This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.
Strategic RPG Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes sports an incredibly imaginative, steampunk-infused aesthetic, alongside decent gameplay, that players of the Advance Wars series will be accustomed to. Unfortunately, Mecho Wars is let down by a rather stock and dull plot that doesn’t mesh with the wonderful visual style of its creatures. The dialogue mainly consists of generic commands and orders, and doesn’t match the weird and wonderful tone set by the visuals.
Gameplay-wise, however, Mecho Wars is familiar and solid. It takes the tactical gameplay of the Advance Wars series, where your goal per level is to take enemy settlements, turning them into your own and gaining gold which you can use to bolster your units and decimate your opponents. The AI is suitably challenging and the single-player campaign has a great difficulty curve that introduces mechanics level-by-level, rather than throwing you in all at once.
The units are what you’d expect: heavy, ground, aerial, and water-based, and they all have perks and drawbacks, leading to some tactical thinking. You also have the options of both local (via controller sharing) and online multiplayer, allowing you to complete arcade-style matches, which is equally enjoyable. Overall, the gameplay is functional and addictive, if fairly simple.
Where Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes really comes into its own is its delightfully surreal art style. There are influences aplenty, from archaic, Lovecraftian horror, mixed with a bizarre cocktail of Blade Runner’s neo-noir, Dishonored’s steampunk, and even a hint of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s cosmic quirkiness in there. It’s weird, but awesome.
That said, the overall experience is unsatisfying when the narrative is so poor, which is a shame because the rest of the game is so good. Some great lore with compelling characters and dialogue alongside these visuals could’ve made it something special. We still enjoyed Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes for what it is - a solid, if familiar, strategic RPG that boasts an amazing art style.
Comments 1
It DOES read like something I would play as its a TBS, one of my more played genres. However, Advance Wars exists on the Switch and on another console for me, so I can't see me downloading this. Cheers for the review.
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