Go Mecha Ball Review on Xbox

Go Mecha Ball is an isometric twin stick shooter with roguelike progression, using pinball-style physics.

The premise is you take control of Cat Rascal, who builds a mecha suit to restore fun to the world after a series of portals open up and chaos ensues.

The game boasts duel gameplay with a mix of walking and rolling, 25 unique weapons, over 20 unique abilities, 50 mecha upgrades, roguelite elements and 4 mechs to unlock.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is a only a couple available from screen shake to visual flashing adjustments. Button re-mapping, subtitle size adjustment and any options for difficulty are not available. So should you have sound or hand mobility issues, this game would not be for you.

Gameplay

Interested in a twin stick shooter that’s combined with pinball physics and also enshrines pure energy and chaos? Well this unique game may very well be one for you then! In a bid to bring fun back to their world, Cat Rascal builds a mech which enables him to curl up into a ball and act like a pinball. With this new mech, he then enters the deadly toxic world that was once his home, in a bid to bring fun back by blasting all foes in the face or ball with unique weaponry.

The game starts with you choosing your mecha suit, but until you unlock the 3 other suits there is only one is available. You are then transported to your hub area, where there is a tutorial section always available should you need to remember the basics. Also within this hub section, is Upgrades, Abilities and Weapon unlock stations. Upgrades is solely based around your units health and weapon damage. Abilities provides you special attacks, like turning into a buzzsaw for a period of time or unleashing a trail of mines. Weapons is exactly what it says, it unlock different weapons for you to take down your foes with.

At first you maybe forgiven thinking these are available to you straight away, and this would be incorrect. What it does is it increases your list of elements, the rougelite aspect will be able to work from later in the game. To purchase these unlocks, you will need to collect blue tokens from defeated enemies, and at the beginning of every new subsequent run, use them to stack the odds in your favour.

Once done, you jump into a portal and you start your journey on making it to the end of each of the four zones available, in one go. From here its all about defeating 3 waves of enemies before moving onto the next stage. What makes this game so unique, is the way you defeat said enemies. There are two ways to do so, in ball form smashing into them, or mecha form firing your guns. The way this is works is by holding LT on your controller, when you want to roll about at speed. Here you can use the landscape at your advantage and also escape enemies attacks should you need to. By holding LT and RT at the same time, you can use a special ability which is your smash, a turbo charged rush that can stun, disable an incoming attack or be used as part of a combo to get ammo. As with all abilities, this does have a cooldown period, so spamming them will not be possible. You also cannot fire any guns whilst in your ball form.

The second form is the mecha form which by letting go of LT, you open up and walk about and then allows you to fire your guns. To fire said weapons, is a simple as using the RT and using your twin sticks to point and aim your fire. You can switch between your two available weapons with the X button. Collection of new weapons and swapping out existing ones is done by pressing the A button. RB and LB are kept for future special abilities should you choose them. You may think what’s the point of the ball form then, why not just stick with the mecha form, well, enemies are just as fast moving as you and will need a combination of ball and mecha form in a bid to get ammo, upgrade coins and take full advantage of the unique terrain in defeating them.

Ammo on weapons is very limited, so ensuring you are constantly using combos to get it back, is paramount and don’t think enemies will drop lots of health replenishes either, they are scarce. Every wave you complete doesn’t replenish health or ammo, so you are stuck with how little you have of either, which adds an even bigger layer to the intense action already there. Thankfully this is where the levels designs come in with its unique pinball style environmental design.

Lots of the areas in questions have pneumatic tubes throwing you to another area of the map, or speed pads allowing you to do bigger damage should you connect with an enemy. Jump pads launch you into the air, and a combination of all of these makes the whole map, which is relatively small, a blur when traversing. Each level feels like a pinball machine level ready to flip you quickly from one side to the other whilst at the same time you are aiming at your enemies for a next hit.

When one wave is over, you enter a portal to the next wave and level, and in between this, you are given a choice of three upgrades. This is where the roguelite aspect comes in as it chooses randomly form the list of unlocks you purchased prior to starting your run. These can be anything from health, new abilities or even buffs to damage or stats. By the time you have done the 3 waves are about to enter the boss arena, you should have some decent upgrades to make things more manageable.

Before the boss, you are pushed to a shop level, where you can purchase more ammo, a new weapon, or an ability. If you have the coin, put can also put down a deposit on a new mech which will tell you the percentage you have completed. Once you hit 100%, you unlock a new mecha with its different starting stats and ability, ensuring you are always chasing something regardless of progression. Bosses are superb and depending on health, have different attacks ensuring nothing is a simple as it seems. Should you die, and you will, you will retain the blue tokens you have collected, but loose the coins and all extra upgrades you received along your run.

To say this is one of the most unique games in awhile, would be an understatement. This is fast, fun and frantic in equal measure and it always brings a smile on my face as I try another run.

Graphics

Graphically, this game is visual treat with its smooth animation striking neon visuals and over the top carnage. Each level and zone brings a collection of vibrant colours, blended with neon strips and bright pads pushing you around at break neck speeds. It can be a blur of colours when explosions go off and your flying across the screen in a bid to catch another enemy unaware before blasting them in the face.

Weapon designs are a crazy collection of out there guns, each with a nice variety of unique stats. They can range from buzzsaw throwing weapons, laser shotguns and rapid fire miniguns to name a few and the fact that any ammo picked up replenishes them, is a godsend.

Enemy design and attacking patterns are equally well done and co-ordinates to the zone they are set in. This ensures that what tactics may have worked for the previous zone in terms of abilities and stats may not work as well in the new arena, ensuring that you need to always adapt to your surroundings.

The level arenas have enough variation to them that not matter the zone, memorising specific layouts will not be as easy as you think in terms of ramps, pads and buffer bars. The only issue I would say is that due to its isometric camera angle, depth perception can be a bit complicated when you attempt landings which will disperse the more you play, but can be a bit jarring the first few times. Overall framerate and stability was superb in all of my gameplay, and I saw no tearing even with the amount of carnage going on, and I had no crashes during my time.

Sound

The music is one of the best combinations I’ve seen in awhile and leans into a more techno arcade vibe. This thumping soundtrack that pushes authentic pinball noises blended with wacky arcade sound effects works so well that you can’t help but feel that you are in an arcade as you play.

But what really sells the game, is its sound effects, from its variety of weapons and gadgets all providing a meaty weightiness to it that ensures every blast from you weapon, every dash in your ball form just excels. The dings, boings and flicks of the pinball bars ring out to ensure you are under no illusion that this is a pinball inspired game. Retro enthusiasts will definitely love the sounds and to be honest those from modern audiences will probably love it as well.

My recommendation here, is a good quality soundbar to really crack up that tempo and blast your enemies away whilst hearing the familiar sounds of a pinball machine. 

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Go Mecha Ball is a "Great Purchase’’.

This game is fun to play, hard to master and addictive as hell. Each defeat pushed me to try another round and with the unlocking of a new mech, I was ready to try it all again and again with a new selection of stats to see where I would end up. It would be nice to see some more accessibility options as this would open it up to more players.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £16.74 or approx. $20 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 20+ hours worth of gameplay. Its 3 other mechs, a large number of weapon, abilities and upgrades to all unlock would give you another 10+ hours. This is also on Xbox Gamepass should you wish to try this for free, which I recommend you should.

What seems a simple concept, isn’t, and the developer should be praised for making me wonder why this hadn’t been thought of before. We may have witnessed the birth of a new genre, and I’m here for it.