Everything you thought was cool back when you were 12 is in this game: Comic books, giant robots, guns, violence, big boobs, bribery, tax evasion, cookies, all of it. The most important thing about mech games in my opinion aren't the mechs, or the guns, or the customization, but the feel of actually riding a giant death machine using weapons that weigh more than my car. I certainly didn't expect a low budget top-down shooter to nail it, but they did. Whether you run around with a butt naked melee Gundam build or a giant Battletech-esque scrap dumpster on tracks, there's a proper feel to the controls that immediately give the impression that you aren't just a village idiot in an Iron Man suit. Running, jumping and shooting all feel like there's heft to everything. Firing heavy weapons makes your reticle sway and swing from the recoil and the compensators trying to bring the aim back to center. All of this complemented by excellent sound design that makes both the mechs and weapons sound punchy and powerful. Combat has some interesting mechanics to spice things up. Most combat zones are filled with buildings and obstacles which can act as cover or obstructing your line of fire, so you need to pay attention to your positioning and approach. Shots can ricochet off obstacles instead of just disappearing into the shadow realm, you can even hit yourself with a poorly thought sniper shot. Zones can have weather conditions and oil or water pipes that can spray you or the enemies, causing various status effects and vulnerabilities to different attack types. Smoke generators or grenades can be used to make safe approaches for melee or to bail out of trouble, and there are cloaking devices too for the sneaky enjoyers. Being a chonky brickhouse is also refreshingly viable, as face tanking can be effective for once with the proper use of the cover mechanics and putting your points into relevant skills. Instead of being attrited to oblivion, weaker enemy shots can simply bounce off your armor. Naturally this can also happen to you if you try to whittle down a tanky enemy with a pea shooter. Melee weapons are properly powerful to offset the risk of closing in, and it's a treat once you get into the middle of bots as a whirlwind of laser blades and mech-size boxing gloves, slicing through shields and throwing small enemies around. Most story missions focus on your squad defending the city gate, but there are various side missions where you're tasked to go on the offensive, raiding enemy supplies or destroying facilities, or defending friendly convoys crawling across the field. For customization you're spoiled for choice. There are a ton of equipment slots per mech and you'll unlock a wide variety of weapons and gear to try out. Weapons have multiple variants and all can be upgraded. At first you're at the mercy of a random selection of equipment available at the store, but later unlock the ability to manufacture equipment from salvaged parts. There is a durability mechanic for weapons which I'm not a huge fan of, although thankfully most guns don't degrade very quickly and can be repaired. The durability does bring an element of strategy into the customization as higher level weapon parts cannot be removed without reducing durability, so you're encouraged to think more carefully about which weapon you want to kit out with your best gear, and use basic free-to-remove equipment for less important weapons. For your tanking needs you'll have various pieces of armor, shields, cloaking devices, the works. You can also add and customize drones which will hover near your mech providing close support, special shoulder weapons, turrets which can be placed at defensive points, and smaller autonomous unmanned mechs which can be deployed alongside the crew to fight for you. On top of all this, the devs have taken a few pages from popular gacha games regarding the pilots. You have a simple dormitory you can decorate and where the girls lounge around between missions. There's an affinity mechanic where you raise loyalty by giving the girls gifts that they like, and doing some R&R activities like hitting the bar or the beach. Affinity brings extra benefits like being given useful gifts in return, items having boosted effects, and the girls being more likely to follow your orders in combat. It also triggers extra story events. The dating sim element isn't too deep and feels a bit tacked on, but isn't much extra hassle either. More importantly pilots have a fatigue statistic, and much of your crew management will center around managing it. The dating sim elements play a role here so I don't recommend completely ignoring them. Deploying with low fatigue guarantees a skill point for the pilot so it's preferable to keep the crew as fresh as possible, but later in the story side missions come in at a hectic pace and you're tempted to press your pilots hard to grab those rewards. There are a few other mechanics of interest, such as financial shenanigans. All your income is rigorously taxed by the powers that be, but a strategically placed pack of cigarettes or a bottle of fine vintage (or purified mech fuel, more likely) can momentarily cloud the Big Brother's vigilant eye. You can choose to dabble in contraband such as uncensored prewar books, ignore the frontline deserter sneaking through your camp, or try your luck in the black market. You may opt to debate with your pilots whether the enemy hordes they mow down in the hundreds actually are just unmanned drones. You can turn on the TV and watch state propaganda if you wish to gamble on your sanity. There are dilemmas from time to time which force you to make a choice, and these change the moral alignment of your Commander on a Cartesian plane. Progressing along a moral axis unlocks extra abilities and bonuses specific to that path, for instance the Revolt-axis boosts your ability to commit tax evasion among other things and is progressed by choosing seditious acts in dilemmas. You're a mook fighting for an oppressive state in a brutal attritional war with another, likely an equally oppressive state. Take of that what you will. TLDR: This is a C-jank game with a solid core gameplay and a lot of stuff added to it for flavor. As a low budget indie game it's rough around the edges, and the English translations have been delegated to whoever happened to have the highest ESL test score in the office that day. But where it matters, the game delivers. Suffice to say for 12 bucks this is great value for money. Try out the demo and see if it works for you.
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