Dude what a shock that the game I couldn't shut the fuck up about over the summer is at the top of my list of favorite things played this year. I only stopped with the constant blog posts because I got busy with other stuff, but thankfully this game being in early access means new updates happen fairly regularly and I can keep jumping back in to see what's new as time and schedule permit.

My god has it really only been 190 missions with this crew?

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you're reading this without having been to my blog previously and have no idea what this game is - and that's totally fair!! I'd highly recommend reading my first impressions post because I cover a lot of ground there that I don't really want to re-tread too much, but here's the elevator pitch for Nitro Gen Omega:

A turn-based 'Spaghetti Mech Anime' game designed by a small team of Italian devs as a love letter to the genre

To set the scene: the world has been ruined by rogue AI mechs. You have a crew of 'fools' that fly above the wreckage in an airship which serves as your home base (your Argama, your XCOM 2 Avenger, etc), and you get hired by the surviving towns (which are basically Sim City 2000 Arcologies) to keep the tentative peace by intervening with you own mechanical beast; however in an interesting twist, your mech (the MONKI by default, additional chassis unlock later) has individual stations that require each of your crew members to take a specific role rather than a one pilot / one mech approach. Someone mans the guns, someone handles movement, someone handles extra systems like cooling, countermeasures, etc. The gang all works together to get this hunk of metal to move around.

The turn based combat functions a lot like video editing software; there's a timeline across the bottom, your four stationed pilots have one action point each per round, allowing you to pick an option from their list and place it where you want it to happen on the timeline. Once you're fully queued up, you hit the Resolution Phase button and sit back to see what brilliance (or chaos) you've wrought in a very striking and flashy animated sequence that chronologically goes through each action (friend and foe). It legitimately feels like you're directing or choreographing your own mech anime fight.

Positioning and timing is everything in NGO combat because while it does have a fair amount in common with an Into the Breach style turn based system, you don't always have 100% visibility into what the enemy is going to do or where they'll be unless you take the time to use a scan action; this means you can potentially set up Rube Goldberg scenarios where you drop a bomb in one zone, zoom to another to avoid getting hit while also closing melee distance on a ranged enemy. You can also completely misjudge and shoot at an empty zone or run right on top of an enemy missile's landing spot.

It fucking rules

Since my initial impressions and posts about the game, several relatively large updates have hit (including some even just two weeks ago adding updated vocations for characters and other changes) but don't let that stop you from trying it now instead of waiting for it to be fully at a 1.0 release.

I know, I know I've said before 'I'm not an Early Access' person and then proceeded to jump into Hyper Light Breaker and defend it until it was cancelled (which is one of the reasons that game is not on my end of the year list) I just am consistently surprised at what the DESTINYbit team is cooking with NGO.

I've seen some writing about this game (that I agree with) where the shōnen mech anime aesthetics without a protagonist or team that actually factor into the world and the story feels off since your crew are mostly procedurally generated, but this I feel is mainly because the game is positioned as a 'sandbox' game currently; there IS a story but it's relatively barebones at the moment and the latest dev update shows that they know this and a more robust story is coming on the roadmap.

And hey, minor actual plot and our rando's relevance to it notwithstanding, that still doesn't stop me from feeling admiration for my band of idiots and the emergent storylines that pop up: gossiping with each other in the airship's halls, doing Yoga between missions, fighting over who gets to play bass, the disaster lesbians we picked up in Nullpost who fucking hate each other - you really get attached to them, even if they never actually have on screen dialog.

It's "I'm giving them their own stories" X-COM all over again and I'm here for it.

The initial launch included customization that was specifically tied to the mechs, with your ability to buy paint all over the continent and use it to spruce up the ol' machines:

Monki says trans rights

But a few patches ago they added a character creator. Switching from randomized pilots which you could re-roll but had no real control over to the ability to create custom pilots - either to start a new run and crew with them, OR allow these custom pilots to be seeded into the world for hire at the various "Fools Inn" facilities in towns for your existing saves. Because of my Gundam proclivities and experiments with the character creator there's a nonzero chance I run into the gang of Zeta somewhere along the road with my main team:

And (stop me if you've heard this before) the combat absolutely rips, man. It's so, SO much fun to try to strategize how to get to which quadrant of the fight at the right moment in order to execute a melee attack and then bounce before they can retaliate. Sometimes you get it right!! Sometimes you misread and send your mech straight into a melee range of a goddamn troll or a gaggle of those goblin knife fuckers who get multiple slash moves per round.

Each mission completion grants money and skill experience but more importantly downtime activity tokens allowing you to have your crew hang out with each other, relax on the ship, pursue hobbies, etc - each with mechanical benefits of either helping their friendship, sparking rivalries, reducing fatigue, upgrading skills and more.

Hell, the motherfuckers added medicinal DDR in the latest update:

As mentioned, the latest roadmap shows that more story will be added down the road but I think the biggest question I have about the setting isn't the robots, the disaster, the ominous volcano at the center of the continent, no - it's what in the actual physics is happening with the art on the lady who runs the general store:

Where is...how is her leg doing that...

I've thought a lot about maybe waiting for the story release and starting a new campaign with a new crew but I've gotten really attached to my idiots and their perks (Hell I made fan art of the gang). It'd be hard for me to go back to, for example, a gunner who needs to reload more often than Mina does.

Anyway I'm looking forward to what's next for this game. The devs are listening to feedback and doing their best - hell one of the larger criticisms I had in my initial impressions (about character body image) got addressed with significant variety in body shapes being included after the character creator update. People with bodyfat exist now!! I guess one of the other nice things about early access - depending on how much happens over the next few months this game might end up on my 2026 list as well. Cheating? Sure. My list though!

The disaster lesbians finally ended their rivalry, jfc

Wait so Should I Play it™?

Unlike every other one of these posts where I say 'Maybe' I'm gonna just say yes. Yes you should play this game. Unless you have a hatred for mechs or turn based games or anime aesthetic (totally understandable!!!) this game deserves more attention because the dev team is really small and creating something amazing. I'd love for them to be financially secure.

Oh and the soundtrack by Alex Moukala is pretty fucken great.

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