Hello, honeycakes! This is Alice. Today we gonna review the demo of an action RPG called MechGears by the dev BKtdm!
Snake!? Snaaaaaake!
It’s 20XX! There’s a nuclear terrorism crisis on Shadow Bosom Island! Our only hope is the legendary mercenary soldier and infiltrator… SNEK.
Soo yeah, MechGears is a loving parody of Metal Gear games. And Resident Evil games. And, umm, maybe other games too?
Like its idols, it’s an actioner: Snek crawls, sneeks, shoots, slashes, and explodes enemy soldiers, zombies, robots, and random obstacles. And there’s RPG elements also. Exploding enemy soldiers nets you exp, which nets you level-ups, which nets you more ways of exploding enemies.
All the while it fondly pokes fun at other games.
And there’s boobs.
Zombie Outbreaks, Mercenaries, Bioweapons, Cola
Ok so I wuz lying. There’s no Shadow Bosom Island, actually the story of the demo takes place in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Snek is sent to investigate.
The story in MechGears is pretty well-paced. There’s snappy bits of dialogue, then there’s some potterin’ around and shootin’, then a sinister reveal, then some harder shootin’, a showdown, etc. I think the overall flow is actually really good!
Oh, and meanwhile Snek pokes fun at the story. Which is cute!
It’s also pretty tame. Like, take it down a notch and it wouldn’t even be a parody. I don’t mind – like I said it’s cute – but if you go into this expecting a hard deconstruction of Hideo Kojima’s foibles, you gonna be disappointed.
And altho it’s s’posta be a parody, the story follows the stories of its idols. For me, at least, there weren’t any surprises. Again, that can be good or bad dependin’ on what you came for.
The writing is kinda weak tho, which is just bad. Typos, weak dialogue, stuff like that. But eh, it’s a demo, so mebbe that’s gonna get fixed!
Sometimes It Shoots, Sometimes It Lags
So MechGears is an action RPG. It’s built with the RPG Maker engine tho, which imposes some limits and makes the action, well, kinda clunky?
Imma be honest, the action was pretty awkward for me. There were moments when it was pretty cool, but on the whole it wuz awkward.
MechGears uses WASD-style movement, and spacebar to shoot. Ok! But then also some navigation is done by arrow keys. Or the mouse. And you use enter to jump over desks and stuff. And then you use other keys for reloading your guns, cycling weapons, throwing flashbangs, doin’ your close-combat things, etc. etc. etc.
I dunno about you guys, but it felt like I oughta have six healthy hands to play this game. And half the time I forgot which key was doin’ what.
So not just sweet curves, but LERNING CURVES in dis game.
And on top of that control scheme, you got a couple of enemy soldiers tryina stuff you with lead! It can get kinda overwhelming, and I wuz eatin’ thru my medpacks like popcorn, and THIS WUZ ON EASY DIFFICULTY OKAY!?
Like sure, I’m not super good with action games, but anyway. I feel like MechGears has got some work to do if it wants to be a smoothly-playin’ action RPG.
There are some honeycake moments tho! Like, if there’s just one or two zombies, it’s pretty satisfyin’ to just blow ’em apart with a shotgun while jumpin’ over desks. And stealth-killin’ soldiers was fun… some of the time.
(If they noticed me it got messy. Like, you makin’ toffee and then you accidentally pour all the semi-liquid toffee down yo blouse and then try to shape it into cubes kinda messy.)
Also yeah, there wuz some laggy parts, which is nasty for an action game. Dunno if it wuz my geriatric laptop but anyway, be warned for possible performance issues!
Guns and Buns
Soooo… are ya the target demographic, punk? Just take a look at Snek, and ask yourself if you like some light action RPG stuff with stealth elements. If you noddin’ your head, it cud be a pretty nice game!
Me? I’m of two minds about the (so far) unironic use of oversized cleavage.
I mean, on one hand I do like nicely-drawn breasts. On the other, I don’t like when the game suggests to me, “Girl, no matter yo professionalism, you always gonna be a pic in a calendar.”
I dunno. I guess when the chips are down, I’m not the target demographic. Just a punk.
So, wanna check MechGears out? Go to Itch.io and see for yourself!
Candy and Games 