 Imagine the first time you played an awesome game and after months of practicing and planning and grinding you finally beat it and after you beat it you unlock the super legendary secret weapon and it's f**king amazing just like you thought it would be. And when the sequel comes out a year later the devs tell you hey this game is actually directly related to the last one so if you have old data then you should really try and load it. Also you pop in this completely new game for the first time and on level 1 you see all your old characters exactly the way you left them and you start the game with everything you unlocked in the game before. That was the experience for all returning players in Armored Core. Armored Core rewarded returning players in a way very few games did. In many cases it was the opposite approach that most developers had. You know when the devs lay out the rules for a game and then when players start to play the game in a way the devs don't like the devs make new rules and new patches to make exceptions to those exceptions. Well Armored Core never did that. Armored Core gave you the rules and then let you go completely wild. It was like hey so we added a system that lets you load your old ACs into the new game and then players were like so if I bought the whole shop in the last game do I start with the whole shop this game? And from software it was like you what? I mean yeah I guess if you beat enough missions and saved enough money then yeah you technically could but that doesn't sound like a very healthy use of your time and the player community was like awesome that's all I needed to know. So basically every part every weapon all your skills and all of your techniques would be built on in the next game and what this did was give every player a huge incentive to beat the game completely and unlock everything 100% because you knew that all the secret parts you found on the floor all the rewards you got every mission everything you bought in the shop last game would be with you in the sequel next year and they wouldn't just be there in fact there are some things in Armored Core that you could literally only get if you unlocked it from a previous game. For example in Armored Core 2 another age there was no way to obtain human plus which is basically steroids for your AC but if you had unlocked human plus in the previous game in AC 2 when you loaded your file to the next one you would have human plus on level one so a lot of players who never played Armored Core 2 but started on to another age they ended up buying Armored Core 2 anyway so they could unlock the human plus there and then bring the data over to another age and it was a lot of fun because you always felt rewarded for putting in the effort. In fact the parts that I unlocked in Armored Core 3 stayed with me throughout Armored Core 3 Silent Line, Armored Core 9 Breaker, Armored Core Nexus and Armored Core Last Raven. After Armored Core 3 in 2002 I never started a new Armored Core with anything less than the whole shop in my garage on level one and every single game I got to test my old designs on new missions with unlocking new parts beating new bosses going through new stories it was awesome and I think that's really why so many players love it because even if the series changes and the parts don't transfer because you know like PS1 to PS2 or PS2 to PS3 you always know your skills will transfer your knowledge will transfer your experience will always transfer and be applicable to whatever the next Armored Core is and I think that cozy warm feeling of knowing when the sequel is announced that I don't have to worry about a damn thing I know the devs are working hard I know they respect the game they respect the lore they respect the characters and the fans who keep it alive and they really just appreciate the fact that you play the game and you're having fun there's just not a lot of series like that anymore so the fact that Armored Core is still Armored Core it's just a very nice reassuring feeling that something awesome for my childhood is still awesome today so that's my personal take on why I think most old players love the game hope you enjoyed that thank you so much for watching and as always hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around