Metal Unit

Review

It’s 2060, and the Earth has experienced its strongest earthquake in the history of humanity. It was so intense that a huge crater was created on the surface of the Earth. Many people believed mysterious forces drove the earthquake and they were proven to be right as monsters begin to emerge from the crater and kill everyone in their path. To make things even worth, Aliens are attacking the planet from above and have managed to convince one of the best human soldiers to fight beside them. Thankfully, a recruit is coming up through the ranks and is ready to wear the incredible metal suit to save power-ups and fight against monsters, aliens, and even her own sister in Metal Unit.

Metal Unit is an action side-scrolling platformer with rogue-lite elements, developed by JellySnow Studio and published by NEOWIZ on the 4th of February 2020 on Steam. The game is currently an Early Access and features 3 out of 5 episodes at this stage.



You will be playing Joanna (M-unit 11), the heroine of the game, and the first episode takes you through a one-part tutorial, introducing the story and of course plenty of action. As you finish the first episode, you’ll end up at the Sun Tail base which is where you can buy supplies, such as better weapons, power-ups and health items, and even create your own combination at the synthetic shop (not always open). That is assuming that you manage to finish any of the three available episodes without dying. If you do die, whatever items you have in your inventory will be converted to blue diamonds, which is the currency that you’ll need at the Sun Tail base. The other currency is gold coins, which are needed to purchase necessary weapons, rogue-lite and health potions at campfires within the each of the episodes, starting from the second one.

Episodes 2 and 3 contain 28 and 27 maps respectively, as well as dungeons, but I can’t tell you how many as I haven’t explored all of them. The maps are pretty much set but randomised in each of your playthroughs. You’ll have 3 to 4 maps of fighting between each campfire and then you’ll be up for a big fight with the main adversary (boss). If everything goes well, you’ll be back at the base with all your goodies and ready to jump into the next chapter!

Each of the maps has a set of enemies, and they will keep spawning until you’ll get rid of them all and move to the next map. In terms of enemies, you’ll have a mix of melee as well as long-range enemies to deal with. Every time you kill one, you’ll receive a minimum of one coin, which will help you to purchase one or more upgrades at the shop.  You’ll also find crates within each level the yellow ones will have coins, the blue ones will have blue crystals and the others will have weapons and power-ups. It will be a hell of a fight to reach each campfire, but when you do so, you’ll be able to rest in the tent and get your health back.   If you still have your full health, you might fancy entering a dungeon to receive great rewards.  There are other rooms to enter, but you’ll need to read all the street signs to find them.

What I really like is the fact that at any time you can swap your melee and long-range weapons, as well as your power-ups and armour as you find them. And when you die, whatever items you carry in your inventory will be automatically converted to blue crystal and can be used to buy items at the Sun Tail Base for your next run. I would like to see the ability to sell your unwanted weapons and power-ups at the base, which you can’t at the moment.

I really enjoy the pixel graphics and must say that the game is very solid and stable in this current early access version. It’s very promising and I look forward to the full release.


Positives

+ Great pixel artwork
+ Simple to play, but challenging
+ Good variety of enemies
+ Ability to customise weapons and power-ups as you find them
+ Achievements

Negatives

- No trading cards as yet
- Can’t sell unwanted weapons or power-ups

Review Summary

Help Unit-11 to fight monsters and aliens, as well as her treacherous sister in this full of action side-scrolling platformer game!

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Zeepond Rating: 7/10

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