The difficulty ramps up nicely in
Armored Core 2. The early missions (and opponents) are fairly easy, but things get progressively harder. Often, you have a couple (or so) missions to choose from at any given time. Watch the debriefing information for each and see which you think you'd be able to do. You can use the amount of money offered as an indicator of the difficulty, but bear in mind that conditions might change once you're on the mission. They might have known that enemy reinforcements would arrive. Also - it's important to keep track of what your SPECIFIC goal is. In some cases, you may merely have to protect some specific object for a limited time. There's no need to try to kill all enemies if this is the case; just protect the object. In the arena, you can only choose the next mech above you to challenge. If you win, you get a monetary prize which can be spent on upgrades, etc. If you lose, you can try again. You don't have to pay for ammo or repairs involved in arena fights, so the arena is a good way to build up some money if you find yourself unprepared for your next mission. (And you will...) Overall, the game does have its difficult parts, but it remains interesting even at those times.
Armored Core 2 is a hard game to put down.
