July 2024

Marking this now as beaten. Kept it as unfinished in case I would return but finally dropped it off. Game is quite well rounded, especially in good company. Had, and likely still has, some off glitches now and then. It manages to get the feeling of hectic action and deadly combat right.

It has been too long after playing the fourth installment so cannot compare the games. But this one felt underwhelming. Action is there but team mates keep switching between zombies and Maverick. Story is rubbish and difficulty mechanics really start giving you middle finger in later missions. Why enemy can pull 15+ mechs into mission but I can only deploy single lance (even if I have the mechs and pilots for multiple lances?). I understand why but the limit feels so artificial. Balance it with better AI and more interesting mission design than just spawning X more enemies.

Visual novel musical. Gameplay is pretty basic (choose one of three options) but the setting/lore is nice and characters are alright. Don't really ever play VNs but made exception on this one. Songs were quite nice.