I wish steam had a "middle of the road" option - would I recommend this game to some people? Absolutely. Realistically I should put "yes", then, but If I treat the recommend/not recommend as a "did I enjoy/not enjoy this game", then I have to squarely put it to "I did not enjoy this game". If you're on the fence, basically, if you enjoy fast paced anime mecha action and have an afternoon to kill, this game is relatively cheap enough that even if you don't enjoy playing it, you won't feel like you wasted your money/time.
Stuff relating to the port specifically: according to Konami, not a single person who speaks japanese is actually outside of Japan, and apparently doesn't want to hear the JP voice over or play in Japanese. The fact that this port doesn't come with the option to just switch language like a lot of steam ports do is just a travesty, bad bad bad. Outside of that, the port is fine but could use a cap framerate function.
Also !!FULL SPOILERS!! below
Ok, that stuff out of the way, I will say outright: I did not enjoy playing this game. I enjoyed watching this game a lot, the cutscenes, the characters, the writing of the dialogue and the actual JP dub are all excellent. It felt like watching a fun, cheesy, mecha anime movie. It is paced well, doesn't overstay its welcome, the game looks beautiful and sounds great. It by all accounts should be a slam dunk short, replayable no fat fun action game.
Unfortunately, I did not gel with the combat. I enjoyed it in the first 2-3 chapters. Moving the mech itself feels generally good, it's fast paced, the grab and throwing enemies is fun, slashing them is cool and you get expansions to your arsenal all the way throughout the game and I was able to find a practical use for most of the subweapons. Where the game let me down is the design of the missions themselves. They clearly wanted variety here, they didn't want the player doing the same things because, tbh. The combat gets repetitive very fast. But a lot of the missions ended up being incredibly tedious to me, especially the escort protect style missions. The games lock on system has received much scrutiny from what I've seen, rightfully so. It automatically snaps to any target even if you don't lock on, and the way it can jut around from target to target gave me incredible vertigo. In order to slash at enemies, you have to get close to them, so you dash in, slash in at your enemy and get this sideways cinematic camera and also get a lot of your view blocked.
A lot of combat encounters just devolve into incomprehensible madness that felt incredibly overwhelming. If I make a mistake, bungle a dodge, block or attack at the wrong time, I want to be aware of what I did, why, how, where and what to look out for next time. With this game, even through my 3rd playthrough attempt right now, I feel like I haven't tangibly gotten better at dealing with any part of the game outside of the bossfights (minus the last 2).
Before anyone screams "lol skill issue", I am sure you can no damage run it with both arms glued behind your back and with a blindfold, please understand that I am only recounting my experience and how I felt playing the game. I understand that action games like these are meant to be replayed over and over again and I am sure that I could one day attain the secrets of the universe and it may all just click. As of now, my experience is either that of indifferent apathy or abject misery. The core aspects here do feel fun, it's nice to slash at foes, the design is kept simple and clean. You get one lifebar per encounter, limited healing that is only in between encounters, a limited set of subweapons you can't level up. The idea here is that you have a toolkit, and for each screw you encounter, you should use your screwdriver, etc.
But, in my case, every screw felt chipped and my screwdriver was bent. Enter hour 4 of the game, I just felt like I was banging my head at the wall and the last 2h of the game didn't really feel much different. The sheer repetition of the missions in this game also doesn't help. So many of the missions that don't have some sort of tedious escort or rescue requirement resort to completely repetitive tasks. Take the train mission. You have to destroy the entire train, one segment at a time, each segment being taken out by the exact same method to my recollection. Or the 5 airships in the sky. Same method, and the changes that do happen from ship to ship don't really feel that impactful, or at least I do not recall them feeling as such. My main method didn't change, destroy cannons, charge V cannon, rinse, repeat.
Or the mission in that city where you go to the old man, you are tasked with descending to the bottom, which requires that you clear out a copy pasted room full of annoying goons in a cramped space with an admittedly neat idea in theory but horrendous in execution because of how little overview of the situation you really have (the pistons that crush you/enemies). Maybe my brain is too slow for this game but I never felt like I was deliberately using that gimmick, and at some point, possibly by the 3rd bloody repetition, I just sighed and exclaimed "please make it stop!".
The 2 protection missions were bordering on horror for me, it was so difficult to keep a track of stuff and also hold back my arsenal to actually not destroy ♥♥♥♥. In theory this should be an interesting twist, having to not go full unga for once. In practice, this was just a nightmare as I completely struggled to keep up with what is happening with so much yelling in my ear, the pace of the game and the constant guilt inducing "LEV was destroyed and killed, good job dumbass". It felt like when trying to run away from a monster in a nightmare. I also hate the importance these missions have on your endgame rank, to the point that they are basically the most important things as far as I've read.
The bossfights were a mixed bag. Some were puzzley and once you solve the puzzle they were a breeze. Some, however, were just confusing messes where I just felt like I was a flailing lunatic until something happened. A few of them were good. Despite my initial hang ups with it, I enjoyed the fight where you had to deflect the sword of the Viola AI controlled mech to stun her. There was an ebb and flow to it once I understood it. Similarly, I enjoyed the first Leo fight once I understood it even if I feel tossing him into a wall should deal tons more damage. The last 2 anubis fights can go screw themselves. I swear, 2 of my first 6h were spent on just these 2 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ encounters, because your options are so limited and damage utterly puny. I understand he is the big bad but for what are meant to be 2 equal mechs fighting through pure skill, it didn't feel like I overcame him with anything but pure chance and flailing around the dark. I sincerely tried understanding what I can try to improve on the encounters but aside from learning that burst slash does a decent bit of damage in the 2nd encounter, all of it felt like a complete crapshoot. Just throw your head against the wall until something sticks. I am sure there are people who have spent enough time and whose brain waves align with this game that were able to clear him easily no damage in 20 seconds flat, but my experience is that of misery.
Perhaps some games just aren't meant to click for some people, and I understand a lot of my distaste is subjective, I don't make any claims otherwise. But, I just couldn't gel with this game. I am glad that I played it because it is good to step out of your comfort zone from time to time and I feel like I learned about myself and why I like certain types of games over others,
Perhaps I'm just getting old and decrepit, ready for a nursing home where my capability to play games will be limited to glacially paced JRPGs and adventure games with puzzles so simple a newborn being incubated could solve them.
