Ive been playing through the gens 1, 2, and 3 Armored Core games, and got most of the way to my second ending on 3 before my controller broke. The x and square buttons both go into rapid-fire when held down, making maneuvering even more difficult and the tougher stages fully impossible.

So I jumped ahead to Formula Front since you can play it fully with Ai controls. Im seeing a lot of complaints about this title online, but I personally love the pure engineering challenge it offers. Fiddling with my mechs is the best part of the game imo, so this one is easily my favorite non-core story title so far. Would recommend to anyone that likes experimenting with different builds and sinking time into deep thought on strategy and counterstrategy. Good stuff