Daemon X Machina’s Shooting and Looting Reignited My Mecha Love
I’ve abandoned watching anime, but Daemon X Machina, a Nintendo Switch-exclusive action game, has me longing for Gundam, Macross, and other mecha shows.
One of my all-time favorite television programs is Super Dimension Fortress Macross, a coming-of-age tale about a teenager dealing with the tragedies of love and war. It also features giant, pilotable war machines—mecha—designed to air-vent massive alien invaders. Though the Nintendo Switch–exclusive Daemon X Machina lacks Macross’ engrossing themes of art and culture overcoming violence and warfare, the game’s anime-style aesthetics and hulking humanoid death vehicles have me longing to revisit Macross and the mecha genre as a whole.
I haven’t watched anime on a regular basis in a long, long time—probably close to 15 years. Tastes and hobbies change as one ages, so my love for Japanese animation waned as I explored other entertainment and personal-growth avenues. Playing bass, studying Jeet Kune Do, writing an indie comic, and other activities cause me to be more selective with my time. Anime didn’t have a space.
First Contact
Growing up, however, I was thirsty for anything mecha and went to great lengths to obtain any animated program featuring the pilots in oversized battle bots. Some of my favorites included Genesis Climber Mospeada, Gundam 08th MS Team, Patlabor, and the aforementioned Macross.
Even looking back now, I cannot explain my all-consuming love for the genre. I’m not really into war stories. I really don’t watch many cartoons, save for classic Warner Bros. The Grumman F-14 jet fighter served as the basis for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies bits. It may have been Top Gun’s influence. After all, 1980s kids had the need for speed and the iconic Macross’ transformable VF-1 Valkyrie.
But what does this have to do with Daemon X Machina? Quite a bit, actually.
Daedalus Attack
Daemon X Machina’s mecha designs come courtesy of Shoji Kawamori, the artistic genius who fashioned the war machines for several notable anime ( Macross, Macross 7, Macross Frontier, Macross Delta) and video games (Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, Armored Core, Omega Boost) featuring battles across space and skies.
Daemon X Machina’s highly detailed mecha has Kawamori’s fingerprints all over them, from the sleek, ranged Arsenals designed for gunplay to the bulky, Hulkbuster-style Arsenals designed for close-quarter combat using lightsabers, buster swords, and maces.
The game’s Mobile Suit Gundam-like story dances between forgettable, laughable, and head-scratchingly odd with the various anime mecha pilot stereotypes babbling about loyalty, morality, and other concepts. Yet, Daemon X Machina is a game that feels very much like an interactive anime, continuing the lineage of its Armored Core forebearer.
Transformation
Honestly, I didn’t expect to love this game. Loot-and-shoot series like Destiny and Monster Hunter typically aren’t my bags, but Daemon X Machina has stirred something from deep within. Boosting around the environments and using shields, monitoring energy use, hurling cars, wrecking skyscrapers, and launching missile swarms at drones, rival pilots, and hulking, screen-filling Immortal boss characters recreates combat scenes from some of my favorite mecha shows.
Even better, Daemon X Machina is 100 percent mecha pr0n. A significant part of the loot-and-shoot hook is the ability to collect new armor and weapons from the carcasses of downed enemy Arsenals and Immortals. With the new parts, you can customize your Arsenal to your liking, adding heat-seeking missiles, lasers, flamethrowers, heavy armor, flash grenades, and dozens upon dozens of other offensive and defensive options.
In fact, you can tweak your creation to even resemble mecha from popular anime shows. If you take a dip to the Daemon X Machina subreddit, you’ll see photos of user-created Arsenals that look like Gundam’s mobile suits or Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Evangelion bio-machines. There’s even a preview mode where you can see your freshly outfitted mecha in a variety of poses and angles. It’s not unlike manipulating an action figure of your own design or admiring an assembled model kit.
Do You Remember Love?
I’ve been playing Daemon X Machina since its launch day, but I’m still less than halfway through the campaign. The reason for the slow pace isn’t because I’m getting wrecked by the CPU; I’m simply enjoying the game so much that I’m lengthening the experience.
Daemon X Machina’s missions are designed so that you can jump in for quick combat sessions that don’t require you to plan out your evening. As a result, I get a taste of mecha combat while plopped in front of the television or commuting to the office-15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, just like the anime shows themselves.
And, now, that’s all I want to do: rewatch classic mecha shows. Netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Animego’s out-of-print, remastered Macross DVD box set from 2001 sits on my media storage shelf. It’s more than time to revisit both groundbreaking mecha classics. Only this time, after I’m done watching those programs, I can boot up Daemon X Machina and have Amuro Ray and Hikaru Ichijyo on the brain as I rain hot missiles upon unsuspecting foes.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com on October 18, 2019.
