AC6 retrospective. [MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILERS. HANNAH, IZZY, DO NOT READ THIS] Considering I've cleared all three endings, I feel it's a valid point in time (no, I am not going to try and S-rank every single mission before then, that is madness)
So to start off, I'm going to say that every single grognard fan bitching about the accessibility features or the difficulty is just dumb and probably demonstrating they either don't remember or haven't played the old games.
Debt stopped being a thing since AC3 for the most part, and especially mechanically significant debt. Hard lock existed in AC4 and is defeatable in a similar manner. Refills existed since fucking AC2. Fuckers are not paying attention.
AC1's got its own variety of bullshit. AC2's got its rendition of the Karasawa, AC3 has the god fucking damned RF/220 which you can purchase as soon as you complete the opening mission. And so on.
So yeah, the consequences for fucking up are way more than in, say, the first six games. Hell, it's notable insofar that in some ways this hews closer to AC5's set
So I'd say AC6's difficulty is less baked into simply making the mech do what you want it to and more in actually fighting the other dudes. Which, again, the other dudes would be That Enemy in older games
The chapter 3 finale briefing, for example, is probably one of my favorites just because you have so many of the big personalities bouncing off of one another
Fires of Raven is the darkest, and probably the closest to a Bad End, since you complete the plot set forth to start a second Fires of Ibis. Only bigger. With the silver lining that Arquebus and Balam have basically decided to give the fuck up on Rubicon III.
Liberator of Rubicon comes off as the more conventionally "good" ending, comparably. You've prevented Overseer's plot, and between your efforts and that of the RLF, Arquebus' main forces have been largely driven back. ...but there's nothing really preventing a second recurrence.
which, again, goes off the rails as fucking ALLMIND shows its face as god damned H1's spiritual successor and starts offing a whole lot of people as it claims you as its pawn.
Either through you or eventually on its own. It does this in absolute horrifying fashion in its rendition of Chapter 5 as well, as it takes over all the PCA mechs that Arquebus salvaged, having them kill one another
This ending with an attempt to use the Coral to pull a fucking galaxy-scale Human Instrumentality plot...that is then hijacked because it decided to incorporate the single saltiest motherfucker in the entire game, G5 Iguazu.
Honestly, it feels like it has the greatest spectacle of the three, but the worst emotional impact. More importantly though is that it lets you see the threads of where other shit went in the other endings and vice versa
Which, some of these from the normal NG+ timeline to the ALE timeline:
- Iguazu, after hiring Coldcall to off you out of sheer salt, decides to hunt down Snail. (in NG, you kill him there instead). In the NG+ timeline, he likely dies fighting him.
- O'Keefe is arguably the fucking lynchpin of keeping things off the ALE route. He's a former ALLMIND pawn who figured out and rejected its plan, and presumably, either through action or inaction, kept ALLMIND from having a proper opening
- Killing Snail back in Institute City means that Walter never gets captured. And he's demonstrated to be a competent pilot as he undoubtedly runs his relevant parts of the normal timeline C5, raising the Xylem and escorting it en route.
I can say at the least that...yeah. AC6 is a good damn game. I'll eventually come back to it. Kind of want to try a new run with different gear because god damn there's a lot of options.
And siding with one means betraying the other.
- Iguazu, after hiring Coldcall to off you out of sheer salt, decides to hunt down Snail. (in NG, you kill him there instead). In the NG+ timeline, he likely dies fighting him.
god damnthere's a lot of options.