Reviewing Armored Core 6

Code came after the embargo, so I spent the past two weeks playing catch-up with everyone else's reviews. The last time an Armored Core was current, not only was I not active in the game space, I was barely gaming at all. So it was both exciting and extremely nerve wracking to return to thinking about mechs and writing about them and my feelings about Armored Core in any way. 

In the end I had 27 (I counted) different Google Keep notes, of varying lengths and complexities and sitting down to synthesize all of that into a mostly coherent "review" was a three day, staying up until 4 AM every night process. I hope you enjoy it. Looking back there are a few things I wish I'd cut a little deeper on to make room for some other bits, but mostly I'm just completely drained. 

I've talked about it before, but after a major piece like this, the amount of work it takes to chew through a game, and process all the thoughts, and then actually do the writing, and then turn the writing into something properly written -- It's arduous. It's draining. And there's kind of a post-publication doldrum that's hard to avoid, part depression, part exhaustion, part anxiety about what's next and how to follow it up. With games media being what it is, there's also the latent feeling of "will this even matter in a week." And honestly, sometimes there's a fear that it won't even matter outside of the day. 

But in the end I got to write about something I love, why I love it, what is interesting about it, and all the connections and things that got me to that point in my life. And even if now I'm exhausted and depressed having come out the other side of it -- I'm proud of this piece, and I'm really glad I got to review an Armored Core at some point in my career. Phew.

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading,

<3