Mecha Knights: Nightmare Review

A lot of things can be improved by adding giant robots to them, including horror stories. The issue is figuring out how to scare someone when they’re piloting a huge suit of technological armor. The indie dev Damian Kubiak has taken it upon himself to try and answer that question with the upcoming Mecha Knights: Nightmare game. This will give you the chance to pilot a huge war-mech amidst a time of global conflict. Soon you’ll need to deal with hordes of monsters appearing from nowhere and sweeping across the world. One can only wonder if the metal shell and firepower will be enough to keep the nightmare at bay.

Mech-Suiting Up

When it comes to stories about giant robots, it’s expected that they’ve been created to combat a large threat. If you’re going to pour tons of resources into building these powerful giants, you’d better make sure it’s worth it. In this game, countries have been divided into two factions and are battling for control of the planet. You enter into the fray as a young American named Ethan who’s tasked to pilot a giant mech suit. However, after some routine patrols and engagements, the world is caught off-guard by a sudden invasion of otherworldly monstrosities. It’s up to you and whoever is willing to fight to protect humanity from the endless hordes. This gives you a reason to fight and a lot of opportunities to use whatever’s in your arsenal.

Having A Blast

When you’re put into the cockpit of a giant robot, it’s natural to be tempted to press all the buttons to see what they do. The reason is that piloting a giant robot should be fun and Mecha Knights try to make the most of it. One way it does so is by giving a large arsenal to play with. You’re able to equip up to four main weapons with different fire rates, damage, and effects. You can fire them one at a time or all at once in a frenzy of bullets. There’s also the opportunity to equip additional weapons that launch explosives like mines.

Despite controlling a giant robot, you’re still quite mobile. You can strafe around and boost with rockets and boosters to engage targets quickly. It has a clunky feel that still supports smooth movement so you never feel held back. You can equip different parts and upgrade the overall mech to improve mobility that best suits your playstyle. When you’re out in the field, you wanna stay on the move and this robot allows you to do that.

Then there’s the customization. While creating your own character has become something of a staple, it has a different feel when it comes to customizing a vehicle especially when it’s a mech. You can swap out almost every single part to change your stats and gain different abilities.

Malfunctions

No matter how much time you spend building a machine, it’s going to break down. There’s only so much you can do to perfect a robot and Mecha Knights: Nightmare did its best. The first is the visual quality. Everything looks nice and solid, but that’s part of the problem. That feeling suits robots just fine, but it makes everything else in the game feel and look artificial rather than organic. This is a big issue considering that the main enemies are fleshy monsters.

While the visuals of the game may suit the mech in terms of look, it doesn’t have control to match. Firing all the different weapons and moving around feels good, but it doesn’t carry a lot of impacts. When you pilot a giant robot, you want to feel the weight and power of such an incredible machine. Currently, it feels like driving a remote-control action figure as it smashes into monster models.

Lastly, there’s the overall challenge of the game. While it doesn’t waste time throwing you into the fray, that’s pretty much where you stay during missions. While running around, you’ll be assaulted by huge waves of monsters that will quickly eat through your defenses and ammo. This makes you rely on pickups that aren’t always available and you can only call in so many supply drops. Since you have no melee attack, you’ll have to resort to serpentine and backpedaling once you run out of ammo.

Take The Robot Wheel

Mecha Knights: Nightmare is a third-person shooter where you pilot a giant robot to shoot monsters. It has solid movement and shooting with a lot of customization and plenty of missions to show it off. It needs some work on the visuals, atmosphere, and challenge to make it more compelling. This could be a nice romp where you stomp around in giant robot boots.

TechRaptor reviewed Mecha Knights: Nightmare on Steam with a copy provided by the developer.