Mecha Break Is A Larger-Than-Life Hero Shooter That Scratches My Titanfall Itch

by

As a gaming enthusiast, I can’t help but have a soft spot for colossal, comically armed robots. So when I got an invite to Amazing Seasun Games’ Irvine, California HQ to test their fresh release, Mecha Break, all I was really prepared for was some robot-on-robot action with an arsenal of weapons at my disposal. Honestly, I didn’t have any specific expectations (other than the chance to control those towering robots), but what I wasn’t anticipating was falling head over heels in love!

In my experience, I wasn’t familiar with many of Amazing Seasun Games’ past games, and all I had seen of Mecha Break were intriguing trailers. When I decided to give the free-to-play mech-based third-person hero shooter a try, I must admit I was somewhat hesitant. The live-service hero shooter market is already quite crowded, and it’s challenging to make a mark in this genre. However, as I’ve been playing Mecha Break, it seems that they are managing to stand out. In other words, it looks like Mecha Break is living up to the task.

In the game, there are thirteen distinct mechs, known as Strikers, each equipped with unique weapons and skills. When picking a Striker, players can view a chart indicating its strengths and weaknesses. Some Strikers excel in solo play, others shine in team support or defense roles, while some offer a mix of both. Each Striker appears to have been carefully balanced, as I became particularly fond of one that suited my preferred gameplay style (to be discussed later), yet I never felt that any Striker was excessively powerful or weak.

Before diving into the intricate details of Mecha Break’s gameplay, I feel compelled to extol the game’s extraordinary character creator first. Prior to stepping into your mech, you will need to design the person who will be operating it. Initially, I thought the customization would be minimal, perhaps allowing for a few hairstyle and color options. However, I was astonished to find a character creator so elaborate that it rivals those found in RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077. Although there are not many body types to select, the possibilities are endless with every other aspect.

Users can personalize the appearance of their in-game pilots extensively, altering details such as hair color (roots and tips), eye features (from sclera to pupil), makeup (eyeshadow, eyeliner, blush, lipstick, and lip gloss), scars, tattoos, and more. The outfit colors can be customized in great detail, with a wide array of hues to choose from. Spending time in the character creator could easily consume an hour or more as one strives for perfection. For instance, I crafted a female pilot with heart-shaped pupils, flawless makeup, and long, animated hair that transitioned from black to purple. During gameplay, I encountered pilots with diverse appearances, including one donning a sailor uniform and sporting a PC monitor as a head. I later found out this unique pilot was none other than Kris Kwok, CEO of Amazing Seasun Games and Director of Mecha Break Game, who occasionally joined us for matches.

In this game, you can personalize various aspects such as character’s clothing colors, hairstyles, tattoos, and eyeliner designs using an in-game currency that you accumulate by playing. After only a few hours of gameplay, I had amassed enough currency to customize my pilot multiple times over without spending any real money. While it’s expected that certain items like pilot outfits will be available for purchase within the game when it launches, the version I played offered plenty of customization options without requiring players to spend their own money. Furthermore, players can also tailor their Striker and its pilot using the same in-game currency.

Following my hesitant departure from an immersive character customization feature, I hopped onto a Striker and experimented with three distinct game modes. The initial one resembled a traditional team deathmatch setup with 3 versus 3 players. The second was an intense 6 versus 6 mode that emphasized hero shooter mechanics. Each map had unique objectives; for instance, one map required my team to protect a moving payload from the opposition as it traversed the map, while another involved capturing and holding three key points in a king-of-the-hill fashion. The third mode, known as Mashmak, is touted as Mecha Break’s signature gameplay style by its creators.

In Mashmak, 10 teams of three players are dropped into a vast map for a battle royale-style game. The objective is to fight against AI-controlled opponents and player-controlled squads, gather loot, and secure an extraction point to keep the collected items. An extraction point appears after 10 minutes, but you don’t have to leave immediately as another one will show up every five minutes during the match. However, waiting too long can be dangerous, as a Pulse Storm will start consuming the map after 15 minutes. By destroying certain drones controlling the storm, you can postpone it slightly, but eventually, the arrival of the Pulse Storm signals that it’s time to extract as quickly as possible.

Beyond boasting an attractive design, Mecha Break’s Mashmak maps are extraordinarily vast. Each playable character in the game has the capability to travel considerable distances through flight (with some having more fuel capacity than others). During a preview event, we were informed that even if these characters had unlimited fuel, it would still take approximately 10 minutes to fly from one end of the map to the other. The expansiveness of Mecha Break’s maps is not only about width but also height. Players can ascend and soar over tall mountains, which in many games are intended to restrict players. This isn’t a concern with Mecha Break–if you can spot it from the air, you can fly above it. However, there is a boundary–fly too high and a warning will appear on screen along with an out-of-bounds timer, advising players to descend. While I rarely found myself brushing against the sun’s rays, this limitation was seldom an issue for me.

It could be thought that managing such a vast map might make it challenging to keep a squad cohesive. However, from my personal encounters, this wasn’t the issue at all. The Mecha Break Strikers have impressive speed and range, their fuel reserves recharge rapidly, and as long as there’s consistent communication within your team, you’ll seldom find yourself in a predicament where your squad is too distant to lend assistance.

Talking about soaring through the skies, it’s truly thrilling to pilot a Mecha Break. The game’s creators emphasize aerial combat over avoiding it, ensuring that each Striker has ample fuel and can stay aloft for quite some time. I’ve enjoyed playing the game using both mouse-and-keyboard controls and an Xbox controller, and I found that both control methods offered a smooth flying experience.

As a gamer diving into the heart of this Mecha Break battlefield, I’ve got to say the combat feels smooth and exhilarating. Tinkering with various mechs was fun, but my affection quickly grew for the agile Striker Alysnes, a mech that swings swords, spits machine gun fire, wields a shield, and unleashes deadly lasers in multiple directions.

The lock-on mechanic here is intriguing; keep an enemy within your sight for a moment, and a large red triangle envelopes them, signaling that they’re my marked target, ready for attack. The lock-on system works the same way for every Striker I encounter, but if I lose track of an adversary, I simply need to reacquire their presence in my view and relock on to continue the assault. Luckily, it doesn’t take long to lock on again.

Alysnes’ gun is alright for damage, but I enjoyed her sword much more. Equipped with her sword and a targeted foe, Alysnes dashes swiftly towards the enemy, initiating a flurry of slashes. Should the target be airborne, she follows suit, resulting in thrilling, high-altitude battles to the finish. Now, onto a topic as grim as death itself: when Alysnes’ health drops to zero, the outcome varies depending on the game mode. In standard matches, her pilot automatically escapes from the mech and is temporarily out of combat before reappearing from above to reunite with teammates. However, in Mashmak mode, it’s up to your comrades to revive you.

Mecha Break, as it stands, shares a resemblance with Titanfall 2 after it’s been energized by Red Bull and spent a day playing Armored Core. It’s an extraordinary experience that effectively immerses you into the role of a colossal robot pilot. You’ll feel the thrill as bridges shatter beneath your heavy landing, structures fracture when you slam an adversary into them, and despite the Strikers being robust, they never feel unwieldy.

Besides minor issues such as limited diversity in pilot figures and some humorous-yet-odd physics on female pilots, it’s hard to find significant flaws in Mecha Break’s present development stage. In contrast to many contemporary hero shooters, Mecha Break seems to possess a clear identity – it understands its role, and it caters to its audience. Though there are similarities to Titanfall, it doesn’t feel like a clone, and while the Alysnes Striker resembles Titanfall 2’s Ronin Titan, Mecha Break’s Strikers function differently – and let me tell you, they move with a sophistication that surpasses Titans. You can’t exit your pilot manually or scavenge for batteries in other mechs, nor does each Striker have its own voice and individual persona to bond with, but these elements don’t seem to impact the game’s quality negatively.

In essence, while Mecha Break lacks a traditional single-player storyline, it offers a tutorial mission and maintains an evolving narrative centered around the extraction of a peculiar mineral called Corite. Amazing Seasun Games hints at supplementary media like manga and animated clips to further develop the tale. Even without the plot, Mecha Break’s gameplay—which is currently enjoyable, fluid, rewarding, and simply delightful—is robust enough to carry the game on its own.

To delve deeper into the creation story of Mecha Break, I had a chat with Kris Kwok, CEO and game director at Amazing Seasun Games. Here’s how they managed to launch this thrilling aerial hero shooter.

Kwok shared with me that he discovered mecha, specifically Gundam and Macross, when he was quite young in Hong Kong, probably around his second or third year of primary school. For the Mecha Break project, these two series have been his major sources of inspiration since then.

I’m intrigued to know about the obstacles the development team encountered when creating Mecha Break, considering its complexity – 13 mechs with distinct talents, multiple game modes, and vast playfields.

In the Chinese market, if you’re involved in anything related to science fiction or mecha, there’s practically no competition, Kwok stated. If you have an idea, you’ll likely be the first one to bring it to life. At the outset, we had very little experience and resources in place. Initially, we partnered with a British team to learn from them. Their initial plan was to develop a space-fighter shooter game for the PlayStation 2. However, we encountered multiple setbacks along the way. The second time, we collaborated with the UK team, our team, and a group of Japanese designers, but we still faced failures. We then tried working independently, bringing on Japanese designers as consultants, but we continued to face difficulties. In 2021, I believe we’ve learned valuable lessons from these experiences. During this period of failure, we discovered several essential techniques that allowed us to break through. Specifically, our design innovation was to create a unique and stylish appearance for mechas, departing from the conventional, toy-like aesthetics, and making them look much cooler.

Another challenge was making Mecha Break’s mechs look appropriately robotic.

Kwok pointed out that simply placing human-like skin on a mecha wouldn’t work since mechas don’t move like humans do. Instead, he said they had to rework the animation for the mecha’s skeletal system and create animations based on that. The other major challenge was in hard surface modeling – making it look tough, industrial. After many attempts, they managed to perfect that aspect as well.

During our discussion about animation and modeling, I became curious: What’s the reason behind incorporating a highly detailed, role-playing game (RPG)-style character creator?

Kwok explained that Seasun Games, with its three-decade history of crafting traditional Chinese wuxia games, has built a strong reputation. This expertise is being utilized during character creation. Instead of merely relating to the cold metal mecha exterior, players will be creating characters that are more personal and relatable. By designing a character resembling the player themselves, there will be a greater feeling of immersion in the game world. In essence, players will not only control the mecha but also embody its pilot.

I was curious about how player feedback impacted the evolution of Mecha Break, given that Amazing Seasun Games has conducted several community playtests. According to Kwok, they’ve received an abundance of input from players on aspects like the game’s user interface and gameplay equilibrium.

According to Kwok, the majority of the feedback we’ve received has been about the product, its user interface, and overall experience. We’re addressing those issues too. Balancing everything takes time, though, because no one gets it perfect on their first try. It’s not surprising that we’ve also gotten a lot of feedback regarding balance, as well as expectations for PvE content along with the PvP.

At this juncture, according to Kwok, they found themselves confronted with a significant dilemma: Was it advisable to include a solo player mode in their project?

Kwok stated that a single-player campaign is something you experience only once, so they opted not to include it in their plans.

One point that piqued my interest was the aspect of balance within Mecha Break. Throughout my playthrough, I found the game’s 13 mechs to be evenly matched, without any significant advantage or glaring weakness among them. This consistency led me to wonder about the process the team used to balance the roster of mech-heroes. I was particularly interested in knowing which mech Kwok favored most. His response left me quite astonished.

To begin with, Kwok shared that he, being both the manufacturer and architect behind these mechanical creations, was not referring to their appearance or external design, but rather the armament systems he personally developed. He went on to say that each mech is like a cherished child to him, as he invested countless hours playing with and refining them. Consequently, it’s challenging for him to pick a favorite, since he’s had to experiment extensively with each one, repeatedly tweaking their design.

Indeed, achieving balance is an extremely tricky endeavor. To clarify, what we’re wondering is which aspect of this game proves to be the hardest to maintain equilibrium for. I must admit that I cannot definitively answer which element is the most challenging to balance in terms of this game. Concerning the conventional approach of enhancing or reducing certain units by boosting their stats, health points, armor, and so on, I prefer to steer clear of such tactics within this context.

Instead, Kwok emphasized that his primary concern lies with “ensuring the player has effective control within the game, rather than providing a rating to determine which one is the most challenging to balance. Balancing a game is an ongoing effort, as there’s no final point of balance in any game.

As a gamer myself, it’s evident that when Kwok talks about his game, he’s always thinking about the grand scheme of things first. When I inquired about what part of the game he was most eager for players to savor, he straightforwardly shared that he’s most anticipating the overall response from the gaming community. At its heart, what they aim to achieve in this game is the sensation of piloting a machine gun. Whether it’s team deathmatch, Mashmak, or small-scale skirmishes, they want every player to experience, “Ah, I’m truly driving this vehicle, I’m operating it, it feels like an extension of my own body.

Kwok expressed his expectation that the player would feel a sense of unification or seamless connection, as if the pilot and the mech were essentially one entity.

Mecha Break hasn’t set a definite launch date as of now, but it’s planned to debut on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S around the year 2025. You can add it to your wishlist on Steam at this time.

Read More

2025-02-28 23:41