Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Do you need
to get some workplace aggression out? Boss getting you down? Being overworked?
Well, join in on Full Metal Schoolgirl to take down an exploitative enterprise
in a robot/cyborg slaying adventure!
In the
future world of 2089, super exploitation of workers has become the norm, where
overwork and underpay is a standard, where the “working dead”, cyborg
employees, are pushed to the brink by abusive bosses, awful work schedules, and
superior harassment. In come our heroines, cyborg schoolgirls who have been
“upgraded” by a former employee of Meternal Jobz, in order to take down the
mega corp that’s ruling over the poor cyborgs.
Honestly,
I’m pretty sure the distinction between cyborg and robot is rather lost
somewhere here, but I won’t nitpick that. Basically, you get to choose one of
the main characters to take on a raid of the company. A 100 floor company that
changes its layout every day to keep employees from being able to find the
exit. Yup, this is a roguelite-ish style game where every attempt at the 100
floor company there is a different layout, and you have to find equipment as
you progress.
So, now
it’s time to start a raid on the company! When you start off, you can select a
gun and melee weapon from the lobby, and then off to the stairs you go! As you
climb the building, you may get knocked out by the employees who now have the
job of stopping you. No worries though! You manage to get out, leaving some of
the parts and materials you harvested from enemies behind, and then you can get
the professor to upgrade your body! More health? Done. New moves like being
able to equip a shield? Also done. For a price. Oh, and did I mention that she
started a livestream service for you, so people can watch you fight your way up
the mega corp? Good news is they can give you the occasional bonus objective,
and completing it earns you money you can spend on upgrades. You can also
double down, making the objective harder, but earning a lot more.
As you make
your way up the building, you’ll come across elevator cards, allowing you to
skip to certain floors. While going up your first time, every new boss floor
you’ll be returned from the run, but given a card to carry on from that floor.
Good news is they give you a gear selection so you aren’t going back in too
underpowered. Gear level is roughly based on floor number, and gear rarity
dictates how many bonus effects the gear comes with.
So, let’s
look at your violent rampage up the Meternal building. The game is a sort of
weird combination of hack and slash and third person shooter. Most encounters
will probably start at range, but you do have your melee weapon to beat off
enemies when they get too close. You can also nab an autonomous drone and a
shield. For your weapons, melee weapons will be fast but weaker swords that use
little energy, chainsaws that are mid-powered and use a medium amount of
energy, or axes that are really slow, but hit hard and eat a chunk of energy.
And before you ask, yes, energy is your stamina. Run out and you can’t dodge or
melee attack until it recovers. You can still shoot though.
Guns also
come in a variety from rifles to gatling guns to grenade launchers or shotguns.
Each have their own good points and negative aspects, so find what works for
you. Personally I prefer the rifles, with the gatling coming in second. Now,
you do have a dodge, and a perfect dodge if you dodge before you get hit, but
for the life of me I could only activate a perfect dodge if I dodged while
standing still to do a backstep. Either I’m just bad at it, or that’s a really
frustrating design point. Honestly I just tried to never need it unfortunately.
The last
equip types are shields and drones. Shields are useful for blocking bullets at
the cost of a sustained energy drain. There are plenty of enemies, and turrets,
willing to shoot at you, so the shields will definitely see use. There are
different types, starting small with a shield directly in front of you, to
having a shield fully surround you for the largest size. The bigger the size,
the bigger the energy draw, so you need to balance what you need. The drones
are automatic, you just drop them down and they do their thing. Some are buffs,
some shoot, some spin in a melee attack. They recharge use over time, so don’t
worry about using them often.
As you are
fighting your way through unfortunate employees, you’ll also earn a resource
for PP. PP is a bit of an interesting resource, as it’s primarily for using a
special move called a punishment move, one for your melee and one for your
ranged. You can get more of these that you can swap out as you progress through
the game. PP is also used for “overclocking”, which lets you move faster and
enemies appear slowed. In an interesting move, you also get modifications
from chests sometimes, which will affect your stats normally, but one type
increases your damage dealt if your PP gauge is full.
Worried
your health is running low? Well, pop a battery to heal up that damage! You
have a set capacity that you can increase, but you’ll collect these from the
loot boxes as you climb the building. If you are full health and pop a battery,
you get a very minor increase to your maximum health. Useful if you’re playing
well and they start building up, but not that great short term. At least
there’s a use for them if you find a battery and are currently full stock
though, it feels nice not to “waste” a healing item.
During your
battles, you will come across larger enemies, and bosses of the divisions. The
large type enemies have a guard gauge in addition to a health bar, which the
common enemies don’t. You decrease the guard gauge by attacking, with more
value for hitting enemy weakpoints. Once the gauge is empty, you can perform a
“retirement move” on the enemy, where you get rid of the rest of their health
in a special attack, which actually changes based on enemy type. Normal enemies
also technically have weakpoints, as almost all enemies do in the form of
batteries, but normal enemies usually die pretty fast so you may not pay much
attention to those.
Full Metal
Schoolgirl is very much a roguelite type situation, with emphasis on the 100
floor trek, so you definitely should know what you’re getting into before you
play. While the elevators do take you up to certain pre-registered floors, the
initial slog to get there may take a while too. Also, while it is technically a
roguelite, it leans less heavily on the upgrades, so your personal skill will
probably be the more defining aspect rather than if you’ve unlocked certain
abilities. The game is campy, and very much not a super serious deal, so it’s
best to treat it as such. I’d definitely say keep an eye on this if you’re a
fan of rougelite/Earth Defense Force style games, but I may wait for a sale
before picking it up.
Overall,
Full Metal Schoolgirl is a rather delightful title for a
roguelite/hack-and-slash/third-person shooter experience. It’s corny
and cliché, but in a good sort of way. While the standard slash and gun
gameplay is pretty decent, with only some clunkiness here and there, the
dodging mechanic feels a little obtuse when used as intended. With an art style
that makes me think of Saturday morning cartoons, and some interesting themes
as you fight your way through the Working Dead, I can see a lot of people enjoying
Full Metal Schoolgirl, although it definitely needs to be closer to your niche
to get the full enjoyment from it.
Score: 7.5 / 10
