Some excellent news for all you Ravens out there: every single Armored Core game for the PS1, PS2 and PSP can now be enjoyed with full dual-analog movement, thanks to the mighty efforts of GitHub user, VanLaser. Despite being such a long-running franchise, the Armored Core games didn’t actually receive real dual-analog movement until 2004’s Armored Core: Nexus, with the series instead using a mix of digital and analog input methods since Armored Core 3. Attempting to create something that resembled dual-analogue controls has always been possible thanks to emulator re-mappings, but would still result in fundamentally digital movement. Well, remap no more! Because these brilliant patches allow you to play the game with full dual-analog controls, complete with granular movement and aiming.
Set-up for these patches seems heavily reliant on emulator options and cheats, so the possibility of these hacks working on real hardware is probably out the window for now. Still, this is very sophisticated work that deserves a stomp and a cheer. Especially considering the old digital controls are likely to sour the fun of new fans delving into the series’ back catalogue after the smashing success of last year’s Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. One final note is that these patches don’t seem to effect the turn speed of your mech, as a mouse injector would, which gave your Armored Core godlike levels of speed and precision.