Well, I tried? I really tried to like this game, but I really don't. Megaton Musashi W: Wired is a war game for children, featuring one of the most unlikable protagonists I've ever seen. Its main story is very messily told, consisting of a series of thirty seconds character interactions haphazardly brought into a random feeling sequence. The storytelling outside of the missions never sticks to one character for even a second, which results in the story feeling aimless and random.

Interspersed with these visual novel segments are short missions, never longer than ten minutes, that feature a very basic - but fine - combat system. But in the eight hours I've played it never really changes from its initial simplicity, instead it relies on loot grind and a gigantic skill tree to add more flavor to its gameplay. I think it's an unsuccessful attempt though, because, well, hitting the exact same 1-2-3 melee combo doesn't get more exciting with "+4.3 melee damage when fire element" or something. The contrast between the huge amount of very detailed customization features and the actual gameplay you get out of them in the end is insane. I feel like this problem could solve itself by the time the end game begins, but while playing the main campaign it is ever-present.

So what does Megaton Musashi W: Wired have other than a weak story and a basic gameplay system? Well, it has very nice mech designs made for children that give it a lot of charme it would otherwise lack. Charme in general is a thing this game has a lot of, mostly thanks to its visual design - and in line with other Level-5 games. But this time, it really wasn't enough.

Well, you can put RPG mechanics and level grind in your wannabe character action game - doesn't mean that you should. These gacha games are always brought down by the very thing that make them money - gambling and the resources grind. Neither are enjoyable, but both keep players hooked, so they gotta implement them. And the games are worse because of it. ZZZ has a nice look and good production quality, but the gacha f2p format is especially ill-suited for the type of game this wants to be: Needing to make the inputs simple and giving you the option to just grind your way out of the difficulty curve (which I did by accident) do not make the best basis for a fun combat system. It's flashy, at least!