To note, a code was supplied for review by the game’s developers.

Mech Knights? What more is there to say?

The story in Machi Knights: Blood Bargo (MK) is about large hulking mechs that were created a long time ago by an ancient civilisation. This scientific society used advanced technology to create a massive machine called a Bagos. The king of this civilisation (known as Babilaka) created the Bagos for one purpose…. power!

Other nations feared the mighty king and bowed down before him, fearing he would harm them. However, a great war broke out and even though the king had all the power, he could not stop his kingdom from falling… His creations and technology were forgotten to the sands of time…until a thousand years later.

Two adventurers stumbled onto a great ruin and without hesitation claim this new discovery as the long lost kingdom of Babilaka! With the new discover, the adventurous no have access to the ancient technology. But will they use it for good or evil?

Mechs R Us!

Gameplay in MK is actually pretty simple. It’s a hack & slash title with some light RPG elements. But the question at hand is, is it any good or should this technology have stayed in the past?

Once you start, you can choose from 3 mechs. Each mech has 3 attachment options. However, only one can be selected at a time, which gives the player a decision to make every time they load up a level.

Let’s look at each one a little closer;

LANCER– A mechanical knight that has a choice of 3 distinctive weapons: Lance –with it’s pinpoint accuracy but narrow range. Axe – that has the ability to continuously attack with high speed. Hammer – slow but has high attack damage.

MUSKET – A mech focused on range attacks, its weapons are: Cannon – it has the longest attack range. Shotgun- has short range but deals high damage to enemies that are close by. Machine Gun – has a weak attack power but fires rapidly.

FLAME – A mechanical dragon that uses fire and supportive abilities like: Oil Barrel – uses compressed oil to spew fire. Shell Trunk – sets up bombing runs and has best attack power. Support Pack – gear that has special abilities to heal one’s self and allies in local play.

Power up!

During rest periods, each Mech can swap between one of the 3 different attachments to change their current abilities. Before a battle you can spend gold that you’ve earned during play to upgrade your pilot. You can upgrade your attack, Hit-points, critical rate and critical damage. Each upgrade becomes more expensive with each level up.

Inventory!

You can swap attachments in and out of your inventory and salvage gear you don’t want or don’t need. Salvaging turns gear into gems, which are used for loot chests.

Loot Chests? What!

There are loot boxes within MK, but thankfully these can all be unlocked with gems that you earn solely in game. There are 6 loot boxes available, each of which grant you rarer equipment. They range in levels from one to six in rarity.

Level-6 chests are extremely expensive to open and require over 500,000 gems to even unlock. I’m thankful there no micro-transactions within this title, but I still find the implementation of these gems odd.

Light Crafting

Crafting consists of mixing weapons together to create new ones or adding a skill from one attachment to another. It’s nothing too complex but helps to mix and match skills to equipment you may be using for your current build. As each weapon is upgraded, their look will change as they become more powerful.

This feature is a nice inclusion, however, it is extremely light with no way to really customise your Mechs to make them look unique. In my opinion, this was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Note: After each continent is completed your mechs become more powerful and evolve, changing their look when moving to a new area. It’s a shame that you don’t have any real control on their design like in other mech games.

The Journey!

Once you begin your adventure you are greeted by a large world map, which you can fly over in a little blue ship. However, each level is locked until the previous one is completed.

Levels have 4 stars to unlock, which can be earned by completing each level on each of the 4 difficulty settings; Easy, Normal, Hard, Hell.

Each area is not open to explore but a contained area where the main focus is to destory all enemies within the allotted time. This was big disappointment for me, as I had hoped that this was going to be free roam experience with hack & slash mechanics. Though it turns out, most levels are circles and all you have to do is survive the onslaught or kill all enemies before moving on.

There are few other activities like destroying bases or cages. However, after playing for a while, I found repetition sinking in.



There are some highlights though, such as the massive boss battles. These spiced up the gameplay, as each one has a unique attack pattern that must be learnt and then avoided and countered.

You’ll die on some of these encounters until you have the right equipment. That’s where grabbing loot chests come in, as they have better weapons within them. Therefore, I found I had to grind levels multiple times to get more gems to open more loot chests. Of course, repeating old levels gets old fast, but you can change up the difficulty settings to intensify the combat if you wish to do so.

Piloting your Mech.

The controls in MK are simple to use. You can move around with the left analog stick and dash with the L bummer. You can use your special attacks with the Y and X buttons (which use up your heat gauge). Finally, the basic attack is used with the B button… and that’s pretty much it.

Again, while making things simple sounds like good idea, I feel as though a little more meat could have been added to the core mechanics of the game. This would make the game feel like less of a slog in some areas and more exciting to play in others.

Repetition

However, I cant deny that I have enjoyed my time with MK, even though it can get quite repetitive after a while.

Enemies have some variety and have there own weak-spots and defences. So it’s not like you’re going to be able kill everything straight away. Nevertheless, it soon becomes boring killing the same enemies over and over. On the other hand, most people who play any sort of hack & slash game will understand that repetition plays big part in the genre.

If you go into MK looking for a deep experience, I don’t think you’ll find one here. On the other hand, if you’re looking to blow stuff up and fight massive bosses in a boss rush type of experience, then I think you’ll enjoy it a lot more.

Co-op mayhem!

Boss battles are MK’s saving grace. They are fun to fight and kill and adding a second player only makes fighting them even better. The local co-op option for up to 2 players made the experience way better, as you had someone sitting alongside you and playing.

In addition, what I think is great is that each player can select their own save slot and use their own save data to play. You pick any one of the 3 mechs to play as. Your friend and you can even pick the same mech, so no one feels like they can’t pick their favourite mech if someone else decides to do so.

It’s shame there’s no online options here as I could have seen that being a great addition. Although, the 2 player local play is a very welcome addition.

Graphics!

Praise needs to be given to the visuals in MK as they’re very pretty. The game is developed in Unreal Engine 4 and looks especially good on the Switch. You can see the quality and detail of the graphics in the enemies, massive bosses and explosions. They all look quite impressive and its probably the reason why the game takes up 4.7GBs.

Conclusion!

Machi Knights: Blood Bargo is a decent hack & slash title. There are multiple levels to play and difficulty settings to beat. The game supports local-2-player couch co-op and gives you the chance to play as 3 unique mechs.

Graphics and audio look and sound good and the performance of the title has been soild in my experience.

If you’re looking for a cheaper game on the eshop to spend a weekend smashing and destroying massive bosses, then look no further than Machi Knights: Blood Bargo. It’s not perfect and can get repetitive, but it’s fun in short bursts and the local-play option is a great addition.

That’s why I give Machi Knights: Blood Bargo by Cyberfront Korea Corp my rating of

What’s there not to like about Mechs? Are you going to be picking up Machi Knights? Let us know over on Twitter or come and join the SIF Discord.

Check out more of Leigh’s reviews here!

Like this: Like Loading...