Games Happy

After reportedly winding down Stage-5 Worldwide America and its Stage-5 Abby spin-off workplace in 2020, developer Stage-5’s western presence vanished for the previous few years. Throughout this dormancy, the corporate had been setting the stage to make an enormous comeback. With deliberate worldwide releases for upcoming new entries of their Inazuma Eleven, Fantasy Life, and Professor Layton collection, together with a brand-new IP by way of DecaPolice, Stage-5 is clearly intent on changing into a global competitor as soon as extra.

The trail to the western launch of Megaton Musashi W: Wired is equally fascinating as it’s befuddling. Megaton Musashi was initially a Japan-exclusive sport launched in November 2021 for the PlayStation 4 and Swap as a historically priced sport with intensive content material updates after launch; its sequel, Megaton Musashi X, launched the next 12 months as a Japanese-only free-to-play sport containing all of the content material from the unique Megaton Musashi and much more new updates, as nicely.

Now with Megaton Musashi W, the collection has returned to being a priced sport with all of the content material and updates of Megaton Musashi and Megaton Musashi X included, plus a number of new options launched on this newest entry. Now launched globally, gamers worldwide profit drastically from this “definitive model”, as a result of it’s crammed to the brim with content material from the get-go.

I didn’t know what to anticipate from Megaton Musashi W moving into. Its prior releases caught my eye since I’m an enormous fan of mecha, however this IP all the time felt troubled from an outsider’s perspective. The primary sport was initially slated for a summer season 2017 launch, lackluster gross sales in its launch week, a sequel that pivoted to a free-to-play mannequin, and quite a few delays at some post-launch updates for each prior entries simply appeared like this collection confronted an incredible quantity of challenges repeatedly.

Right here I’m, over 50 hours later, to report that Megaton Musashi W is one in all my favourite video games of 2024. Megaton Musashi W has loads going for it: an intricately compelling story pushed by an attention-grabbing solid, an addictive loot-driven motion RPG gameplay loop, myriads of advanced development methods, many alternative mechanics that unlock over time, and admittedly, this title additionally possesses a handful of core options that must be a base commonplace for different titles on this style.

Earlier than diving into what I like about this hidden gem, I’ll tackle the varied elephants within the room.

This sport launched with roughly $125 US {dollars} value of DLC; none of it’s essential to make it extra fulfilling. The majority of it’s purely beauty and those with robots are particular recolors of current ones in-game that rapidly turn into out of date.

Unlucky remnants of the free-to-play parts from Megaton Musashi X nonetheless manifest in minor methods, similar to a each day login bonus and battle move. Each solely present primary supplies and minor sources that may be obtained in different methods inside the sport itself. They don’t reward something that impacts or hinders the sport expertise on a elementary stage. Probably the most intrusive factor about them is a second “premium” battle move that’s paywalled behind the Deluxe Version. I didn’t purchase the Deluxe Version and none of that stuff appeared definitely worth the extra price both.

I’m fairly conscious that seeing these methods with none context leaves a foul first impression and I want Stage-5 took them out of Megaton Musashi W outright. However, I hope that individuals can look past that to seek out what makes this motion RPG an absolute blast to play.

Though Megaton Musashi W possesses the Saturday morning cartoon vitality in its visible presentation that will usually cater to Stage-5’s youthful demographic, the story is surprisingly darkish. Gamers primarily witness the narrative by way of Yamato, a standard high-school boy who enjoys preventing. 

Earlier than the primary mission begins, individuals will see Yamato thrown in jail, get away of mentioned jail, almost get assassinated by a classmate now possessed by an alien, nearly get overwhelmed to demise by androids that have been disguised as individuals, get recruited to turn into an enormous robotic pilot as a result of he prevailed in opposition to mentioned androids, and discover out that every thing he knew up up to now was a lie.

An alien drive often known as the Draktors invaded Earth and worn out 99.9% of humanity a number of years earlier than the sport started. The city Yamato resides in is definitely a dome-enclosed shelter referred to as the Ixia. Those that function Ixia have brainwashed its residents in an effort to wipe away the deep-rooted psychological scars and trauma from the Draktor invasion, so they might proceed to dwell a standard life peacefully. In the meantime, they desperately fend off the Draktor forces outdoors the shelter with a navy drive that operates big robots referred to as Rogues.

As soon as once more, that is all established earlier than the primary mission of Megaton Musashi W. Yamato initially declines the supply to hitch the defenders, however they forcefully strap him to a tool that provides his actual reminiscences again. He remembers how his household was brutally slaughtered by the alien forces; his little sister was crushed proper in entrance of him. This naturally fills Yamato with rage and drives him to battle again.

Separating the extra morally questionable elements from the setup, similar to manipulating somebody to turn into a toddler soldier, it could look like a moderately lavatory commonplace premise for a science fiction story. Don’t fear, it solely will get extra insane.

I used to be shocked a number of occasions on the continuous plot twists that unfold all through Megaton Musashi W. Although it isn’t as elegantly executed as 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, there are moments on this sport that emanate the identical vitality that 13 Sentinels captured. Intriguingly, Megaton Musashi W is comparatively extra daring in a number of the character relationships and narrative themes it presents.

A big chunk of the plot isn’t simply targeted on the present state of humanity, but additionally the attitude of the Draktors, as nicely. Megaton Musashi W finally proposes a seemingly unthinkable query – can people and Draktors finish the cycle of violence and pave the trail to the longer term ahead by way of coexistence? Quite a few scenes full of character drama and political intrigue construct towards this as the sport fleshes out lots of its solid members.

As I discussed earlier, Megaton Musashi W accommodates your complete tales from the prior Megaton Musashi and Megaton Musashi X installments from the place they started and ended. This contains all of the updates to the principle story that have been added after they launched.

From its conception, the Megaton Musashi collection was constructed as a multimedia challenge. Each prior Megaton Musashi releases existed alongside two seasons of a TV anime that lined the identical story. Due to this fact, there are a number of anime video cutscenes weaved into its presentation; even one of many closing components of the story is offered by way of a full-length almost 30-minute anime episode. Among the messy and uneven points in its story circulate might be attributed to this facet.

Its rushed pacing turns into extra prevalent within the final quarter of the plotline that initially concluded Megaton Musashi X because it tried to wrap issues up quickly. The majority of my disappointment with its story, nevertheless, is definitely the brand new extra predominant story arc added on this new Wired launch. 

This was the prime probability to correctly ship on lingering narrative plot threads and Stage-5 massively missed the mark. Lasting barely two hours, the brand new predominant story parts blitz by way of occasions at an unbelievable price. Loads of the developments that transpire are bafflingly executed poorly; it saddens me as a result of I feel loads of it might need been extra significant or impactful if it was given the time to correctly construct in direction of it. Clearly, I can’t go extra deeply into narrative specifics due to immense spoilers.

Regardless, I nonetheless loved my time going by way of the story and I ended up liking many of the characters. Followers of older mecha anime, similar to Getter Robo, Mazinger Z, and Voltes V, will admire the same vitality that Megaton Musashi W brings to the desk. These collection even present up as playable cameo Rogues within the base sport itself, not as separate DLC choices.

As gamers progress by way of the plot, they’ll begin to management different solid members to witness occasions unfold from their perspective. There’s even a route cut up that occurs afterward, during which individuals take management of a secondary workforce to maneuver the narrative ahead. I feel Megaton Musashi W’s story is daring and entertaining, regardless of fumbling the touchdown.

Maybe the factor that caught me probably the most off-guard with Megaton Musashi W is the manufacturing values within the journey sport segments in-between fight missions. I assumed this title could be structurally paced just like the Gundam Breaker video games, which saved a gentle rhythm of getting individuals going from mission to mission in fast succession; this usually got here at the price of having their narrative parts take a backseat which made them serviceable story-wise, however most of them weren’t essentially memorable.

Story missions in Megaton Musashi W have gamers working round in a 2.5D sidescroller all through varied components of town contained in the Ixia shelter to see the following story occasion. An intensive fast-travel possibility is accessible to get there instantly if gamers need, although I personally didn’t use it more often than not for a number of causes which issue into why I admire the sport’s manufacturing values on this regard.

There may be an astounding quantity of care put into all of Megaton Musashi W’s backgrounds; there aren’t any duplicated or commonplace “default” backgrounds which can be readily noticeable. Each constructing that may be entered possesses a singular inside, each district has quite a lot of visually distinct retailers, and even locations which can be not often utilized nonetheless have fully-featured outlined backgrounds.

This bleeds over into the quite a few items of distinctive art work to depict particular moments within the story. A number of key scenes have a whole piece of latest artwork that solely existsfor a single line of textual content – by no means to be seen once more.

Even listening to what NPCs need to say in Megaton Musashi W had that very same feeling of the builders going the additional mile, nearly needlessly from my perspective. Whereas a number of NPCs are named, most of them go by a descriptor so as to add a contextual taste to their spoken dialogue. My favourite NPC, the Lady with Distinctive Concepts, has informed me her needs to drop caramel onto a stadium stuffed with pudding from a helicopter, to turn into one of the best at slipping on a banana peel race, and to invent an inverse mermaid that has human components on the backside a part of their physique. These are nonsensical, however I supported the Lady with Distinctive Concepts and regarded ahead to every time she had one thing new to say.

She isn’t the one distinctive NPC to do that both; there are various NPCs which have quirky descriptors that add persona to the mind-wiped residents of Ixia going about their each day lives. They’re all totally voiced, in addition to the remainder of your complete sport. I stay in absolute awe at Stage-5’s dedication to fleshing out one thing that, realistically, doesn’t contribute a lot when contemplating the general bundle.

I recall a scene within the story the place two characters entered a resident’s dwelling to have dinner with them. This phase featured an anime cutscene and I observed that the video confirmed the kitchen with 3 bowls stacked by the sink, a pair of pink scissors hanging in a sure manner, the place of the curtain, and the colour of the curtain sheets. I questioned if the sport’s background matched up with how the anime depicted it. Certain sufficient, when it returned to the in-game scene, the background particulars matched up identically almost 1:1. I used to be floored.

Apart from admiring these particulars, the gameplay parts related to the journey sections are moderately rudimentary. Fundamental facet quests have individuals journey from level A to level B and sometimes open up new sections of the map. There are a number of unlockable distributors that solely settle for sure collectibles as forex. Assets might be collected from sparkly nodes that shine within the atmosphere.

Probably the most substantial parts are the extra Facet Tales that grant particular members of the solid their very own enjoyable light-hearted storyline. At first look, it appears annoying to unlock them as a result of they (and some other subsequent chapters of them) require 4 of a particular collectible that’s unique to that Facet Story. Fortunately, there’s an in-game index that particularly lists the precise location of the place every of those collectibles might be discovered, together with the collectibles that the aforementioned distributors settle for.

One odd design resolution I observed when working round is that there’s normally no background music taking part in throughout these components. Megaton Musashi W usually does a terrific job using a handful of various themes to steer the temper of scenes, usually delivering tracks that foreshadow an incoming battle or moments of triumph. Leaving the journey sport segments largely muted caught out to me the extra I performed as a result of the title sometimes exudes persona in any other case.

Megaton Musashi W, above all else, is simply downright enjoyable to play – although it does take just a few hours to seek out its stride. It’s a particularly simple trip till increased difficulties unlock at a sure level within the marketing campaign. The fight system itself begins quite simple, with buttons for melee assaults, ranged assaults, dashing, leaping, guarding, locking on, and switching weapons; as much as three completely different melee weapons and ranged weapons might be outfitted. 

Every Rogue can equip as much as 4 particular strikes that each one devour TP, which may more-or-less be handled because the MP bar equal. Ultimately, a complete of three Rogues can take part in a mission and gamers can swap between them immediately in the course of fight. 

Enemies have elemental weaknesses that don’t really turn into vital until a lot later, although inflicting them may cause standing results similar to burn, freeze, and stun.

That is solely the naked minimal because the motion RPG begins to stack battle mechanics similar to air launchers, guard breaking, repairing damaged components, mixture strikes, Kakugo passive buffs, tremendous Kabuki Operate assaults, and mastering enhance motion to evade assault markers. Characters will continuously be yelling the names of particular assaults in a hot-blooded method as soon as the circulate of fight frequently hurries up.

I like how damaged components are dealt with right here as a result of it applies a special debuff relying on which a part of the Rogue is malfunctioning. The minimap and lock-on capabilities are disabled if the top is damaged and the Rogue strikes extraordinarily gradual if the legs are damaged, for example. To restore components, gamers have to remain stationary, enter the cockpit view, choose the restore operate, and select which half they wish to start repairing earlier than coming into the fray as soon as extra. 

Doing this doesn’t pause fight in any respect; it have to be performed whereas every thing remains to be shifting in real-time, so gamers need to tactically take into account after they can spare 2-3 seconds to restore an element. A number of components might be concurrently malfunctioning, too, so the choice extends to which half ought to take precedence to restore first. The way in which it’s executed completely intensifies the chaos as battles escalate right into a feverish frenzy with out crippling individuals in a trend that may immediately simply kill them and the momentum together with it.

In fact, the moment-to-moment gameplay is barely a small a part of the equation. The variety of methods to construct, customise, and finetune a Rogue in Megaton Musashi W is absurdly deep and strong.

Gamers are given full freedom in how they wish to construct their big robotic squad. Generally the story received’t enable newly launched Rogues to be personalized instantly however ultimately, the motion RPG will let individuals tinker to their coronary heart’s content material. Rogues are composed of 4 components: head/torso, left arm, proper arm, and legs. 

As I discussed earlier, a single Rogue can equip as much as three melee and ranged weapons. Moreover, a slot for a backpack thruster opens up sooner or later. Melee weapon choices encompass sword & defend, twin swords, lances, greatswords, and fists; in the meantime, ranged weapons include shotguns, hand cannons, machine weapons, and bazookas. Some varieties enable for charged assaults that may alter the properties of an assault.

As individuals thrash foes in levels, loot of assorted color-coded rarity tiers will burst from them. Randomly mashing collectively no matter offers the best quantity instantly will naturally work to breeze by way of the early components of the sport; after a while, gamers can be anticipated to start out working towards coordinated builds that amplify sure harm varieties and take into account elemental weaknesses extra critically. Every Rogue has a number of set bonuses, so matching all of the components of particular ones is vital to consider as soon as the problem stage ramps up.

Except for increased base stats, increased loot rarities may have extra mod slots to place into them. Mod modifiers can elevate harm of a sure ingredient, add extra ammo to ranged weapons, elevate important harm, and so forth; they supply additional avenues to boost offensive and defensive capabilities. These mods drop from enemies, too, however related rarities might be mixed to make increased rarity mods.

The actual meat of defining a Rogue’s construct is the intensive motherboard mechanic in Megaton Musashi W. Mainly, individuals select a motherboard blueprint and puzzle collectively varied circuit components to specialize what that Rogue excels at. Supplementary items can additional improve adjoining components exponentially.

A motherboard format, for instance, can enlarge melee harm output as much as 500% as a result of close by slots can assist circuits that improve the efficacy of circuits inside a chosen space; these can overlap with different raised efficacy zones to stack on high of each other. Since these normally have an effect on a large space, close by vacant slots might be utilized to boost elemental harm, scale back incoming harm, or improve TP restoration so talents can frequently be fired off. 

That is only a very small pattern of what’s attainable. Motherboard circuits are obtained by way of a big branching growth tree that consumes supplies to unlock extra nodes. Duplicate motherboard components, extra particular assaults, new strikes that increase a weapon sort’s moveset, and myriads of different capabilities can be found to be taught on it. All of this will, understandably, appear intimidating at first, so there’s a function that mechanically slots every thing in; it’ll be removed from optimum, however it should get the job performed for the simple earlier components of the sport.

Much more mechanics are given to gamers as soon as the Legendary-tier components turn into extra distinguished because it permits individuals to overlimit them past the usual route of upgrading gear. The three new postgame rarity tiers added to Wired with Legendary 2, Iconic Legendary 2, and Relic Legendary have an unique Neural Board operate that additional boosts their energy. Close to the top of the story, a completely new roguelite-esque mode unlocks which is the first technique to accumulate a brand new sort of half, adapters. These, as soon as once more, present an extra option to improve the facility of Rogues.

Frankly, there’s only a dizzying quantity of methods on high of methods that I needed to wrap my head round, however I like this type of in-depth customization as a result of I may really feel that my efforts have been rewarded in gameplay. If I used to be tuning a Rogue to specialise in ranged assaults that generate TP swiftly, the outcomes have been instantly noticeable. I used to be firing off particular assaults with no second thought because the TP might be replenished in mere seconds.

Moreover, gamers earn Pilot Factors (PP) to be taught new expertise for every character. Each character has a very completely different set of expertise to put money into. Every talent might be shared with one different character, in addition to the character that talent originates from.

Rogues will inevitably be visible monstrosities for a good bit as individuals mash collectively components that drive their energy stage up as quick as attainable. Megaton Musashi W does ultimately enable individuals to recolor particular person components or transmogrify their look altogether. Decals enable individuals to additional enhance their Rogues; even completely different keychain charms for the cockpit view can be found within the two seconds it’s glanced at when repairing a damaged half.

Whereas it wasn’t a devastating make-or-break Achilles’ heel in my expertise, the repetitive mission design of Megaton Musashi W does put on skinny. Virtually all of its levels are easy linear ranges which have gamers kill waves of enemies, transfer into the following space, and do the identical factor till a boss spawns to indicate that the top of the stage is simply across the nook. Extra stage selection kicks in a lot later as the general mission design shifts to specializing in single, advanced boss encounters that swap up their assault patterns at sure HP thresholds. Even then, the stage environments themselves are disappointingly bland; serviceable, but not that visually charming.

Although story missions are single-player solely, the massive plethora of non-compulsory facet missions might be performed in on-line co-op with as much as two different gamers. Two of the large options that Megaton Musashi W has been pushing since its announcement are cross-play and cross-save between its PS5, PS4, Swap, and PC variations. I performed the sport on PC and was capable of play with different gamers on completely different platforms seamlessly with out a problem. There are icons by gamers’ names that signify which platform they’re taking part in on.

One of many coolest issues in Megaton Musashi W is permitting earlier Megaton Musashi gamers to maneuver their saves ahead into the English launch. I’ve heard from a number of of my pals, together with different anecdotes, that they have been capable of switch their saves from the Japan-only releases of Megaton Musashi and Megaton Musashi X into the English launch of Megaton Musashi W. Stage-5 offered an official in-game technique to facilitate changing their saves not solely to this latest model, however onto a special platform altogether due to the cross-save performance. I discover that unimaginable.

Megaton Musashi W additionally boasts an non-compulsory, intensive PvP colosseum that permits two groups of three to duke it out. Gamers construct up a brand new Rogue from scratch with utterly separated PvP-exclusive components and even a PvP-exclusive talent tree, so progress isn’t strictly shared apart from the brand new story-locked mechanics which can be added to the core battle system. It looks as if a substantial a part of the sport with substantial depth, however I used to be unable to play a lot of it as a result of lengthy queue occasions to seek out matches with cross-play on. 

Sadly, Stage-5’s advertising and marketing efforts within the west for Megaton Musashi W have been almost non-existent, so its present playerbase is moderately small. One other issue to contemplate is that the sport merely has so many different issues to do this it additional dilutes the playerbase even additional, as a number of gamers might not even contact the multiplayer modes.

Another quality-of-life options value mentioning are the ample choices to rapidly assemble a workable Rogue for individuals who don’t wish to manually select each single half from scratch. There are advice choices to rapidly choose units of weapons to focus on enemy weak spot proper earlier than coming into a mission with out going to the hangar which is handier than it appears. In the meantime, it even has an possibility to select beneficial weapon units primarily based on how nicely they synergize with a particular Rogue’s set bonus.

One other small function that I’ve not often ever seen different video games do is a button enter to skip voiced in-game battle dialogue to the following line. That won’t appear helpful at first, however there are various occasions all through Megaton Musashi W’s narrative when a brand new function is unlocked in the course of a tense battle. Bosses could also be invincible until this new transfer is activated for the primary time and the characters chime in as they make the right preparations to debut it. Different video games normally must let gamers anticipate all of the voiced strains to utterly end earlier than continuing, so this was a tiny welcome shock.

The PC port of Megaton Musashi W is sort of strong as nicely, with assist for prime framerates and I suffered no technical points on my finish. Stage-5 unexpectedly went above and past as the sport adapts its UI navigation primarily based on the enter it detects. If a mouse or analog stick is getting used, it should show a cursor that may navigate throughout the display screen; the d-pad and triggers will swap the navigation technique so picks might be made by snapping to them as an alternative of forcing a single common technique that’s suboptimal or inconvenient for one sort of enter altogether.

Megaton Musashi W: Wired is unexpectedly, and surprisingly, the most effective motion RPGs in 2024. It provides a prolonged predominant storyline full of amusing characters, a plethora of wealthy in-depth customization mechanics to complement its compelling gameplay, a number of modes that each one serve to reinforce what makes it enjoyable, and a ton of well designed navigation capabilities that result in a easy expertise in shifting round its dozens upon dozens of menus. Whereas the narrative stumbles on the end line, it’s simple that Megaton Musashi W: Wired is likely one of the most fully-featured video video games within the trendy period that’s crammed to the brim with stuff to do and it’s all enjoyable as hell.

9