I'm not immune to an unsubtle display of the very best tropes one genre has to offer all in one place. I'm especially not immune to it when it's a genre I love. So that's why I'm writing this: Because the trailer for Mecharashi is exactly what I want from a mech game trailer and I like it a lot.
There's haunting music, which is good because the idea of building-sized fighting machines battering each other in an already-ruined landscape is haunting. There's a lovely shot of a beautiful detailed technical-looking machine interface getting flipped on. There's machine guns in both hands of a giant robot, and a giant robot with a shield. There's an absolutely wrecked mecha missing an arm getting back up for just one more round of fighting. There's even the not-so-subtle implication among several shots that this entire experience is both very traumatic and very exciting for the pilots.
Mecharashi, scheduled to release this year, is a tactical turn-based RPG about battles between big old robots. It's focused on a parts-based construction system where you build mecha with your own choice of weapons and bits and then take them on a journey through a dangerous war where the player's mercenary unit will inadvertently become important figures in the war they fight—and in history. It's also looking really free-to-play, for the record, and packed with microtransactions. Bummer, but cool trailer.
The gameplay is inspired by classic mecha series Front Mission, where each part of a mech has its own hit points and breaks separately. Strategy is then about whether you can neutralize an enemy unit by taking out a few key parts rather than having to focus fire down its heavily armored torso, or whether you should just disable its legs and avoid it entirely.
The cinematic trailer and screenshots show off a variety of weapons, from mech-scale rifles and pistols to cannons, rockets, heavy fists, and shields. There's even a mech displayed with two huge swords. It's a new mecha world, so there's no way of knowing all the in-world technical details, but developer BlackJack Studio says they're hoping for a realistic look to the world that the fairly restrained, "reasonable" sizes of the robots supports.
"Every detail, from scene design to the mech models, is crafted in a solemn, realistic style to achieve the ultimate expression of mech aesthetics," it says.
You can find Mecharashi on Steam, where it's "coming soon" some time this year. You can also find it on its website, but I'll warn you again that it smacks of gacha microtransactions and premium currencies on there. Look, I didn't guarantee the game was going to be good, people: just the trailer.
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