Metal Revolution (beta)

One on one fighters and I have had a strange relationship. They hate me, and I love them. I’ve never been good at these games and I have lost nearly every multiplayer match I’ve played. I still keep coming back to them for some unknown reason.

Since there is a new one out there in development, I thought I would take a look at Metal Revolution which is made by NExT Studios, Tencent’s little brother.

Sound:

I like the music that is shown in the menu.

The opening lines for each character are good, though they are not in English, and that is probably why they sound cool. The sound in fights, while not impressive are good enough and trigger on time so that they don’t feel out of place.

Graphics:

I like the color scheme; it looks good and does its job. Each character looks different and the worlds are nice to look at even though you barely notice them. The blocks have a nice blue shield while parries have a green shield.

Gameplay:

 Before we go in-depth, let’s go over key association on a standard controller (an Xbox or Xbox like controller).

• Arrows/Joystick-Left are their directions
• A is jump
• X is a standard hit
• Y is a special hit
• B is dodge
• Right Button is the ultimate

This game takes a step away from the standard movement. In that only the left and right directions actually cause movement. Up and down do nothing. Up and down are only to be used along with other buttons for special purposes, so if you are wondering what happened to jump, all I can say is that it isn’t good. Jump has been assigned to a single button in the form of A and is either a vertical jump or a set gap jumps. You can’t do different distance jumps like you can in most games in this genre. There is a dodge button in the form of B and you get a dash or a bit of a different jump using it.

I would like to say that the characters feel different, and each has their advantages and disadvantages. But at this point in time that is not true. The fast characters are definitely better since they can strike faster and pre-empt heavy attacks.

The attacks are in the form of the X and Y buttons. The X is a standard non powered attack, while Y is a specialized move. You are supposed to compound these buttons with a direction to pull off different moves such as a jump counter by using X and up, it is at this point that I feel this game is not for PC or console players. It is built for mobile players where this configuration would make a ton of sense.

Finally, there is the Ultimate button (Right Button) which unloads devastating attacks depending on how much health and power you have. It’s a common place in fighting games nowadays, but feels cheap bringing it down to just one button. You need power to use it but power is easy to obtain so…

Now that we have covered the buttons, let’s move on to combat itself. Combat is based on striking according to where your enemy is coming from and what you want to do. If you see that an enemy is coming straight for you, basic key presses are just fine; punch and special them to your heart’s content. You can block by hitting the opposite direction of your facing position and you can parry them by pressing down and attack (X) while they attack, or you can whack them away by hitting ultimate during the block. This is all well and good, but dodging is much better and makes the parry system worthless, except in rare conditions. Throws are completely pointless since you can never get close enough to pull them off, and they do next to no damage.

Before we continue, let me ask all of you a question: What do you call a bunch of tasks you have to do daily, a few times over? The answer: A Job. That is what this game wants you to do. There are daily tasks to complete, there are challenges to do and you level up by winning fights. All of these get you experience points and in-game currency.  My problem is that none of these systems should be in a game. The second a game has daily tasks, it moves from being a game to a job. If I want to do well in this game, I need to play daily and do a task X number of times. Does that sound like a game to anyone? No, it’s a fucking job.

Conclusion:

Yeah, the game is fun in short bursts, but I feel that once overly competitive players come into the picture, it will be just plain painful. The need to login everyday to earn bonuses, and the fact that a lot of tactics come down to luck, makes this game feel very unskilled to me. Sadly, I know it will do well, once the mobile crowd gets its hands on it and that annoys me. It is mobile first, with hope of other platforms accepting it.

There is already a store, and the developers don’t know if this is going to be a free or paid game. If it’s free, the store might be acceptable. But if it’s paid, then that shit needs to be removed right now. 

If it has a price tag on launch day and has the store, then avoid it like the plague. If it’s free, then it is a good time killer without a doubt.