Review: Go Mecha Ball (Nintendo Switch)

Go Mecha Ball is an arcade action game developed by Whale Peak Games and published by Super Rare Originals. It combines roguelite elements with twin-stick shooter mechanics at its finest. If you’re looking for something challenging, then this will be worth checking out.

The premise of Go Mecha Ball is to defeat the malfunctioning AI. Otherwise, there isn’t too much of a story at play here. It’s heavily gameplay-based rather than following a storyline and developing characters. For an action-arcade game, I’m totally okay with this. I don’t need much reason to shoot my way through hordes of enemies. It’s fun either way.

Besides shooting, Go Mecha Ball takes inspiration from pinball. Each level has a relatively open floor plan with obstacles and ramps you’ll need to maneuver around (but so do the enemies). When you first start the game, you’re equipped with one gun. As you defeat enemies, they’ll drop other weapons you can pick up and swap between up to two at a time. Enemies will also drop ammo, so be sure to pick that up as well.

You don’t need to defeat enemies just by shooting them, though. This is where the pinball comes in. Your character can turn into a ball, roll around, and dash into the enemies and obstacles. Think Sonic the Hedgehog style. Dashing into enemies as a ball damages them and can certainly kill them. It can also knock them over the edge of the map. (Luckily, you can’t fall over the edge!)

I found I could get through the waves of enemies just as a ball with no need to worry about learning the twin-stick controls. However, that also caused me to learn the hard way that if you defeat enemies like that, they won’t drop coins. And if you push them over the edge, they definitely won’t drop coins. There are two types of currency to collect: yellow coins and blue, known as glitch coins. The yellow ones allow you to buy items from the shop and the glitch coins allow you to go to a vending machine to get an ability, upgrade, or weapon at random.

Weapons are other types of guns that will drop from enemies, allowing you more of a selection on how to defeat them. Abilities are extra attacks with cooldown times your mecha ball can have. For example, you can jump super high and cause AOE damage when you land, throw grenades, or stun enemies. Upgrades make you stronger, such as increasing the gun damage or boost damage, increasing your max health, and more.

Once you use your glitch coins for these, you don’t get the upgrade, ability, or weapon right away. You simply have unlocked it for the chance to get it during your play through. After every level, you can choose from a random pool of up to three upgrades or abilities to make yourself stronger for the next level.

Each level is divided into three waves of enemies that increasingly get stronger—some shoot lasers, others chase you as a ball of their own, and more. Once you make it through the three hordes, you’ll get to choose an upgrade or ability, and then move onto the next level of three waves. Get through three levels (nine waves total) and you’ll have the option to spend those yellow coins at the shop. Here you can buy another upgrade, ability, or weapon. Or, you can heal up to 50% of your health. However, I found the shop items to be too expensive. I almost never had enough coins to buy anything. Even after killing enemies with the guns, they didn’t seem to drop enough currency for me to heal myself right before the big boss.

Yes, Go Mecha Ball has bosses. After visiting the shop, you’re thrown into a battle. It took me multiple tries to defeat the first boss. I wasn’t kidding when I said this game was challenging. However, I had hoped to get through the first boss with relative ease since it’s the first boss. My problem was that I had low health and couldn’t afford to heal before the battle. When I finally beat the boss, I assumed I’d get a free heal. Unfortunately, I didn’t. The game threw me into the next level of three waves of enemies when I only had two HP. I died immediately, and that’s when I learned the game does not save at all.

Go Mecha Ball is one of those games where you need to see how far you can go in one sitting. There are only four worlds; if you want to complete it, you’ll need to do so in one gameplay session. Now, this is where I got frustrated with the game. I understand practice makes perfect, but to you work so hard on something only for it to all get erased in the end was super disappointing.

Let me explain what I mean. When you lose a run in this game, nothing carries over except for the glitch coins you’ve collected and haven’t used yet. Whatever abilities and upgrades you got with glitch coins have reset, too. You can use your remaining glitch coins on upgrades, abilities, and weapons you may have already unlocked. The yellow coins do not carry over at all. So, I didn’t have any hope of saving up for that shop to heal myself before the boss battle. I learned this when I died during the levels before the first boss, but I had hoped defeating a boss would serve as some sort of checkpoint or allow you to keep what you already worked so hard to achieve. But no, it completely resets, only allowing you to keep what remaining glitch coins you had left over. 

Earlier, I said this game is a good challenge, and it is. However, the longer I played, the more frustrated I got. I didn’t see much incentive to keep trying when nothing I already accomplished carried over. Nomatter how hard I worked, I’d always start back at square one if I lost.

That doesn’t mean this game isn’t good, though. I still had fun with it. I just don’t think I have the patience to master the mechanics. With that said, the controls were fluid, smooth, and fast-paced. It was a lot of fun to bump into the enemies as a ball. The music is a bop, and the graphics are easy on the eyes, too. If you’re up for that challenge, then certainly give Go Mecha Ball a try.