I’ve been musing on some thoughts regarding today’s video games. Firstly, that Marvel Rivals was until recently the only hero-based, Overwatch-style game to catch fire since the release of Overwatch itself in 2016. It’s such a popular format for a game, I’d have thought there would be more iterations on the idea. Yes, some have tried, but sadly none have lasted. Secondly, it strikes me how few games let us pilot giant mechs. Still. Despite the incredible reception of Armored Core 6 by both fans and newcomers alike, we are just as starved for the feeling of blasting through the skies in giant robots.
Mecha Break might not exactly be the most indie of titles, but it’s how I spent my Steam Next Fest. And I have to say, it was time well spent. What did I think of the open beta and what this may hold for the final release? Let’s find out!
The story here is pretty basic fare, but the cinematics are still top notch!
The Good
There’s a lot to like about this title. Is the gameplay good? Yes, I’ll say up front I think this is a game I could sink a few hundred hours into easily. The game plays crisply, fluidly, across several different objective-based 6v6 matches. If you like big, tanky mechs that spew bullets while you guard a capture point, you’ll get plenty of satisfaction. Do you prefer featherweight fliers with unparalleled mobility, zooming the pickup objective to its drop-off point? That’s here too. As are a range of others, each catering to a certain kind of playstyle. There’s something here for everyone to love. Each mech is its own “hero,” so pick the one that you vibe with most. Or pick a few! They’re not hard to unlock.
More than that, though, you see the beauty of this game in the small details. Your pilot performs flight control surface checks prior to launch, something that the flight sim geek in me lost it over when seeing it for the first time; there are also neat little cutscenes for winning and losing matches, based on the objective. Menus have that “techy” feel, with each click of your mouse tickling your lizard brain as things slide or snap into place. And the customization is pretty good! You can paint your mech down to the small parts, and even your pilot’s jumpsuit to match. Paints might have to be unlocked for each new mech that uses them, but they are so cheap it really doesn’t matter. Things can always change from beta to final release, but they seemed to be in a good place during the beta. This game has a lot of polish on it, and it shows.
This is a stealthy sniper that likes to cloak, run, and make my life a living pain.
The Bad
I think we’ve been spoiled for open betas these days. It’s easy to approach them as products so close to release that they’re basically chances to play the final game early. It’s good to remember that open betas are still just that. Betas. A time where things might not be fully optimized, crashes will happen more often, network stress tests will fail, and you will experience hangups in matches for any number of other reasons. My time with Mecha Break might be the roughest one I’ve had from a beta in a long time.
I regularly experienced game crashes that seemed unrelated to anything I was doing or any levels I changed my in-game settings to. In the first 24 hours of the beta, joining a Mashmak game, a PvEvP mode where you loot NPC bases but sometimes fight other squads of players, I had a 50% chance that the network would simply time me out and crash my game when loading in. Thanks to the auto-rejoin feature, any time I booted back up, I would be immediately returned to the game in progress where I would then be crashed again. I’d eventually get back into the game (maybe 20 minutes later), having been reported for not playing the match and suffering a penalty to my account. I opened a lot of support tickets during those early hours. Thankfully this particular rough patch was—well patched pretty quickly. The game became noticeably more stable as the week moved on. It’s a good reminder, though, that things we see here may not reflect the final version of this game.
Gundam, Macross, or your favorite mech anime here. You can color these things to your inspiration of choice!
The Weird
And then there are some things that are just a category in this preview all to themselves. For example, there’s some very lackluster voice acting in our limited story content. I hear this may be a placeholder, so there’s hope for a story that’s actually enjoyable to watch on final release. How the current, ongoing actor’s strike will affect this is anyone’s guess. Some of my other games are already showing signs that we have an indeterminate wait on this front (for example, Guild Wars 2’s newest chapter is missing voiceovers for some of its main characters). Take this as you will.
There’s also the question of how many of the systems will be adjusted by the time of final release. Mechs weren’t too tough to unlock, but that could change. Mecha Break might turn out to be free-to-play but super grindy. Still, my thoughts are that they probably won’t change too much on mech costs, given that you also need credits to upgrade research items and mods. In fact, I would venture that the grind for top level mods, for that perfect build, is probably where the real time and credit sink will be. Still, none of these things are hard deterrents for me, especially if the game remains free-to-play on launch.
Back In The Hangar
Mecha Break offers all the things I look for in a mech game. Speed, firepower, lasers, missiles, MORE missiles, a variety of different ways to play, B U L L E T S, and style. Seriously, customization is quite good in this game, and that bodes well especially if the game remains free-to-play, selling cosmetics to keep itself afloat. There’s also framework in place for changing the basic weapons and support systems that comprise our mechs, though there were no options to swap our default loadouts this beta. It’s a sign we may get even more build customization to suit our playstyles on final release.
In my opinion, this game slots nicely into several niches where we’re sorely lacking. If the final release builds on the polish already present in this open beta, this will be one fans of mecha won’t want to miss. Speaking of which, the beta has no end date announced, and there’s a login bonus that seems to run beyond the Next Fest. If by the time you read this the beta is still going, make sure to try it out for yourself!
