Megaton Musashi W: Wired

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1-3 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online), 6 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Note: This review has been directly sponsored by a kind donation from Jamie and His Cats. Thanks again for your generous contribution!

Developer and publisher Level-5, maker of beloved franchises like Professor Layton, Yo-Kai Watch, Ni No Kuni, and Dark Cloud, has spent recent years fighting off financial problems that led it to closing its US offices in 2020. As luck would have it, a year later in 2021, the company would release mech-focused Action-RPG Megaton Musashi in Japan, followed up by a 2022 free-to-play version of the game, Megaton Musashi X: Cross. It was only with the game’s third updated release, Megaton Musashi W: Wired, that this game would finally see release in the West, marking a welcome return for Level-5 as well.

Releasing in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, Megaton Musashi W: Wired puts players in the role of Yamato, a teenage delinquent who enjoys fighting, and who is recruited into an organization that reveals that Yamato’s entire world is a lie – his town is actually an enclosed colony containing the last remaining humans left alive after an alien invasion that has been wiped from the colonists’ memories so they can lead normal lives. The organization has developed mech robots called rogues that they use to fight back against these invaders and protect this last remnant of humankind, and recruit their staff and mech pilots from the colonist population.

It’s a fantastical story, but Megaton Musashi mostly does a good job conveying it, and in a manner that feels very reminiscent of anime plots (fittingly, the game was adapted into an anime prior to Megaton Musashi W: Wired’s release), with an impressive anime-style soundtrack, decent-sounding Japanese-language voice acting, some nice cutscenes, and good anime-style character designs. However, the localization is a bit lacking in places, and some players may be frustrated by the huge focus on story, especially in the beginning of the game, where after an initial tutorial battle you’ll spend a long while as Yamato walking around town and talking to people before you get to see actual gameplay again.

These scenes are depicted via decently-animated 2D characters walking around part-2D/part-3D streets in the game’s contemporary-style town and its secret mech military base. Meanwhile, the actual mech combat is fully-3D with some good-looking mechs and decent performance despite the game’s fairly fast pace.

Combat in Megaton Musashi is delightfully visceral, and while it can be a bit repetitive, it somehow remains consistently enjoyable, really making players feel like a powerhouse as they tear through alien mechs and giant boss mech enemies. In fact, the game might go a tad overboard in this regard – you feel so powerful in Megaton Musashi, that much of the game feels a bit too easy.

Beyond the actual combat, players can unlock a wealth of mech parts to custom-build their ride, giving players a decent variety of weapon types and different stats to consider. While the game is a bit stingy when it comes to cosmetic customizations (with some unlocked through play and some requiring paid DLC), there’s still plenty of part customization options to select from.

This game also offers 3-player co-op play as well as 6-player competitive play, and while this is a great idea in theory, in practice you may have difficulty rounding up a group unless you bring your own – when I searched for opponents online, there was only one other human in the group, with the rest being AI-controlled bots, and when trying to play a 3v3 team match in the game’s colosseum mode, I wasn’t able to find any opponents at all.

While Megaton Musashi’s multiplayer may be disappointingly deserted, the game’s pacing a bit slow to start, and the difficulty level a tad too easy, overall I found this to be a really enjoyable game, with great combat, an engrossing story, and some good part collecting and mech customization. Fans of mech games will absolutely not want to miss this one, and Action-RPG players in general may want to give this a look as well.

tl;dr – Megaton Musashi W: Wired is an Action-RPG set in a world where humanity has been nearly wiped out by an alien invasion, and now fights back with mechs. This game has really enjoyable action, decent mech customization, and an engrossing story, though the pacing early into the game is too slow and the challenge level is too easy. However, despite these flaws, this is still a superb mech game, and a solid overall Action-RPG.

Grade: B

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