For a recreation about robotic college students raging towards a sinister regime, Full Steel Schoolgirl is weirdly relatable.
The onset of AI has introduced life to a horde of automaton staff generally known as the Working Useless, tasked by a tyrannical company to behave as company slaves.
With a single organisation controlling Tokyo’s economic system, it’s as much as you – certainly one of two selectable cyber cadets outfitted with chainsaw arms – to climb the company ladder and convey justice to its shady CEO. The one drawback is it’s going to take a number of makes an attempt.
This effort from long-running Japanese developer Yuke’s is successfully Returnal for weeaboos, with a thick anime aesthetic bringing character to its acquainted roguelite underpinnings.
Every flooring of the fictional agency’s headquarters represents a randomly generated problem, with fight gauntlets punctuating your progress alongside the way in which.
The gameplay blends third-person taking pictures with melee character motion to principally satisfying impact, though we discovered the default controls to be much less snappy than we’d like and needed to tinker with the digicam acceleration settings to seek out the texture we wished.
As soon as we’d pumped up the response of the DualSense’s sticks, we fairly loved the fight mix; firing from the hip feels fluid as you shut the space in your foes, earlier than ending them off with a collection of crunchy melee strikes.
Totally different weapons clearly have distinctive parameters: axes are gradual and cumbersome however pack a punch, whereas blades are frenetic however deal much less injury. As you progress, you’ll discover uncommon and even legendary loot with recreation altering parameters.
And as with all roguelite recreation, a few of your runs will probably be reserved to luck. There will be events the place you simply occur upon each instrument of destruction you want, and deal devastating injury consequently. On different makes an attempt, you’ll must make do with what you’ve received.
There is a component of frustration, together with some hazards and enemy varieties that made us need to toss our thirtieth Anniversary controller on the wall. These flying robots that drop explosive barrels on the ground? Nightmare!
However the great thing about the sport, like several nice roguelite, is that every run contributes to your general progress.
For each enemy you kill, you’ll vacuum up assets which might be spent on everlasting upgrades, like well being, injury, and even respawns.
The outing does waste your time a bit of bit early on because it’ll inexplicably deduct from the earnings you’ve collected, however when you’ve invested into lowering this, the frustration fades.
And as you make your method up the tower, you’ll encounter contemporary environments and foes. That company aesthetic stays all through and may get samey, however the artwork workforce has put some work in to make sure later flooring really feel contemporary.
As you attain milestone flooring, you’ll encounter bosses which convey an extra problem. You may ultimately bypass some bosses utilizing elevator keys, although on a few events we discovered we have been pressured to replay massive stretches, which grated.
It’s in these moments that the discharge is at its most repetitive, and whereas it’s a recreation very a lot designed for switching off your mind, runs might be lengthy (generally as much as an hour or extra), so it may be demoralising whenever you die.
A minimum of you’re at all times making progress with the aforementioned augments, that are put in by a pervy physician who seems to get pleasure from reaching up your skirt greater than is acceptable.
One factor we also needs to add is that every run is introduced as if it’s a livestream, with chat prompts popping up on the left aspect of the display screen.
In some rooms you’ll get Money Chat requests to finish it in a sure method, and doing so will internet you further cash, which you’ll then reinvest into upgrades.
We did discover as we progressed additional that we have been racing to the staircase to get to the subsequent flooring as quick as doable, however a few of the dialogue encourages you to try this, so whereas there may be incentive to take your time and hunt for the higher loot, it may well additionally pay to only preserve pushing ahead.
Whereas we just like the gameplay general we do assume it lacks that additional little refinement to push it nearer in the direction of arcade perfection.
For instance, some animation transitions whenever you come out of a dash don’t really feel as tight as they may, and that detracts ever so barely from its really feel.
However these are comparatively minor nitpicks and symptomatic of the sport’s comparatively low-budget strategy; whereas this prices greater than your common indie recreation at $49.99/£39.99, it’s additionally significantly cheaper than your typical AAA title too.
Conclusion
Roguelites are all about repetition, and Full Steel Schoolgirl has that “yet one more go” issue that makes the style so darn compelling.
Its tongue in cheek premise resonates in these wild instances, and its gameplay – with a little bit of tinkering – blends character motion with third-person taking pictures in a contemporary and fascinating method.
You simply should be ready for a little bit of frustration and a pinch of jank: this isn’t a straight-A pupil by any stretch, however its robotic coronary heart’s in the proper place.
