Mecharashi is strategic mech battling with cool robots and eye-candy characters to boot
- Equip and customise your gear
- Strategise the best moves in tactical combat
- Cool characters and stellar voice acting too
I do hate how superficial I can be sometimes when it comes to visuals, but to be completely honest, the first thing I noticed about Mecharashi was that the main protagonist looks like Dante from Devil May Cry, which was why I wanted to give it a go (I'm so sorry).
A few hours into this tactical battler, though, and I'm completely sold - thank goodness for me judging the book by its proverbial cover here.
Mecharashi is essentially just you piloting your cool mech to take down other people's cool mechs, and I absolutely love it. The grid-based battlefield, the clunky mech movements, the overly specific gear parts - I am all for it, mainly because it reminds me of the good ol' days of Front Mission (back when Square Enix was still Square).
It also reminds me of Xenogears' mech battles (even though that's a different genre altogether), but I suppose that's the power of nostalgia, isn't it? It makes you develop an affinity to something even if it kind of defies logic - all I know is that Mecharashi gives me the feels, and I'm very much willing to go all in.
Of course, there's an entertaining narrative here too - you're caught in the middle of a war among varying factions, so you'll need to upgrade your gear and strategise the most efficient turn-based battle moves to keep your mech intact. Cut scenes are animated in 3D, with fully voiced lines (and stellar voice acting, might I add) that add to the immersion.
The mechs themselves aren't the only awesomely designed assets here, because, as mentioned, the characters themselves look really, really cool. You can customise your mech aesthetically, of course, but it's the battle performance that's really got me hooked here.
You can, for instance, use your sniper to target a specific part of an enemy mech, whether that's disabling the right arm so they can't fire back at you or damaging the leg to impede their movement.
And when you eventually reduce your foes to scraps, nothing is more satisfying. Top that off with the Dante-looking MC and…let's just say I know what I'll be playing all weekend.
Mecharashi is available to download for free on iOS and Android, with in-app purchases you can choose to invest in if you're curious!
