Metal Bringer Review Summary

Addictive and satisfying gameplay loop: The core gameplay loop is highly engaging and addictive, with a satisfying sense of progression and increasing power. Players can mow down hordes of enemies, collect loot, and upgrade their mechs, leading to extended play sessions and a compelling 'one more run' feeling.

Variety of weapons and parts: The game offers a wide variety of weapons, parts, and skills to collect and experiment with. Players can acquire new equipment by completing missions, analyzing parts, or finding blueprints. This encourages exploration and experimentation, allowing players to discover new combinations and playstyles.

Extensive mech and skill customization: The game features extensive customization options for mechs, pilots, and skills. Players can modify parts, paint jobs, and color schemes, as well as combine skills to create unique playstyles. This level of customization is a major highlight, allowing players to tailor their experience to their preferences.

Rewarding progression and permanent upgrades: The game provides a satisfying sense of progression, with permanent upgrades and unlocks that carry over between runs. This allows players to gradually become stronger and overcome challenges, even after death. The New Game+ mode offers a properly challenging experience for players who have beaten the base game.

Fun and exhilarating mech combat: The game features fun and exhilarating combat, with satisfying mech action and hack-and-slash gameplay. Players can pilot mechs, mow down hordes of enemies, and utilize heavy industrial vehicles like forklifts and bulldozers for combat. The responsive controls and the feeling of mowing down enemies contribute to the overall enjoyment.

Poor visibility, excessive visual clutter: The game suffers from poor visibility due to excessive visual effects, pixelation, and a zoomed-in camera. This is compounded by large numbers of enemies, making it difficult to track the player character and understand what's happening on screen. This leads to frustration and eye strain.

Inconsistent, artificial difficulty curve: The game suffers from inconsistent difficulty, with brutal spikes (especially around level 3) that necessitate grinding, followed by periods of being too easy. This issue is exacerbated in the second playthrough. The game's balance feels artificial, inflating playtime through unbalanced enemy stats and overwhelming enemy numbers.

Frequent crashes and technical issues: Multiple reviewers reported crashes, freezes, and save data corruption issues. Some also experienced performance issues like frame rate drops, especially when many units are on screen. These technical issues detract from the overall experience.

Awkward, unintuitive default controls: The default keyboard and mouse controls are unintuitive and poorly optimized, requiring extensive remapping. The game lacks combo customization options and the action feels limited. This makes the game feel clunky and unresponsive.

Inadequate tutorials and guidance: The game lacks sufficient tutorials and guidance, leaving players to learn mechanics through trial and error. Key systems and story elements are poorly explained, leading to initial frustration and a steep learning curve. This makes it difficult for new players to understand the game's mechanics.

Dual character control: Pilot/Mech: Players control both a human pilot (Labor) and a mech (Arms), switching between them as needed. When the mech is destroyed, the player fights as the pilot, emphasizing the need to quickly find or steal another mech. The pilot can also be customized with weapons and skills.

Challenging, replayable roguelite structure: The game is designed to be challenging, encouraging players to repeatedly play and power up their mech to progress. Runs are open-ended, without timers, allowing for grinding and exploration. Clearing the game unlocks a harder difficulty with more enemies and resources.

Randomly generated dungeon crawling: The game features randomly generated dungeons with freeroam-like exploration. Players can choose their path and encounter minibosses before facing the final boss. The open-world map allows players to progress without clearing every area.

Puzzles and content collection: The game includes puzzles, but they can be complicated and not always worth the effort. The game also has a large amount of content to collect, but it boils down to weapon collecting and upgrades to maintain motivation. The game seems designed for simple controls, favoring a controller over keyboard and mouse.

Roguelite shooter with ARPG elements: The game is described as a roguelite shooter with ARPG loot explosions and hack & slash combat. It involves fighting hordes of enemies and collecting weapons and perks. The game is a mix of survivors, roguelikes, and hack and slash elements.

Ray tracing enhances visual style: The game utilizes modern graphical technologies like ray tracing, which contributes to its unique visual style. The game runs on Unreal Engine, which allows for strong metallic textures and good lighting effects. However, some players feel that the visual upgrade from previous titles isn't significant considering the performance cost.

Mouse drifting and freezing issues: Some players have reported issues with mouse drifting outside the game window in keyboard and mouse mode, which can be resolved by using borderless mode. Additionally, switching windows during loading screens can cause the game to freeze, disrupting the gameplay flow.

Wireless DualSense controller support: The game's store page states only USB support for PS5 DualSense Controller, but the controller works perfectly in wireless mode. This is a positive surprise for players who prefer to play wirelessly.

Small memory footprint, large content: Despite having a small memory footprint, the game offers a large amount of content. This is a positive aspect for players who are looking for a game that is both lightweight and has a lot to offer.

Visuals not significant upgrade: The game's visuals are good but not a significant upgrade from Samurai Bringer, which runs much better. This is a negative aspect for players who are expecting a significant visual upgrade.

Enjoyable, worth the price: Many reviewers find the game enjoyable and worth its price, especially if purchased on sale. They recommend trying the demo to assess personal enjoyment of the gameplay and visual style before committing to a purchase. Some suggest that the game is a good value for the content it offers.

Great for mech/roguelite fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of mechs, roguelites, and hack-and-slash games, particularly those who enjoy customization and fast-paced combat. Reviewers draw comparisons to games like Custom Robo, Armored Core, and Dynasty Warriors, highlighting the appeal for players who like cleaving through hordes of enemies with melee or hybrid builds.

Humorous/Irrelevant comments: Some reviews contain jokes, sarcasm, or cultural references, such as comparing the game to a solution for "electronic impotence". These points are not included due to their lack of specific feedback.

Hopes for future updates: Reviewers express hope for future quality of life updates, balance adjustments, and new content. Specific requests include UI scaling, resolution options, improved guidance systems, and fixes for crashing issues, indicating a desire for continued development and refinement of the game.

General emotional responses: Some reviews contain general emotional responses without specific details, such as calling the game a "hidden gem" or comparing it to a 90's arcade game. These points are not included due to their lack of actionable feedback.

Numerous mecha anime/game references: The game is filled with references and homages to various mecha anime and games, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam (Zaku, Dom), Zone of the Enders, and Metal Slug. These references contribute to the game's overall theme and appeal to fans of the genre.

Simple story, text-heavy delivery: The game features a story about a girl who awakens after 1000 years in a robot-filled world and searches for other survivors, similar to Breath of Fire 5. However, the story is primarily delivered through text and serves mainly as a backdrop for the combat.

Similar to previous 'Samurai Bringer': Metal Bringer shares the same developer, publisher, engine, and visual style as its predecessor, 'Samurai Bringer,' inheriting much of its structure. However, unlike the previous title, Metal Bringer features an original world and characters.

Opaque, frustrating game mechanics: The game's mechanics, particularly stat upgrades and damage calculations, are poorly explained and frustrating. Energy management is also criticized for being a simple numerical comparison that doesn't require much player skill.

Content locked behind playthroughs: Certain game content, such as new arms and parts, are only accessible after completing the second playthrough or playing on hard mode. This is relevant for players aiming for item completion.