hears the same theme, but this time we’re fighting alongside our buddy.
Armored Core games have always made you feel bad in some way or another. Even the small handful where we are a 'questionable' good guy at best, many armored core games open up with missions like "Stop mining revolt" or "End Civilian protests" and things like that. Remember that we often open up these games with missions that involve us often being hired to execute innocent people just because a corporation wants to keep its profits. No matter how it is, whether we realize it immediately or some time down the line, Armored Core always hurts us.
Well.. I will say this. I don't remember feeling bad in Project Phantasma. One of the few times where I felt in the right. But it's also a very short game and you only have one client, who is clearly a good person.
(Spoilers for fires of raven ending) My first ending was fires of Raven and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in a game having to Kill both Ayre and Rusty back to back, I was asking myself the whole time “I feel like Walter and Carla lied to me I’m not doing the right thing here” I forced myself to do a second playthrough immediately bc I could not accept that shit lol
they are not wrong, Ayre is the first breakdown of Human\Coral( half human) connection. father was not that stable and coral was too passive. After seen it Walter agreed that there is hope.
Walter and Carla are not lying. They just don't think the coral is worth the risk. It's a point of view I don't agree with but they are not malicious, they are genuinally trying to do what they think it's right, it's thereason why betraying them feels so gutwrenching
@@elegantcat1496Yep, they were just making a decision that would ensure humanity's safety. No one knows if coral was gonna end humanity now that it's been found out it has a consciousness.
@@elegantcat1496 *They* don't think the choice of genociding the Coral and all the human Rubiconians is malicious, but it absolutely is. They can't get it through their heads that the Coral's wrath toward humanity is due to its colonization and extermination. They are using eugenicist and colonialist logic in trying to eradicate a species, a people, they can no longer extract power from and control. A lot of people don't seem to realize that Walter & Co having reasons for their actions doesn't automatically create a moral grey area
Same here. Rusted pride kicked in, and it hit me. I would see everything burn to provide humanity a future. I would take everything and destroy it because of another's whims. I am the bad guy, and Rusty is the foil. Unfortunately, the hero doesn't always win. Rusty is an amazingly written character, and his fate makes me sad.
Didnt know the dialogue in this mission could be different. Snail spent the whole fight complaining about being a sore loser and said your biggest crime was killing him
When I was working toward my first ending I realized that Ayre was asking me to make a choice between respecting Walter and Carla's wishes and doing what I thought was right (not genociding the coral). I felt awful about the choice to betray Carla, but couldn't burn the coral. Then she went ahead and made me feel a lot better with her own boss dialogue about respecting that choice. Then finally this scene hit, and I felt elated. I wasn't standing alone! Fuck, what a game. Getting the other ending after that peak felt like a sucker punch though.
honestly rusty put me through so much F E E L S in this game when i had to fight him in the cave i kinda wanted to just not and the hes back yaaaay and fighting together with you and then you kill balteus again and... well. fuck. idk how games like this just make you so attached to those characters, like they're just a voice and a name not even a face like in ace combat, but you just feel them somehow AC6 is literally ace combat or project wingman, but with mechs. i adore it
i was blown away by the game and its story. i didnt expect much seeing that characters never show faces and its just voice comms but god all 3 endings were incredible
no matter if you get the liberator or fires ending, you will still have to go through emotional stuff and do questionable things. Betraying walter and carla hurts and betraying rusty and ayre also hurts. beautiful game
@@taddad2641 true but I think rusty already isn't with arquebus anymore at that point, I guess he goes MIA for them during the survey where you encounter the mealworms
Genuinely got misty eyed at the beginning cutscene of this mission. Fighting hard despite it all with a war buddy, your only friend in the field, to save the people of rubicon was genuinely emotional. Fromsoftware not only did this to me but did it to me with funny action mech game. They are the pinnacle of triple a action games right now.
This was the last mission I S ranked today to finally complete them all and each time Rusty showed up, it put a smile on my face. Especially the midway boss fight was just so well done but the ending suuuuucks!!
My 1st play through, I went against ayre and sided with Walter,blew up all the coral, and doomed the people on the planet, and didn't feel anything after defeating Rusty because I couldn't see how I was the bad guy for saving carla and helping Walter towards his goals. But after siding with the liberation front and seeing how the perspectives of Walter and Arqeubus were as limited as mine taking the actions I did when dooming the planet, I knew I created a hell on earth for those people and the coral spirits for good intentions. You knew Rusty was a good person the first time you meet him, but you don't give it much thought as you get money for better equipment, and after fighting it out over misunderstanding which side you're on and seeing Flatwell (Rusty's Uncle) try to convince him you're on their side while seeing just how much of a threat you pose to the survival of the planet, he makes you glad just hearing him. When he got shot down suddenly though, you feel it in your gut that he's gone before ayre says anything, and by the time she did, I was already searching for Walter like a bloodhound. That is how you do an alternative timeline story, well played again Miyazaki
When I fought snail before he was piloting arquebus balteus, I was pissed because i thought he had killed walter. I was even more pissed when he hadthe audacity not to die there. That just made the final reveal of HAL all the more fucken depressing. I put him out of his misery, it was the least I could do.
this one hurt. But I KNOW The next one will be Emotionally Destructive. Looking forward to the next one, SyniCal. Great edits, even when dealing with the feels.
So ive been busting my ass not to watch any story stuff i havent done already. And i stumbled on this story ending and.... i was so taken aback i had to play it again to really soak it in. It was such a plot twist for me that it blew my damn mind, and i shed tears of passion. I found my fire for rubicon by how i experienced the story for the first time..just holy shit man..
I cannot stop thinking of this ending. After getting all three endings and having the story and plot sneak up on me with how much time they’ve made me think on them I must say the Liberator of Rubicon ending is probably the best out of them all in my opinion for it’s dedication to radical hope in the face of a setting of nothing but crushing fatalism. There’s something Ayre says about I think dolmayan in one of the ng+ runs that explains the justification for the FOR ending that you could reasonably argue for but also underlies why the liberator ending feels all the more powerful in my opinion. Ayre brings up after fighting and hearing dolmayan’s perspective that his outlook may seem bleak and like he’s resigning rubicon to a pessimistic future that’s exemplified in the saying he has about rubiconians not being the ones to cast their die of fate and how it’s a perspective a lot of characters operate under and is something that makes sense for what most of the people have seen. For people like Carla and Walter who were alive and witness to the heights of hubris that old rubicon had reached before the condensation and reproduction of coral created the circumstances leading to the fires of ibis that was motivated by indulgence in coral technology for war machines and tools of expansion and colonization, you can understand why they’d have a similar fatalistic outlook to an unknown possibility that coral can present. Walter in particular losing his mother and seeing his father become obsessed with the work in coral and especially coming from somewhere like old rubicon that we can reasonably assume from the details given had the tools and inclination to be an imperialistic society(which would also play into why they have all the references to Rome a similarly imperialistic society), would be terrified by the prospect of another flawed system of power like the PCA or the corporations using that coral energy to indulge in the worst of humanity like he saw when the fires of ibis happened. The liberator ending rejects this resignation though and decides that, though the future maybe unknown and the worst systems of power will seek to take advantage of the downtrodden like the rubiconians to preserve whatever power and authority they have, it means the people who can have an obligation to fight against that self serving nature that perpetuates such misery and unequal societies no matter how unknown the future of possibilities are. Liberator is the belief in radical hope in others and that the strength of their bonds can weather the crushing pessimism these systems of control like the corporations, the PCA, old rubicon, all these different systems that seek only to perpetuate themselves at the cost of any who would get in their way or would make better use exploited use to shackle those who would stand against them that in turn makes them believe there are no other options but a doomed tomorrow. Liberator shows that rejecting that resignation and fighting however you can is the first step towards freedom from those systems of power and control and towards achieving self determination that will let us find a tomorrow no longer robbed but it is a task that can never be achieved alone and why I find it fitting there is no real one liberator of rubicon. Rusty calls you that but without Ayre’s message to everyone on rubicon there would be no spark for the uprising, without flatwell’s connections and network of other rlf members there would be no people willing to fight for the uprising, without the leg work Rusty did to undermine the Corporate interests from within there would be no weakened corporate and PCA forces to give the uprising a fighting chance with their technologically inferior weapons, and without 621 finding something to believe in and fight for and choosing to go against his genuinely well meaning yet misguided friends Carla and Walter everyone in the uprising would have died.
But ROF is backed by rival corps of main enemies of the game The fun thing is. the most noble cause in the game - PCA. RRI was trying to do what ayre wants. They were creating C-weapons, because corps can easily take all fruits of their labor if not some kind of self-defence. i really want to see what that kind of noble ai, that all PCA respected to the fanatism, when their death is nothing before system data to help system adapt.
Haven't played a game that's made me feel the way I've felt, in years, arguably the best Armored Core story by far and wide. The sheer emotional investment I ended up putting in towards the end of all three playthroughs was insane. The music, the dialogue, had me cryin a couple times Imma keep it real. Love Rusty. And your video is very well edited and pretty damn funny 🤣
I cried tears of happiness when rusty joined me in this mission, I did the observers' ending first so I was happy to fight with him, his theme also slaps.
Been thinking about my favourite mission recently, and now that I’ve revisited this one through your video, i think this one takes it. Cant wait to revisit this for the S rank with my own upgraded mech too…
You either lose your buddy fighting by his side to the very end or are forced to put your best buddy down because you just happened to be on opposite sides, I’ll never forget fromsoftware for that emotional pain
FromSoftware: here a nobody making his way through a depressing world. No worries we will give you lots of friends, AND THEN RIP THEM OUT AS YOU PROGRESS THROUGH THE STORY.
I wished- no, I PRAY that Rusty wasn't get shot by Walter. It'll hurt me more if he did because he knows we're friend with him. Putting aside him being high asf on coral or something.
Man i finished my first run yesteday and got this ending. Fucking hell, i love this game... It was so fucking intense, so emotional, definitively one of my favorite moments in gaming.
good video. So many people write off AC stories, when in fact that are mostly beautifully written with a couple exceptions. They are wildly cryptic, but the surrounded characters and corporations are always so charismatic and mysterious that you go to bed thinking about what's going on or who's right and who's wrong. There was only ever space for one person to survive rubicon, but damn did this mission hit indeed.
Rusted Pride is the best OST in this game. in the Liberator of Rubicon ending it becomes the ost of this whole mission where you fight by shoulders with Rusty, and in the Fire of Raven ending it becomes Rusty's battle ost.
@@synical69 I just got to this level I think yesterday I haven't completed it yet the boss fight keeps taking me out And I will be completely honest I freaked out about as much as you when I saw the opening scene
Gonna try and curb future comments with this now, since I've gotten so many comments about it:
*I am aware that snail has different dialogue when you try to kill him in Xylem*
I just wasn't able to replicate it when I went back to record the isolated voice lines.
you can get the dialogue option to appear during a new game run I believe.
@@aickavon you really think i’m gonna start an entirely new ng cycle in order to correct a single piece if dialogue for a video?
@@synical69 Relax, I'm not attacking you, demanding you to do anything, or insulting you, berating you, or anything like that. My previous comment I actually enjoyed the content you produced.
@@aickavon I didn't think you were, I was just erk'd by the suggestion.
I'm sure that works, but I just am not going to go through that type of effort for that.
sorry if it came off as aggressive
@@synical69 It's fine, we all have our bad days and our triggers. You just keep making good content like above and try not to let people get to you and I'll keep watchin' whatever comes out
I just wanted funny robot game, but fromsoft decided to hit me with emotional whiplash instead.
for real dude. I think this is the most emotional I've felt towards a fromsoft game
@synical69 agreed, especially impressive, given that we never see anyone, just the big ol war machines. This is easily my goty, haven't enjoyed a game this much in a while.
@@swarmofhungrydeathclaws yeah it's pretty impressive. Definitely carried by the absolutely *stacked* casting choices fromsoft made. G1 Michigan's VA is the same dude who voiced Albert-fuckin-Wesker in a lot of side games.
@synical69 never played RE, but my buddies who did definitely let me know, lol. The VA work is still phenomenal regardless of if I recognize them or not. Realized how good it was during the ice worm mission of all things.
@@synical69God Michigan is amazing
the sheer fucking rival energy with rusty though. GODDAMN.
I love this game.
iguazu is the actual rival. rusty is like older brother kinda rival, and just stomping iguazu is fun
@@todd3143 no way. Iguazu is the comic relief. He's the unexpected squirrel in the road that you notice seconds before it disappears under the wheels and you aren't sure if you absolutely atomized him or he just ran away crying.
I know right? God I hate Iguazu as a character lol
I sympathize with Iguazu, like us. He's gen 4, and yet we are so much better than him. All his life, he'd have been told how inferior he is, and he accomplished a lot with what he had, and then we come in, same start and just fly over him like it's nothing. I get why he hates us.
@@DerWaffelHave you completed all endings? Because there's no way he's not your main rival with how the 3rd ending plays out, lmao
The tiredness in his voice when he says hes feeling beat hits so hard when you relize that hes taking on an entire fleet by himself somthing that you had to split between you and carla in the other ending.
More impressively, the timing suggests he's doing that _without infinite energy_ like we had. Because we're not in that layer of the atmosphere full of Coral to draw on. Rusty is a Legend.
Had he engaged the fleet on the coral infested atmosphere he wouldn't have broken a sweat. Bro had to avoid missiles with no energy.
Also
His ac is not designed for such purpose
Its not an arounder
Its an AC hunter
Its purpose is to stagger enemies and rip then apart with the blades and an Salvo of sabot rockets
Also pretty sure Rusty has no Augments too.
@@Kingofdragons117 Nothing in the lore suggests that. We don't know if he does or does not have augmentations, and it is presumably rare for AC pilots to not have any.
When rusty said "you're out of luck. There's only one person that can keep up with me." And you started squealing.... I felt that 😂
That part always makes me smirk
*“Look at you, 621… You found a friend…”*
Aside from Ayre, Rusty is basically the only character who 100% respects the player’s right to make choices for themselves. Even if you make choices he can’t agree with, you’re still his buddy.
I think by the end, Walter too
@@Urd-Vidan Walter goes through character development, but I specifically said “100%”. Unlike Rusty, Walter’s respect is conditional.
@@halosammy14 I mean, you also said "aside Arye". She totally isn't your ally or friend anymore when you fuck up the Coral.
@@Urd-Vidan Just because Ayre isn’t your ally doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect the choice you’ve made.
@@halosammy14 she..... doesn't??? You are literally killing off not only her but her family. She wanted the perfect symbiotic relationship between Coral and Humanity. You killed that chance both now and forever. Saying that she does is just plain wrong.
“Rusty’s signal just… disappeared!”
me: BULLSHIT! WHO SHOT HIM DOWN?!?
@@leonides1527 "the next thing that going cause you emotional damage"
Walter ghosted that man with no hesitation, bro. 😢
@@jds0798hesitation is defeat
@@leonides1527 The answer is the fruits of Snail's "Re-education" program.
His "one last plan."
Walter didn't deserve that, man.
Something no one has mentioned, when Rusty was working for the corps, his Emblem was a muzzled dog.
When he’s fighting with us here, his Emblem is a howling dog.
As soon as I met Rusty I was like "We're gonna get that muzzle off, buddy"
@night1952 exactly my thought as soon as I saw that too.
He also switched his emblem background from the Vesper guitar pick looking symbol to the RLF rectangle
Not a Dog, but a Wolf. Wolves and Ravens have a partnership in the wild, and now that Rusty is with use, he is free to bear his fangs!
He also sport that emblem when he...
...when he tried to stop Raven and Carla.
its cool that if you try to kill him on the xylem mission he has different dialogue for this mission, for me he said "you tried to kill me, kill arquebus" instead of ignore
yeah I wanted to get that into the video, but it seems to only happen once. Even when I went back to kill him in xylem again, he had the "ignore" line.
@@synical69 Yeah. Missions with minor things that change dialogue or affect future plot (IE: The Dam mission in NG+ when you get the backstab offer) lock in what version you're seeing on that playthrough based off what you picked in the Sortie version of the mission it appears.
which one?
I didn't even know it was possible to ignore snail I saw him and it was fuckin On
I made a point to kill him in the Xylem mission, not for the sake of completion, but for the fact I got TWO opportunities to dunk on Snail. Way more important.
I refuse to believe Rusty died. Head cannon is him ejecting and surviving his AC getting downed but didn't have comms to tell me he's alright.
Good thing Arquebus doesn't have a habit of capturing and brainwashing people they don't like. That would make the eject option just as bad. Man, sure is a good thing that isn't something we heard about during an assassination mission or almost got put through ourselves. That'd be horriblem
@@Lizarius I mean to play the devil's advocate here, Arquebus is 'fucked', Rusty just nuked their fleet, you just took out their no. 2 in their best unit, and while Freud and the other surviving Vespers are really fucking good, their fight with the Rubiconians isn't one that is ending well for them, not to mention that Freud doesn't give a shit about anything other than a good fight. Even if Arquebus wanted to, who is going to bother trying to locate one MIA/presumed KIA that ain't Snail?
End of the day, Rusty dead though, wolf ain't howling no more.
@@shirosaki97 actually, the fact that Snail is out of action is very interesting here. If I understand, he was at the forefront of the reeducation situation, which drastically lowers the likelihood that Rusty would get put through that if he did survive. Man, there's so much speculation in these endings lol
@@shirosaki97 we still don't know. He survived our first encounter, he could just do the same thing.
@@lynardskynard2895Nah, in this case Snail is definitely dead. Dialogues are a good tell if they're truly dead or not and that nasally scream that Snail did is definitely a good sign that he's gone.
Incredible edit!
The "He's getting desperate...and so am I" moment is just *mwah*.
went into ac6 thinking fun mech shooty game, but did NOT expect the feels. god damn it why.
I CAN FLY
I FLY HIGH
WATCH THE SUNRISE
INTO DAWN
Unreal. The music sends this level into the stratosphere, it's so good.
The final battles were amazing, of course, but this fight with V.II Snail/ARQUEBUS BALTEUS was the most cathartic to me. The swelling music, the slow walk down the tunnel to fight the boss room (trust me, edge walk toward Snail next time, the song was made for it lol), Snail slinging venom at you the entire fight, all leading up to the most satisfying death scream in the game. Felt damn good.
If AC 6 could only have one ending, or if someone were to make an OVA, series or film? This is the ending to use. Balteus showing back up and the final boss make for the most satisfying ending possible as a lone arc of story experience.
It's absolutely fucking 🔥🔥🔥 when Snail is firing the giant laser, pulling out the
"And worst of all, YOU. THE PEST WHO STIRRED THE CINDERS. YOU SICKEN ME, *ALL OF YOU!"*
i just assault boost down there lmao
@@Sorain1 It is honestly the best ending. It carries a greater emotional weight than regret from the bad ending and a much more interesting set of final bosses than the loser and the super computer from the true ending. No hate to either ending, but I was so much more invested in the Snail/Walter fights than All Mind, and while the Ayre fight was cool it just didn't hit me the same as the others.
Everything you felt is what we all felt. This is what gaming should be, just pure joy and fun.
Also just wanted to share for all you Rubiconians. While playing this I caught myself so many times making little R2D2 robot sounds. To find a game that can revert you back to such a childlike state of bliss & enjoyment is rare & should be cherished.
the one last plan is the last boss which he captured when Raven was sent to re-education
...holy shit, somehow I never realized that.
I just thought he was being desperately petty only to die trying, I didn't realize he actually pulled it off.
It's why the dialogue with that boss is so disjointed and he sounds so out of it while fighting you.@@BBlader
@@BBlader Yup. It's even worse, he could have tried using that during the assault on Xylem, and he didn't. He didn't even set that pilot to 'stop the Xylem'. He set them to 'Kill 621.' Because Snail is the lowest of scum.
I love the idea that the player character is just fangasming in their mech while rusty is being all buddy buddy with you.
I wanted a fun light hearted robot game and instead got a masterpiece with gundam Level depression
For some reason, even though destroying the coral convergence seemed like the right thing to do. Liberating Rubicon was my favorite ending because in the end it actually felt like you stood for something and fought for what you believed in, that being Rubicon. You do wind up having to betray what you’d believe to be a friendship to Walter and Carla, but in reality the whole time they were just using you to fulfill their agenda. Rusty never turned his back on you, even if you did something he didn’t agree with completely, you were still his buddy.
When you fight walter, he tells you to get surgery done and live as a normal human after it's all over, he wanted the best for you afterall, and he only fights you because Arquebus captured and forced him into an AC.
I feel for me the key point that makes the Liberator ending the better one, is in the fight with Carla, because Chatty gets a chuckle, unlike the other endings, specially in the Coral Release one, when he says he never learned to laugh
@@davethehusky9409 note:in the allmind ending she says the following
your handler is a capable pilot
and walter sounds normal so we can assume he went into that ibis series AC(the only one that can be piloted) to stop you
That's the tragic thing for me about Walter. He was a cold and calculating bastard all his life because he had to be--the legacy his father left from the Fire of Rubicon shaped Walter to fear Coral above all else, and I have to say it's for good reason. But over the course of the game he regains feelings he thought were long buried, and grows to respect and appreciate you, genuinely wanting you to be able to break free of your augmentation shackles. Carla is a self-serving wild card, and while she's dedicated to the cause 100%, her appreciation for you felt duty-driven and skin deep, rather than something genuine. I was grateful she kept coming up with creative solutions like the rail cannon and Xylem, and most of all when she and Chatty came to my rescue, but it felt more like loyalty to her and Walter's cause with OVERSEER than comradery to us. Walter hit different than that. He wound up realizing that he actually cared about us, even through the horrific torture and frankensteining that V2 put him through, even as he's probably a meat popsicle directly plugged into a deathtrap RRI AC, he feels sorrow and regret. He speaks with genuine admiration and compassion, even through the psychosis from pure agony and trauma of what he endured, even as he's compelled to try and stop you, and regrets everything that has brought you both here--leading up to the game and during it. Walter is a true homie, and in a better world I would've loved to sit down and try to hash things out, but Rubicon is unforgiving enough on its own, let alone to old dogs like us.
As another note, while it's kind of bittersweet, Carla and Chatty actually seem a little proud of 621 for making a choice of their own. Carla mentions that sitting on the fence, you won't make any enemies but you won't make any friends either.
On top of that, if you take out Chatty first, during the fight you make him laugh and their dialogue gives the impression that while they are pissed you're about to ruin their plans and that this is the end for them, they understand you're doing what you feel you need to do and they can't really bring themselves to hate you for that
My instant reaction as I heard that was: "Rusty?.... Speak to me buddy. Rusty?!"
plot twist : rusty got killed by Walter.
just like PJ killed by Pixy from ace combat zero
And he has the ALBA core part on, which means his first ending he chose Carla, and fought Rusty.
So *YOU KNOW* it hits like a truck when he hears the same theme, but this time we’re fighting alongside our buddy.
Armored Core games have always made you feel bad in some way or another. Even the small handful where we are a 'questionable' good guy at best, many armored core games open up with missions like "Stop mining revolt" or "End Civilian protests" and things like that. Remember that we often open up these games with missions that involve us often being hired to execute innocent people just because a corporation wants to keep its profits.
No matter how it is, whether we realize it immediately or some time down the line, Armored Core always hurts us.
Well.. I will say this. I don't remember feeling bad in Project Phantasma. One of the few times where I felt in the right. But it's also a very short game and you only have one client, who is clearly a good person.
(Spoilers for fires of raven ending)
My first ending was fires of Raven and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in a game having to Kill both Ayre and Rusty back to back, I was asking myself the whole time “I feel like Walter and Carla lied to me I’m not doing the right thing here”
I forced myself to do a second playthrough immediately bc I could not accept that shit lol
they are not wrong, Ayre is the first breakdown of Human\Coral( half human) connection. father was not that stable and coral was too passive. After seen it Walter agreed that there is hope.
Walter and Carla are not lying. They just don't think the coral is worth the risk. It's a point of view I don't agree with but they are not malicious, they are genuinally trying to do what they think it's right, it's thereason why betraying them feels so gutwrenching
@@elegantcat1496Yep, they were just making a decision that would ensure humanity's safety. No one knows if coral was gonna end humanity now that it's been found out it has a consciousness.
@@elegantcat1496 *They* don't think the choice of genociding the Coral and all the human Rubiconians is malicious, but it absolutely is. They can't get it through their heads that the Coral's wrath toward humanity is due to its colonization and extermination. They are using eugenicist and colonialist logic in trying to eradicate a species, a people, they can no longer extract power from and control. A lot of people don't seem to realize that Walter & Co having reasons for their actions doesn't automatically create a moral grey area
Same here. Rusted pride kicked in, and it hit me. I would see everything burn to provide humanity a future. I would take everything and destroy it because of another's whims. I am the bad guy, and Rusty is the foil. Unfortunately, the hero doesn't always win. Rusty is an amazingly written character, and his fate makes me sad.
Rusty made me feel things and I'm glad I wasn't alone in feeling that line, "your out of luck, there is only one person who can keep up with me"
621's soul when the disembodied but attractive voices start speaking:
Asking FS to stop punching your heart in the face is only going to make them do it harder next time.
Didnt know the dialogue in this mission could be different. Snail spent the whole fight complaining about being a sore loser and said your biggest crime was killing him
When I was working toward my first ending I realized that Ayre was asking me to make a choice between respecting Walter and Carla's wishes and doing what I thought was right (not genociding the coral). I felt awful about the choice to betray Carla, but couldn't burn the coral. Then she went ahead and made me feel a lot better with her own boss dialogue about respecting that choice. Then finally this scene hit, and I felt elated. I wasn't standing alone! Fuck, what a game. Getting the other ending after that peak felt like a sucker punch though.
honestly rusty put me through so much F E E L S in this game when i had to fight him in the cave i kinda wanted to just
not
and the hes back yaaaay and fighting together with you and then you kill balteus again and... well. fuck.
idk how games like this just make you so attached to those characters, like they're just a voice and a name not even a face like in ace combat, but you just feel them somehow
AC6 is literally ace combat or project wingman, but with mechs. i adore it
i was blown away by the game and its story. i didnt expect much seeing that characters never show faces and its just voice comms but god all 3 endings were incredible
no matter if you get the liberator or fires ending, you will still have to go through emotional stuff and do questionable things. Betraying walter and carla hurts and betraying rusty and ayre also hurts. beautiful game
I need an ending with Rusty alive, I need it
In the game's true ending (only obtainable by beating ng++) Rusty doesn't appear at all, presuming he's alive!
@@chrissu988 considering most of the conflict is with allmind who is focusing on eliminating arquebus and using the coral
@@taddad2641 true but I think rusty already isn't with arquebus anymore at that point, I guess he goes MIA for them during the survey where you encounter the mealworms
@@chrissu988 Well, seeng the true ending I gues not. Rusty is not alive...
@@Bitumesilicatissimoyeah I feel like allmind would want someone like rusty
Genuinely got misty eyed at the beginning cutscene of this mission. Fighting hard despite it all with a war buddy, your only friend in the field, to save the people of rubicon was genuinely emotional. Fromsoftware not only did this to me but did it to me with funny action mech game. They are the pinnacle of triple a action games right now.
This was the last mission I S ranked today to finally complete them all and each time Rusty showed up, it put a smile on my face. Especially the midway boss fight was just so well done but the ending suuuuucks!!
My 1st play through, I went against ayre and sided with Walter,blew up all the coral, and doomed the people on the planet, and didn't feel anything after defeating Rusty because I couldn't see how I was the bad guy for saving carla and helping Walter towards his goals. But after siding with the liberation front and seeing how the perspectives of Walter and Arqeubus were as limited as mine taking the actions I did when dooming the planet, I knew I created a hell on earth for those people and the coral spirits for good intentions. You knew Rusty was a good person the first time you meet him, but you don't give it much thought as you get money for better equipment, and after fighting it out over misunderstanding which side you're on and seeing Flatwell (Rusty's Uncle) try to convince him you're on their side while seeing just how much of a threat you pose to the survival of the planet, he makes you glad just hearing him. When he got shot down suddenly though, you feel it in your gut that he's gone before ayre says anything, and by the time she did, I was already searching for Walter like a bloodhound. That is how you do an alternative timeline story, well played again Miyazaki
1:55 I once heard someone say that Rusty saying that is like a Marriage Proposal in Armored Core terms.
"HES TALKING ABOUT ME!!"
Word for word, the exact reaction I had. I shed a tear 😢
Beat snail in the previous mission
Snail: your crime is that you tried to kill me
Show him mercy
Snail: your crime is that you ignored me
Lmao
The emotional Rollercoaster does not end here, is just as brutal in the other ending
When I fought snail before he was piloting arquebus balteus, I was pissed because i thought he had killed walter. I was even more pissed when he hadthe audacity not to die there. That just made the final reveal of HAL all the more fucken depressing. I put him out of his misery, it was the least I could do.
3:07
I can fly
I fly high
Watch the sunrise
Into dawn
Lost in rain
Lost in wind
Watch the sunrise
Into dawn
I fly high
I fly high
I had that same reaction seeing the best character Rusty show up literally in a gundam was just so awesome
Easily my favorite mission in the game, never fails to send shivers down my spine
this one hurt. But I KNOW The next one will be Emotionally Destructive.
Looking forward to the next one, SyniCal. Great edits, even when dealing with the feels.
"He's getting desperate, and so am I." Omg that really sealed it on this whole video bro, that was an amazing line outta nowhere
That initial "yeah!" Describes my exact emotions in that moment
Boyfriend material
We live for Rusty
We die for Rusty
"Hey buddy, you gave us a reason to fight." (guitar starts playing in the background)
So ive been busting my ass not to watch any story stuff i havent done already. And i stumbled on this story ending and.... i was so taken aback i had to play it again to really soak it in. It was such a plot twist for me that it blew my damn mind, and i shed tears of passion. I found my fire for rubicon by how i experienced the story for the first time..just holy shit man..
Oh the emotional damage from the last boss fight in this route…please post it.
Rusty will always be the best Buddy that any Raven/Lynx could ever ask for,a true friend till the end
I cannot stop thinking of this ending. After getting all three endings and having the story and plot sneak up on me with how much time they’ve made me think on them I must say the Liberator of Rubicon ending is probably the best out of them all in my opinion for it’s dedication to radical hope in the face of a setting of nothing but crushing fatalism. There’s something Ayre says about I think dolmayan in one of the ng+ runs that explains the justification for the FOR ending that you could reasonably argue for but also underlies why the liberator ending feels all the more powerful in my opinion.
Ayre brings up after fighting and hearing dolmayan’s perspective that his outlook may seem bleak and like he’s resigning rubicon to a pessimistic future that’s exemplified in the saying he has about rubiconians not being the ones to cast their die of fate and how it’s a perspective a lot of characters operate under and is something that makes sense for what most of the people have seen. For people like Carla and Walter who were alive and witness to the heights of hubris that old rubicon had reached before the condensation and reproduction of coral created the circumstances leading to the fires of ibis that was motivated by indulgence in coral technology for war machines and tools of expansion and colonization, you can understand why they’d have a similar fatalistic outlook to an unknown possibility that coral can present. Walter in particular losing his mother and seeing his father become obsessed with the work in coral and especially coming from somewhere like old rubicon that we can reasonably assume from the details given had the tools and inclination to be an imperialistic society(which would also play into why they have all the references to Rome a similarly imperialistic society), would be terrified by the prospect of another flawed system of power like the PCA or the corporations using that coral energy to indulge in the worst of humanity like he saw when the fires of ibis happened.
The liberator ending rejects this resignation though and decides that, though the future maybe unknown and the worst systems of power will seek to take advantage of the downtrodden like the rubiconians to preserve whatever power and authority they have, it means the people who can have an obligation to fight against that self serving nature that perpetuates such misery and unequal societies no matter how unknown the future of possibilities are. Liberator is the belief in radical hope in others and that the strength of their bonds can weather the crushing pessimism these systems of control like the corporations, the PCA, old rubicon, all these different systems that seek only to perpetuate themselves at the cost of any who would get in their way or would make better use exploited use to shackle those who would stand against them that in turn makes them believe there are no other options but a doomed tomorrow. Liberator shows that rejecting that resignation and fighting however you can is the first step towards freedom from those systems of power and control and towards achieving self determination that will let us find a tomorrow no longer robbed but it is a task that can never be achieved alone and why I find it fitting there is no real one liberator of rubicon. Rusty calls you that but without Ayre’s message to everyone on rubicon there would be no spark for the uprising, without flatwell’s connections and network of other rlf members there would be no people willing to fight for the uprising, without the leg work Rusty did to undermine the Corporate interests from within there would be no weakened corporate and PCA forces to give the uprising a fighting chance with their technologically inferior weapons, and without 621 finding something to believe in and fight for and choosing to go against his genuinely well meaning yet misguided friends Carla and Walter everyone in the uprising would have died.
But ROF is backed by rival corps of main enemies of the game
The fun thing is. the most noble cause in the game - PCA. RRI was trying to do what ayre wants. They were creating C-weapons, because corps can easily take all fruits of their labor if not some kind of self-defence.
i really want to see what that kind of noble ai, that all PCA respected to the fanatism, when their death is nothing before system data to help system adapt.
Michigan and Rusty were by far the best characters in this game.
Haven't played a game that's made me feel the way I've felt, in years, arguably the best Armored Core story by far and wide. The sheer emotional investment I ended up putting in towards the end of all three playthroughs was insane. The music, the dialogue, had me cryin a couple times Imma keep it real. Love Rusty. And your video is very well edited and pretty damn funny 🤣
They really did pilebunker'd our staggered heart in that moment
Same man, same. Rusty is now my favorite FromSoft companion. Beats out so many others, AC6 is a gem and I hope every fromsoft fan plays it someday.
this has ALWAYS been a staple of the Mecha Genre. go watch armored trooper Votoms, Dougram, origional gundam. its a recurring theme.
my head canon that rusty survived it like he did when we blew him up
You missed the highlight Snail line.
"I'll crush you underfoot. I AM ARQUEBUS!"
Love seeing the Rubiconians fighting against the corpos at the 0:36 mark, makes it that much more of a fuck yeah lets go! moment
Best mission in the game imo. Probably one of my favourite stages from any game I’ve ever played.
I cried tears of happiness when rusty joined me in this mission, I did the observers' ending first so I was happy to fight with him, his theme also slaps.
The spng playing during the mission was so amazing
Been thinking about my favourite mission recently, and now that I’ve revisited this one through your video, i think this one takes it.
Cant wait to revisit this for the S rank with my own upgraded mech too…
This game went from skip cutscenes missions bang boom on the first playthrough to an incredibly nuanced storyline on each subsequent playthrough.
I got so hyped when I saw rusty again like this, literally cried tears of joy fighting with him.
You either lose your buddy fighting by his side to the very end or are forced to put your best buddy down because you just happened to be on opposite sides, I’ll never forget fromsoftware for that emotional pain
Damn you Really hit the algorithm in your pile bunker video, but I am shocked that your other videos aren't getting the attention they deserve!
FromSoftware: here a nobody making his way through a depressing world. No worries we will give you lots of friends, AND THEN RIP THEM OUT AS YOU PROGRESS THROUGH THE STORY.
I'm happy I found a video answering my question about Snail's diologue if you pass up his fight in the prior mission
That raw "GET OVER HERE" added to the scene so much ngl
I was so excited during your Balteus fight maaaan, felt like it was my playthrough all over again. Nice Flying Raven!
Now show us your emotional damage after the final mission, share your suffering with the class
This was beautifully edited together!
This was such a well made video
I wished- no, I PRAY that Rusty wasn't get shot by Walter. It'll hurt me more if he did because he knows we're friend with him.
Putting aside him being high asf on coral or something.
genuinely got the chills from this game multiple times, i wanna cry
AMAZING KILL ON SNAIL LMAO GG WP and yeah also the game was all up in my feels,,, Rusty. ayre and the whole of rubicon at my back hit so different
I wasn‘t prepared for that story. Hit me harder than any other fromsoft game tbh
Replayed AC6 last night for these feels. Remembered this video so re-watched it a few times. Did that fight for you Buddy
The fight you have with Rusty in the Burned Ending, is also so sad and cool, seeing him be one of the final obstacles is just Sad😊
Our buddy will always fly high to either stop us or helps us to try and see the next sun rise
Absolute favourite mission. Still gives me shivers.
Saved this one for my last S rank, so I could end on the highest note.
Man i finished my first run yesteday and got this ending. Fucking hell, i love this game...
It was so fucking intense, so emotional, definitively one of my favorite moments in gaming.
Hold my hand and give me a kiss... buddy.
that was my favorite part of the game. Did the whole mission with tears of joy...
good video. So many people write off AC stories, when in fact that are mostly beautifully written with a couple exceptions. They are wildly cryptic, but the surrounded characters and corporations are always so charismatic and mysterious that you go to bed thinking about what's going on or who's right and who's wrong. There was only ever space for one person to survive rubicon, but damn did this mission hit indeed.
When you called Rusty at the end, i felt that.
It made me feel rage and frustration. Those are things.
Snail and Walter are the only characters worth your respect
I think I held a smile throughout the whole mission on my first play of this mission
Rusty, Michigan, Ayre, and Walter somehow managed to worm their way through into my mind despite me skipping every dialogue...
This soundtrack epic beside the on in Carla's mission to stop the hackers
Rusted Pride is the best OST in this game.
in the Liberator of Rubicon ending it becomes the ost of this whole mission where you fight by shoulders with Rusty,
and in the Fire of Raven ending it becomes Rusty's battle ost.
I don't know how they created such a character that most of us just absolutely loved almost right off the bat that takes talents
He treated us like a human and not a tool, unlike everyone else up to that point.
@@synical69 I just got to this level I think yesterday I haven't completed it yet the boss fight keeps taking me out
And I will be completely honest I freaked out about as much as you when I saw the opening scene
I just…. I just wanted a call sign of my own.
why did you make me live that again 😢❤