REVIEW: METAL MIND Swims Well Enough in the Sea of Roguelite Games
Want to run around as a robot getting cool upgrades, shooting crazy machines of all sizes, with wacky guns and smooth movement? You can get all this and more in the new mech roguelite game, Metal Mind. The game offers a lot of content and strong combat, but the overarching progress might be a little too slow at times.
The roguelite mechanics here are pretty much identical to every other roguelite game: start with practically nothing, fight through waves of enemies and bosses to get upgrades and weapons, and start it all again after you die.
It isn’t bad that Metal Mind changes nothing in the formula, but there are no innovations or changes to the standard roguelite ideas. While that might be a bad note in some ways, the game does keep things moving at a breakneck speed and does the roguelite mechanics just as well as any other game in this genre.
The only thing that Metal Mind struggles with is the overall game progression. It takes several runs to just get one permanent upgrade for future runs, and a lot of the permanent upgrades are underwhelming or even negligible.
This doesn’t cause any problems for the main game and experience overall, but it does feel like all your progress and runs have little significance.
However, roguelites aren’t meant to be about ongoing progression, it is about each run and the unique combinations and upgrades players get each run and going as far as you can. This is where Metal Mind excels and is the most wonderfully engaging.
Starting with the combat, Metal Mind will keep players on their toes in each and every encounter. The top-down, twin-stick shooter mechanics are smooth and fast. There is a purposeful lag in your aim and the character’s weapon, which is an odd mechanic which luckily doesn’t hurt the combat, but it also doesn’t add enough forethought or skill ceiling to be interesting. The bosses also consistently sat in that sweet spot, brutal and doable no matter the upgrades and weapons acquired.
This brings me to the next major part of any roguelite: in-run progression. Players collect a few different materials to spend on passive upgrades (which are accessible at any time, which is a nice change of pace), new weapons at random shops, or events and encounters.
Metal Mind is pretty generous overall, by the time I made it to the first and second bosses, I already felt pretty powerful and had a goal for future upgrades and weapons builds. The passive upgrades are incremental but noticeable and worthwhile. The weapons and armor add most of the flavor with new/unique abilities, wacky attacks, and deep variety.
Overall, Metal Mind is a solid entry in the massive list of roguelite games even though it doesn't have a lot of new ideas. This may not be the best of the best, but it’ll be lots of fun for any gamer who has never tried or isn’t tired of roguelite games.
