Level-5 returns with an enjoyable narrative-heavy mech adventure with okay combat.
Nintendo fans from the DS and 3DS era likely remember Level-5. The Japanese developer has been around since 1998, but they cemented their place on my radar the moment Professor Layton and the Curious Village came out on Nintendo DS in 2007. They followed that game up with countless sequels and also introduced the world to a variety of other games, including Yokai Watch, Fantasy Life, and Inazuma Eleven. They were quiet for a long time though, with most games barely even making it out in Japan. However, their first major release in the west in a long time can catch you up on a lot of their work over the past few years. Three years after its Japanese release, Megaton Musashi W: Wired hit Nintendo Switch earlier in 2024. It’s an extremely novel game that looks beautiful and is packed with content, though it leans a lot further into the story than I expected.
It takes a while before you can truly sink into some mech combat in Megaton Musashi W: Wired. First, you need to be introduced to its Matrix-esque premise. Playing as the volatile teen Yamato, you go about your seemingly idyllic normal life until the veil is torn down and the memories of the alien Draktors destroying humanity resurface. After being informed of the meager surviving government’s attempt to fight back the Draktors while letting the rest of humanity live in a simulation, Yamato hops behind the wheel of a Rogue, a giant mech that is used to fight back against the Draktors. The animation in cut scenes is fantastic and even moving around the world is pleasant thanks to the sharp art style that pops on the Switch, especially in handheld. The story is relatively long, but stays interesting throughout with plenty of twists and turns. Soon enough, maybe you’ll start feeling some sympathy for the aliens.
As I said, I was surprised by how much the story was the main draw here. I expected a lot more focus on fighting stuff with a giant mech. That is a key part of the game, but it’s also one of the weaker parts. First off, after how sharp the visuals are outside of battle, the graphics when you’re fighting look worse. Beyond that, the combat is generally just hack and slash. That’s not a death knell, but it makes that aspect of the game get stale over time. The difficulty does eventually ramp up, but it takes quite a while for it to be more engaging. You can fiddle with customizing your mech as well with an overwhelming amount of options. A lot of it feels superfluous, though. It’s hard to feel the minute differences between weapons when a lot of the combat is just working your way through hordes of foes. That all being said, it’s still fun to move around and fight robots in the same way it’s enjoyable to romp through an arcade beat-’em-up.
I walked away from Megaton Musashi W: Wired feeling very optimistic for the forthcoming onslaught of Level-5 games due out in the near future, but it was also a reminder of their strengths and weaknesses. The presentation is incredible, complete with a compelling story and charming characters. The action-oriented parts lag behind, though. The mech battling is totally fine hack-and-slash fun, but it rarely exceeds that. If you’re looking for a fun mechs-vs.aliens narrative to enjoy on your Switch, Megaton Musashi W: Wired absolutely rocks. But if you’re here solely for robot combat, you’re best looking elsewhere.
