While Last Raven looks better than its portable predecessors, clumsy controls and a crazy AI make for a frustrating game
And then you die in less than 1 minute. "Basic AC" my arse.
I'm not saying that Armored Core: Last Raven cannot be a good game. But after 30 hours with it (I AM a mech fan after all), I find myself desperately hoping I could attach a mouse to my PSP and play it ala Counterstrike style. Aesthetically, you will be hard pressed to find another mech game that looks better than Last Raven on the PSP. However, the voiceovers of your faithful assistant Sheila and the other pilots are as bland and emotionless as the mechs they control. The music isn't the most amazing, either.
The worst thing about this game is that it has a learning curve of about 5 hours or more. Even if you have played an Armored Core game on console before. The PSP just isn't the right platform for this game. Look: if you use the default controls, you'll use the analog for moving, the right-side controls for looking, and the two shoulder buttons for strafing/looking left or right. So you have nothing left except for the directional pad to boost/OB/EO/look up/look down. Imagine you have an enemy hovering on the top left of the screen. How is it humanely possible for you to boost AND look up AND look left AND lock on AND fire at that enemy at the same time? Not forgetting that the enemy MOVES, too.
To make things worse, the enemy ACs are nowhere near sympathetic to your predicament. Apart from being cowboys who went through a sniper training course, they are apparently master samurais, too. I swear that each and every enemy AC uses some form of an "aimbot". God knows how I managed to fight my way to the 5th best enemy AC (which I must have lost to at least 20 times), but each time I view a replay , my average accuracy is 20% while the enemy's is usually 60%. What blasphemy is this?!
Don't buy this game if you are no mech fan. Its not worth losing your PSP to a cheating AI after you vehemently propel the PSP across the room because of your 759th loss. However, if you are really a stickler for the AC series and cannot do without this title, my advice is this: 1) Change your controls and spend the next 5 hours getting used to them and 2) Equip orbit / homing weapons so that you actually have a fighting chance against the AI ACs. That or you have magical fingers able to keep a fix on enemy ACs while boosting and dodging missiles in one go.