For a sport about robotic college students raging towards a sinister regime, Full Metallic Schoolgirl is weirdly relatable.
The onset of AI has introduced life to a horde of automaton staff generally known as the Working Useless, tasked by a tyrannical company to behave as company slaves.
With a single organisation controlling Tokyo’s financial system, it’s as much as you – certainly one of two selectable cyber cadets outfitted with chainsaw arms – to climb the company ladder and convey justice to its shady CEO. The one downside is it’s going to take a number of makes an attempt.
This effort from long-running Japanese developer Yuke’s is successfully Returnal for weeaboos, with a thick anime aesthetic bringing character to its acquainted roguelite underpinnings.
Every ground of the fictional agency’s headquarters represents a randomly generated problem, with fight gauntlets punctuating your progress alongside the way in which.
The gameplay blends third-person capturing with melee character motion to principally satisfying impact, though we discovered the default controls to be much less snappy than we’d like and needed to tinker with the digital camera acceleration settings to search out the texture we wished.
As soon as we’d pumped up the response of the DualSense’s sticks, we fairly loved the fight mix; firing from the hip feels fluid as you shut the gap in your foes, earlier than ending them off with a collection of crunchy melee strikes.
Totally different weapons clearly have distinctive parameters: axes are gradual and cumbersome however pack a punch, whereas blades are frenetic however deal much less harm. As you progress, you’ll discover uncommon and even legendary loot with sport altering parameters.
And as with all roguelite sport, a few of your runs will likely be reserved to luck. There will likely be events the place you simply occur upon each instrument of destruction you want, and deal devastating harm because of this. On different makes an attempt, you’ll need to make do with what you’ve received.
There is a component of frustration, together with some hazards and enemy varieties that made us wish to toss our thirtieth Anniversary controller on the wall. These flying robots that drop explosive barrels on the ground? Nightmare!
However the fantastic thing about the sport, like all nice roguelite, is that every run contributes to your total progress.
For each enemy you kill, you’ll vacuum up sources which may be spent on everlasting upgrades, like well being, harm, and even respawns.
The outing does waste your time a bit bit early on because it’ll inexplicably deduct from the revenue you’ve collected, however when you’ve invested into decreasing this, the frustration fades.
And as you make your method up the tower, you’ll encounter recent environments and foes. That company aesthetic stays all through and may get samey, however the artwork staff has put some work in to make sure later flooring really feel recent.
As you attain milestone flooring, you’ll encounter bosses which convey a further problem. You may finally bypass some bosses utilizing elevator keys, although on a few events we discovered we have been compelled to replay giant stretches, which grated.
It’s in these moments that the discharge is at its most repetitive, and whereas it’s a sport very a lot designed for switching off your mind, runs may be lengthy (generally as much as an hour or extra), so it may be demoralising once you die.
At the very least you’re at all times making progress with the aforementioned augments, that are put in by a pervy physician who seems to get pleasure from reaching up your skirt greater than is acceptable.
One factor we also needs to add is that every run is introduced as if it’s a livestream, with chat prompts popping up on the left aspect of the display.
In some rooms you’ll get Money Chat requests to finish it in a sure method, and doing so will web you further cash, which you’ll be able to then reinvest into upgrades.
We did discover as we progressed additional that we have been racing to the staircase to get to the subsequent ground as quick as attainable, however among the dialogue encourages you to try this, so whereas there’s incentive to take your time and hunt for the higher loot, it could possibly additionally pay to simply maintain pushing ahead.
Whereas we just like the gameplay total we do suppose it lacks that further little refinement to push it nearer in the direction of arcade perfection.
For instance, some animation transitions once you come out of a dash don’t really feel as tight as they may, and that detracts ever so barely from its really feel.
However these are comparatively minor nitpicks and symptomatic of the sport’s comparatively low-budget method; whereas this prices greater than your common indie sport at $49.99/£39.99, it’s additionally significantly cheaper than your typical AAA title too.
Conclusion
Roguelites are all about repetition, and Full Metallic Schoolgirl has that “yet another go” issue that makes the style so darn compelling.
Its tongue in cheek premise resonates in these wild instances, and its gameplay – with a little bit of tinkering – blends character motion with third-person capturing in a recent and fascinating method.
You simply must be ready for a little bit of frustration and a pinch of jank: this isn’t a straight-A pupil by any stretch, however its robotic coronary heart’s in the correct place.
