The basis for Mech Armada’s story is one we’ve seen a few times with an alien race invading earth and a crazy scientist coming up with some crazy weaponry used to combat them with. In Mech Armada’s case a self-described crazy scientist has created a nano technology that can be used to spawn mech’s to fight back the swarm. He is obviously too busy being crazy to also program them to fight, so that is where we, the silent and faceless protagonist comes in. Published and developed by, Lioncode Games Inc, offers a turn-based grid combat with you facing off an alien invasion named the Swarm with your custom mech squadron. They promise that no two games are the same due to its procedurally generated levels and environments.
Your first playthrough is likely not going to get you very far. You start with the most basic of mech weapons and parts to help you progress, and I personally got about three missions in and died. Mech health carries over from mission to mission, so if you get hit and are taken down to three health points, when you start the next mission, you still have that damage. Once all your mechs are taken out, you “disconnect” because, let’s be honest, this is the future, and we can’t have actual pilots. You are just a drone pilot at the end of the day.
Battles in Mech Armada come in three varieties; Eliminate in which you have to defeat all the enemies on the map, Survive which puts you up against overwhelming odds and has you survive for five rounds to beat it, and Boss fights, which has you fight a boss monster, sometimes accompanied by other monsters which you have to defeat as well to complete the mission. Of the three, Eliminate gives you the most chances to collect resources that will help you either in your current run or in future runs with the use of Meta-Energy.
If you’ve ever played a game with turn-based combat on a grid, you’ll know what this will look like. The swarm and you will take turns inputting your commands for movement and attacks and then you wait for the other side to complete theirs. As your mech builds determine their range of movement and attacks, so do the different varieties of swarm change determining how far they can move, and the damage and abilities that they have. It’s important to stay flexible because like Lioncode Games said, every game is different.
So, how do we improve our mechs? How do we get better? Where does the rogue-lite come in you might wonder? Mech Armada has three forms of currency with Energy, Credits and Meta-Energy. Energy and Credits are strictly for researching and buying new parts. Energy is probably the most important of the three as it will allow you to spawn new mechs with new parts as you unlock them. You can alternatively transform an existing mech into a new one for an energy cost but if they have damage, you may as well scrap them to recoup some cost and build a stronger one. Credits is just cash, parts cost cash to research and also upgrade. With each new researched item, the cost increases, so it’s best to save this when you have built up a bit.
Meta energy is the in-game currency you find while playing the missions that allow you to improve your overall game for future runs. Meta energy is used for boosting stats such as starting credits and energy as well as attribute boosting of parts. It seemed to me that just about every mission I played had a meta energy somewhere on the map that you need to collect. If you don’t the swarm will get it and it’s lost to you forever. One of the biggest impacts of Meta energy is that once you stockpile enough, it will allow you to choose what your starting items will be, which in turn cuts down on the cost of credits but not energy, for future playthroughs.
On the subject of mechs and starting items, I found the three item categories easy enough to understand and learn. All mechs are built up of a transport base, a body, and weapons. Transport bases improve how many spaces you can move, what direction and also what sort of terrain your mech can traverse. These range from bipedal legs, spider legs to tank treads and even jet propulsion. Body is much simpler as it affects how many weapons you can hold, your HP as well as special auras and specialized effects.
At the end of the day, Mech Armada to me is not a game that I’m going to sit down and play for long periods of time per sitting. I played multiple runs over a few days which gave me access to better parts every time I loaded it up, but I never felt like I needed to continue playing after a loss or a win because I knew I’d simply have to do it again, while not knowing what I was going to face, every time. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but there isn’t anything about it that draws me back in to play it again aside from getting as overpowered as possible for my next run. Some people are into that, but I’m not one of them. Mech Armada released on PS4 and PS5 on 12/8/2022 and is also available on PC, Xbox One, Series X and Nintendo Switch. PC gamers can try the free demo on Steam.
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