Fighting Corporate Zombies In Pleated Skirts
HIGH Character designs are creative and colorful. Combat offers plenty of options.
LOW Grinding through samey rooms and hallways can be a slog.
WTF Pervy jokes every time the character is upgraded.
Since the early 2010’s, roguelikes have exploded into being one of the most popular subgenres in gaming. From The Binding of Isaac to Hades, Dead Cells, and most recently Balatro, the format shows no signs of slowing down, and Full Metal Schoolgirl is the most recent addition to this well-populated space. While it does have some aspects that help it stand out from the crowd, a few confusing choices hold it back from being truly great.
Things start out by throwing players right into the action after briefly introducing the big bad and our heroines. In alternate-universe Japan, the populace is composed of wage slaves working for egomaniacal CEOs who hold unchecked power over them as they labor for inhumane hours… oh, and they’re cyborgs, so they literally work 24 hours per day.
Our heroines, sisters Akemi and Ryoko, are ‘machine girls’ on a mission to take down the head of the evil megacorporation and avenge their father’s death. The story is largely set dressing and perfectly serviceable, given that it never takes itself too seriously. We pick which heavily-armed schoolgirl we want to control and then begin our first run.
Moment-to-moment gameplay is enjoyably hectic realtime third-person action against rooms of various enemies. Each machine girl has three tools in her arsenal — a melee weapon, a massive gun, and a drone — and each category can be changed and upgraded. A player might start with a katanas but switch to chainsaws, or equip a gatling gun, only to pivot to grenade launchers, among numerous other options. Players are encouraged to switch between melee and ranged through a system that balances energy and ammo. When a gun runs dry, melee recharges it, and when a girl is too tired to swing a sword, she can use her firearms.
The machine girls also have a few ways to get around the environments. Dashing will be most useful for speeding through levels, but the jump, air dash, and dodge all have their own situational use cases. These movement options did encourage the design of some platforming segments, which like most of the adventure, is procedurally generated. These were never too difficult, and did feel a bit tacked-on.
In each area players can find loot, including batteries (for health), mods (which can buff one stat or even add a new effect at the detriment of another stat), and several currencies and parts which are used for upgrading the machine girl between runs. Upgrades include basic stat buffs, decreased penalties for failed runs, and a few new abilities that are permanent changes.
As a roguelike, each runs consist of climbing the tower from floor 1 to floor 100 in order to fight the head honcho and avenge the girls’ father. Occasional levels will offer a boss fight, which are tough encounters whose victory earns players a new ability and an elevator key. These keys can be used to skip ahead to the floor they came from. However, while these keys seem like a neat feature, they’re my biggest gripe with Full Metal Schoolgirl — the keys dropped on boss floors are single use items.
When returning to the building, players can optionally use the elevators on the first floor to skip ahead of the levels they have already seen countless times once. If the player dies again, they will be forced to start from floor one and grind their way back up floor by floor. Keys can be retrieved after defeating the corresponding boss again, but the levels to make it there are by no means brief.
Even if the player makes an effort to skip some rooms, the first ten levels can take twenty minutes or more to get through. Every level is randomized in layout, but the aesthetics and enemy types are exactly the same per ‘department’ (series of floors) so dashing down corridors that are only slightly different again and again is not something I found terribly exciting. Making the boss keys permanent items that allow players to regularly skip conquered floors would have gone a long way towards alleviating needless repetition.
One nice touch I will mention is that many of the items throughout the environment are destructible and can even offer a bit of extra money or resources for upgrades. There’s also a mechanic where players can earn extra cash by completing a room under certain restrictions, such as a time limit to kill all enemies or killing them without running out of energy. This is contextualized by the idea that the player cam is actually a livestream, with chat comments zooming by in the bottom corner of the screen and challenges acting as donation goals.
Full Metal Schoolgirl is a title that clearly knows its niche and embraces it fully. It never takes itself too seriously, and cute girls shooting cyborgs with massive guns is a winning concept. Unfortunately, a couple confusing design choices hold it back from being something I can sink countless hours into, but those who don’t mind repetition and love the aesthetic will find a worthwhile tower climb.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Buy Full Metal Schoolgirl – PC – PS5 – SW2
Disclosures: This game was developed by YUKES and published by D3PUBLISHER. It is currently available on Switch 2, PS5, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Steam Deck OLED. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. This is a single-player-only title.
Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. Most fighting is done against robots and involves cartoonish explosions. However, many suggestive comments, gestures, and even camera angles are shown involving the main character, including situations which may make some players uncomfortable.
Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes. There is an option to adjust the reticle color.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is written and there are visual cues that accompany sound cues from enemy attacks. This game is fully accessible.
Controls: The controls are fully remappable. The PC version includes controller and mouse & keyboard options.
As a lover of portable gaming, he plays on his Switch when he can and alternates between older handhelds when it suits his mood. He also enjoys playing a wide variety of games on PC, in particular strategy games like Victoria II. His favorite game is TWEWY (The World Ends With You) and he owns a copy of every version to prove it.
The humble Ohioan hopes to develop his writing and analysis through his work at GameCritics in his spare time, and also mess around with music production and maybe invent a new subgenre.
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