Awesome game. Bad promotion. Simply put, this game has a few flaws. But it still exceeds at providing a fun experience.
I've owned this game for two days now and I can honestly say that I absolutely love it. In a sense, this game reminds me a lot of Virtua On, except in this game you're playing from an aerial view as opposed to the typical third-person perspective found in many mech fighters. This perspective plus the B.O.S.S. mode gives players the sense that they're playing something similar to a manic shooter. In actuality it's not a manic shooter at all. It's a very deep versus game that possesses a simple arcade control layout that almost anyone can pick up.
I have only a few problems with this game and I'll state them here. The first problem I had was with the graphics. At first glance with the exception of the backgrounds, this game looks like it's running on some old arcade board used to produce Dreamcast games. The mech models look like they have no texture mapping on them at all. And even some of the effects (explosions, smoke) look a little out-dated. I honestly feel that the developers could have put some more time into making the game look polished. Second of my complaints is the close-combat fighting. As with the graphics, I think the developers could have put a little more into making the close-combat look & feel a bit more intense. The last of my complaints is the story presentation. I feel that they could have given us either some good anime or animated CG for the endings and whatnot. Instead, you're only given a small handful of still drawings and text at each character's ending.
Altogether I feel these are things the developer can improve upon with further iterations of this franchise. I already know the American consumer base will probably walk right pass this title and that's quite alright. The leader boards clearly show that this game is well-accepted by the Japanese (which is no surprise considering the game is a port of its Japanese arcade counterpart). Hopefully this will be enough for a sequel.