I pray that someday Armored Core experiences a surge of popularity and retakes the acronym that is rightfully their.
...well technically it rightfully belongs to Ace Combat but still!
Honestly to me the only reason Armored Core has issues with popularity is... The controls.
It is a game that actually takes effort to be even slightly competent with it.
Unlike lets say... Zone of Enders where you feel freakishly competent even though you probably are a terrible pilot.
In Zone of the Enders it makes plot sense, though, because you're a little kid who's flying a mech that practically pilots itself. In Armored Core, you're supposed to be a fairly competent mech pilot with (presumably) some training. It's not a good excuse, but it's an excuse.
That was always the most laughable part of AssCreed4 to me, how you could parkour just like an assassin despite basically being a random asshole who signed up with a privateer ship to make some extra dosh. Well, that and how quickly you stop caring about the assassin-y bits and start playing it like Pirates of the Caribbean the RPG.
Isn't this a great thing?
Parkour off the main-mast, up the mainsail, and leap up on the upper deck!
Or scale up the bulwarks to take the port and starboard areas.
It sounds great o_O
If they put more effort into making a pirate game with parkour elements and not an assassin game with pirate elements, I would play the crap out of that game. I would pay full price for it and buy all the DLC. I would fucking Kickstart that shit. That's what I wanted out of Black Flag, and it's sort of what I got, but it could've used more.
The most engaging part of it was trying to manage your wanted level just right so that the pirate hunters showed up with gifts of metal, but weren't strong enough to give it to you directly, so to speak.
The pirate hunters never gave me issues, to be honest. At any level.