Giant robots are cool as all hell. They’ve been cool as long as people have been writing about them, and that’s pretty much since the dawn of science fiction. But the Japanese took things one step further in anime, creating mecha, giant robots piloted by humans and used as war machines. The genre has spawned such legendary creations as Mobile Suit Gundam, Super Dimension Fortress Macross (the basis for Robotech), Neon Genesis Evangelion, and a host of others. Mecha have been a part of gaming almost since its inception, with games reaching all the way back to the Famicom, and they’re wildly popular in Japan. Once in a while, a mecha game manages to come to North America, but usually they don’t sell that well. Hardcore Mecha, a successful Kickstarter game from RocketPunch Games may be the exception to that rule though!
Hardcore Mecha sounds like a hokey title and the intro honestly makes you wonder if you wasted your money for the first three minutes or so. However, it’s anything but! Don’t let the plot or the still visuals fool you either. You’re working for the New United Nations, fighting terrorists attempting to liberate Mars. Turns out they’ve organized in a big way and formed a force to be reckoned with, the terrorist organization Steel Dawn, and it’s up to you and your team to stop them. Now, it doesn’t sound like anything more than the plot of a bad 80s action movie, but in Hardcore Mecha, everything is about the execution.
Every single part of Hardcore Mecha has been carefully engineered for maximum impact. The story might be a bit stale, but it’s presented in a series of cut scenes, both in full anime glory and as talking sections with full screen portraits. Everything is dubbed in Japanese and all text is in English for that authentic anime feel too. And then there are the mecha. The mecha in Hardcore Mecha are all SD, which for those of you that aren’t familiar, stands for Super Deformed, another way of saying cutesy. It’s a style that was heavily popularized by the wild success of the SD Gundam games and has endured for literally decades. Usually, SD games tend to be a little too cutesy, but in this case, care was taken to harden up the lines of the mecha and render them in such a way that even in full SD glory, the mecha manage to look menacing and awesome. It’s a unique take on the genre and the art and story blend together so well that the game is utterly immersive.
On top of a well-executed story and a unique art style, Hardcore Mecha has 2D mecha combat. And it has a lot of it! The combat is the meat of this one, an excellent balance of form and function. Your mecha handles smoothly, combat is blazing fast and controller mapping is well-thought out and intuitive. Everything about combat in Hardcore Mecha shows the amount of love that went into this game. It’s an absolute dream to play, and honestly the only disappointing thing is that some of the levels had too few enemies to fight!
But combat isn’t everything. The level design in Hardcore Mecha also shines, showcasing a thoughtful departure from the standard 2D brawler. Levels feature stealth missions, chases, combat scenarios, defensive fronts, and even space battles. The sheer variety of gameplay is an unexpected joy. The first time you jump out of your mecha and realize that you’re suddenly about to perform a stealth mission like a 2D Metal Gear Solid, it’s a complete shock. And then to have your secondary mission be to not kill any enemies? Fantastic! Camera angles constantly shift to give maximum impact to each situation, and even your ultimate attacks have a traditional anime-style cut scene.
It’s honestly hard to find any fault with any part of Hardcore Mecha. Enemies die, allies die, the story is hard-hitting, if slightly cliché, but manages to pull it all off in an incredibly entertaining style. Even the music is excellent, with a pounding soundtrack that gets the pulse racing and keeps you enthralled by the action. In fact, there are even vocals by Hironobi Kageyama, and if you aren’t familiar, his resume consists of, well, most of Dragonball Z, as well as Saint Seiya and Super Robot Taisen, just to name a few. Add Daisuke Kurosawa, formerly of Konami into the mix and you’ve got one amazing soundtrack!
With eighteen levels to play over the course of eight stages, Hardcore Mecha isn’t incredibly long, but you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. As you play through, you also upgrade your mecha with new weaponry and armor and develop your skills using a fairly basic skill tree. This adds even more depth to the already well-designed gameplay and lets you tweak your mecha to your play style a bit. Every step of the way, Hardcore Mecha is a polished, elegant experience that is as rewarding as it is fun.
For $20, you’re getting an absolute powerhouse of a game, with a rocking soundtrack, excellent style, and a gameplay experience that’s rarely matched these days. Any way you cut it, that’s a bargain. On top of that, there’s a multiplayer mode allowing you to play a variety of other mechs if that appeals to you. Multiplayer also happens to have 4 player local play in addition to 4 player online deathmatch, a rarity these days. The single player experience is definitely where it’s at here, though, and it’s absolutely not to be missed! So suit up, grab your mecha, and get hardcore!
This review was based on a digital copy of Hardcore Mecha provided by the publisher. It was played with a PS4 Pro on a Sony 55” 1080p TV. Hardcore Mecha is also available for the PC on Steam! Finally, mecha are cool as hell and if you don’t believe it, go check out some episodes of Robotech: The Macross Saga, which is available to stream on Amazon Prime right now! You won’t regret it!