Side-scrolling Mecha RPG?
The game is basically a side-scrolling mech combat with rpg elements. You fight with other robots and some soldiers to gain experience and money to buy new parts which become available when you reach certain levels. You move around a map to select which area you want to visit. Green spots are shops, red spots are unfinished business, white spots are useless, and blue spots are levels you’ve beaten but can return to. The levels all start you off on the left of the level and have you work your way through enemies until you find some important thing or until you hit the end at the right. There are usually multiple tiers which you can jump onto or down through to gain the most advantageous position to bring down the seemingly endless hordes of suicidal baddies. That is pretty much the game. IMPORTANT: Fuel isn’t fuel as we know it, but is used to repair damage to your mech! You can move left or right with the D-pad while up and down adjust your aim. The L button locks your angle and facing so you can take out the frequent aerial assault. The R button whips out your impressive shield (which negates nearly every attack an enemy can throw at you). Double tap left or right to dash in that direction (once you buy the right part). Jumping, firing, secondary fire, and secondary weapon switch are mapped comfortably to the face buttons. Start brings up a map, various items, and commands while select lets you hop on out of your mech and go commando.
The shield may seem slow but once you upgrade it you’ll find the response time to feel better. Guess that goes for everything. When you start off the game you have the basic mech without the ability to hover or dash, sucks. You get to buy new parts and upgrades for both you and your mechanical marvel. For some reason, the parts get a little percentile next to them ranging from 0% - 120%. My guess is that this comes from frequent use of said piece of equipment. Secondary weapons are fun but mostly suck. You start of with the HNP… the fist of fury. Nothing says “I love you” like a punch to the robot face during the middle of a fire fight! It also knocks the enemy back some. There is also a useless cannon which fires vertically, a useless missile that drops to the ground and grows wheels to speed forward hugging the terrain. Oh, don’t forget the rocket launcher that only fires horizontally. There is a missile pack which launches several reminders to the enemy in any direction why it isn’t a good idea to pick a fight with the one robot who already decimated 60 of your pals before reaching you. There is an automated attack bit that shoots lasers periodically before it falls down and fades away. Oh, the primary weapons? Well you start with a machine gun which reloads gradually over time. You can get a weak-as-crap laser that must burn through its entire clip before reloading. Then there is the shotgun which is useful for taking down one enemy up close with one shot. I found some secret gun that shoots a fireball, but it doesn’t reload so it isn’t worth it. You can only have one primary equipped at any time and the amount of secondary weapons you can equip depends on which mecha you are using. Pick your equipment wisely because you are stuck with it until you get out of the level.
The sprites are decent enough and get the job done. The mecha are interesting looking and animate well. You get a feeling of scope when you march your machine past cars on the road and occasionally squashing any rebels so foolish as to approach you on foot. Practically everything explodes with a swirling cloud of pixel-smoke, from mecha to abandoned cars. Bosses range from specially colored standard enemies which spout of a line or two of dialogue before allowing you to waste them to giant machines taking up nearly half of the screen. The intro and ending both look pretty neat, too. The world map and local maps aren’t spectacular but they are interesting. There was one moment where a jumping man threw some rocks at my mech. The main character made an angry face and said some things and the man turned out to be a little boy… Then there was this time the main character got sent to prison and was about to get a hot-beef injection from his cellmate, but it turned out the cellmate was a woman he met earlier. The display during the missions lets you keep track of your life, ammo, experience, ally’s health, secondary ammo, how many baddies are left, and/or your current target’s remaining health with green and yellow bars. The sprites don’t always look like the character and the explosions are pretty tame, but other than that the graphics work well with the game.
The music gets pretty boring pretty quick. You are privileged to hear the same few tunes over and over. It is the sort of stuff which does let you know you are in a big robot and trying to save the world, at least I assume that is what is going on. It helps things feel tense, at least. The sounds are exactly what is needed and feel well placed and true to the game. Off screen enemies can be silent sometimes, but that just adds to the surprise. Other than the stealthy enemy pilots everything fits right. Nothing mind-blowing, but nothing that makes you dig your fingers into you ears in an attempt to bleed out the vile noise.
The game isn’t so hard if you level your punk up by re-treading some levels again and again. The plot seems to follow your protagonist: the blonde, blue-eyed youth who pilots a robot. Somehow, I feel he gets betrayed before he goes to the US from Europe and hooks up with that odd prisoner woman I told you about earlier. I didn’t understand why because a little while earlier she was smiling while dropping bombs on the little guy from her big-honking ship. From there you get to solve trouble (or cause it) all over the world before the thrilling climax which happens on some sort of… maybe I won’t spoil it. Point is, you get to save the world from certain destruction and you get to ride off into the sunset. I don’t need to understand Japanese to know what saving the world looks like, I have been doing it since I was 8.
Questionable material? Um…. I have a lot of questions but no answers. When you are on foot, enemy mecha and troops can boot you a good distance but not one of your mecha can return that game-winning kick. What is with that primary gun that doesn’t work? Why won’t that red guy die no matter how many grenades I pump into him? Like I said earlier, I don’t know what is going on.
Translating only helps with the menus and shops. Not missing much with a plot. By the time I got someone to translate, I already knew what everything in the menus did so I only got reassurance that trial and error works. Storywise, I found out that my trusty truck driver early in the game turned out to be the president and he was the victim of a coup. I found out that the loser red guy was a mercenary and his sister was a part of some criminal organization. I stopped getting translating assistance and didn’t really lose anything by not understanding what was going on.
This game was incredibly fun for what it’s worth. I picked it up not knowing what it was and I honestly wasn’t expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised with the sheer fun to be had in perching on a roof and blasting away at some hopping robots. If you have the means to get it, by all means indulge in its glory. You may find it fun to hop our of your mech and blow it up with grenades just so you can run through the game on foot. Bosses are pretty hard… nigh impossible. Fun game. (Learning curve for the menus and stores)