Mecha Ace

什么都别说了，我要开高达！！！

A short but thoroughly entertaining choose-your-own-adventure about being a mecha pilot. Mecha Ace wears its Gundam/Mechwarrior influences on its sleeve. You're a mecha pilot in a war against a tyrannical empire, meeting along the way some stock characters: the hothead wingman, the starry-eyed bridge controller, the earthy chief mechanic... even the masked rival! Without spoiling the story too much, a number of plot beats common in mecha fiction also show up here. Though the game also takes a few sly digs at some of the less plausible parts of its influences. The meat of this game, the battle scenes, are [i]very[/i] well-written, and I found my heart rate going up at several points, despite this being all text. The interludes serve to flesh out your character and the world a bit, and don't overstay their welcome. I do feel like it's a little short overall - I could have done with a couple more chapters. But as it stands it is snappily paced, without any bits that feel like filler. Unlike Choice of Robots, this story does not seem to reward replayability as much - there are no branching subplots here, just variants of one narrative. On a technical note: there is a checkpoint system every couple of chapters, but it is [i]extremely[/i] buggy and I would strongly advise giving it a wide berth. I've gotten a few chapters in only to be thrown forward to my last save point, further along the story in a previous playthrough, effectively killing that run. The only reliable way to save is to exit the game. Overall, I had a ripping good time, and would definitely recommend, especially for its asking price. Wolf-Lead, out!