Boss Rush: Armored Core VI’s Balteus Teaches a Tough But Essential Lesson

Frequently, at the end of a videogame level, there’s a big dude who really wants to kill you. Boss Rush is a column about the most memorable examples of these, whether they challenged us with tough-as-nails attack patterns, introduced visually unforgettable sequences, or because they delivered monologues that left a mark. Sometimes, we’ll even discuss more abstract examples, like a rhetorical throwdown or a tricky final puzzle or all those damn guitar solos in “Green Grass and High Tides.”

A volley of missiles arc up and around, an odd grace to their movements even though they’re about to pincer me in an explosive embrace. I’ve been evading them with mostly limited success for what feels like hours, but by now, I have a good idea of what I’m supposed to do as I activate my thrusters, jolting my armored core into the blind spot straight ahead. A little too late. While I dodge the brunt of the blasts, a few stray rockets nip at my heels, eating away further at my already battered frame.

But while I’m on my last legs, so is the Balteus, and as I rush in, firing a Ransetsu-AR in my right hand and missile launchers on either shoulder, I see that I’m almost there, a few more hits from breaking its shield and potentially defeating this seemingly unstoppable foe for good. But I get greedy. I swing back the pulse blade in my off-hand, hoping to end things with the next move, but before I can bring it forward, Balteus spins, wheeling around a massive flamethrower that melts through my core. It’s a devastating hit, and my mech explodes. It’s another Game Over.

For those who played Armored Core VI, especially in the early days before a patch that made things a bit easier, this scenario probably feels all too familiar. The latest entry in FromSoftware’s long line of giant robot action games doesn’t hesitate to throw players into the fire, immediately delivering the type of blazingly fast mech duels the series is known for while probably crushing them into spare parts in the process. This mean streak is best embodied by the bout with Balteus, a deadly AC (armored core) that acts as the game’s first major roadblock.

As this figure flies into the frame during a cryptic cutscene, it’s immediately clear there is a clinical coldness to their movements—fast, surgical, and merciless. While most of the humans on Rubicon are doing their best to sync with mechs and become more precise by taking on body augmentations that limit the separation between flesh and metal, Balteus doesn’t have to jump through these hoops; it doesn’t have a pilot. In a game where you never see a person’s face, it feels appropriate that the first truly backbreaking enemy you come across is pure machine, an autonomous attack dog that does the bidding of a distant government. The robot’s name gives us another clue about how things will go; tying in with the game’s constant allusions to ancient Rome, the word balteus can refer to a Roman sword belt, a tool similarly outfitted with deadly weapons. Unfortunately for you, this adversary’s vast arsenal very much manifests in gameplay.

In their initial phase, they’ll fire off a seemingly endless supply of missiles, and the worst variation is when they fill the screen with projectiles that approach from three directions, requiring you to evade at precise angles. In between ducking and threading, you’ll occasionally hear a warning beep accompanied by a flashing red indicator, which signals the bot is about to fire a high-speed blast that deals massive damage and stagger if you don’t sidestep it. As you enter the second phase, things get even dicier, as a series of sweeping flamethrower attacks are added to the mix, each requiring quick responses or you’ll end up barbecued.

The ensuing onslaught is a great vertical slice of how this game’s boss battles go. You have to pay close attention to each strike because you take a punishing amount of damage each time you get hit, and this encourages you to memorize the beginning of each animation so you know whether to jump, use a quick boost to perform a brief but speedy dodge, or perform an assault boost to do a long sustained dash. There’s a frantic pace as you desperately dart across the battlefield to avoid Balteus’ screen-filling projectiles, and you can see the specific brand of mecha anime being quoted as these fights make homage in every giant laser sword slash and desperate bost boost around homing rockets. You’re encouraged to stay aggressive because even if you dodge most of what’s thrown way, you’ll inevitably take minor splash damage—you have to end things quickly before your robot is whittled down to nothing.

But even more than showing off the game’s speedy action and sense of cool, Balteus’ most important lesson doesn’t come from a giant flamethrower or several tons of explosives but something more benign: his shield. From the start of the battle, the robot is surrounded by a crackling pulse barrier that negates all damage. At first, this shield drove me crazy. My weapons barely made a dent as I ducked and dodged, always a moment away from disaster. While depleting these defenses left the bot staggered and open to big damage, I’d struggle to stun it again before it got its shield back up. Even when I felt like I was dodging the majority of its attacks, small scrapes added up as I failed to whittle down their health. After a particularly deflating near-win, I took a moment to think about what was going wrong. Then something dawned on me that would be a salty excuse in most games: maybe my build is just trash?

I went back to the shop and perused what was available, this time reading the item descriptions more thoroughly and paying attention to all the stats and what they meant. I saw the Pulse Gun again, the HI-16: GU-Q1, and read its description carefully; this weapon was allegedly good against pulse shields! After selling some parts and reconfiguring my machine around this new weapon, I dove back in. Suddenly, it was like playing a different game. Having already memorized Balteus’ attack patterns, I now had the raw DPS to actually put up a fight, and after a few rounds, I finally dealt a death blow.

This ordeal taught me the single most crucial lesson for my time with Armored Core VI: these big bosses aren’t only skill checks, they’re also build checks, and there’s nothing more important than bringing the right tool for the job. From this point on, I became obsessed with tinkering to avoid future failures, spending hours in both the garage and simulations as I honed my creations. I crafted nearly unkillable tanks, quick-boosting small fry, reverse-jointed bipeds, and flying tetrapods, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I kept the parts for at least a few of these creations on hand so I could freely swap between them mid-mission if I ran into problems.

Although I’m sure some players won’t like that your build is equally if not more critical to your success than your piloting skill, by placing so much emphasis on how you design these mechs and introducing a ton of complexity around crafting them (there’s a long list of stats and restrictions), experimentation is rewarded. By the time I was done with my first playthrough, I probably had as much playtime in the garage as on the battlefield, and all of this felt like time well spent.

As someone who treats builds as a set-and-forget kind of thing in most games, I’m fairly confident that I wouldn’t have dove head-first into these systems if it weren’t for a certain death machine that ground down my stubbornness. Could Balteus have been toned down a bit and still gotten the message across? Probably, but for a series neophyte like myself, I’m glad it eventually pointed me in the right direction.

In many games, when you beat a brutal boss that’s been giving you trouble, you can sometimes feel a deflated sense of relief that the punishment is over instead of excitement over finally winning. Armored Core VI has plenty of uncompromising adversaries that would seem to meet this criteria: massive robot spiders that kill you in a few hits, hulking tanks that seem impenetrable, and dangerous lost technology better off forgotten. But the difference here is that after eventually besting these tricky opponents, my first thought wasn’t weary relief that I wouldn’t have to see them again but excitement over what new killer AC I could create to dismantle them even more efficiently. This game made me an armored core freak, and it all began with Balteus.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.