Metallic Child is a wild anime dungeon crawler wrapped in a few roguelike mechanics. Though its levels can run a bit long and its combat grow repetitive, a friendly difficulty makes bashing robot masters and their ilk a joy.
Before Metallic Child I had never considered playing an entire video game from the perspective of a security camera.
No, this isn’t Watch Dogs. Unless I’m having a memory repressed where Marcus or Aiden observed and controlled a chibi robot girl as she battled against rogue AI in a space station that is slowly crashing into the Earth.
Metallic Child reminds me of one of those strange niche games that I played when I first started reviewing games. Not only is it unabashedly “Japanese” in its anime-like aesthetic, Metallic Child is weirdly different in how it plays with a familiar genre. Where many of the titles I remember from NIS America and Idea Factory were number grinding RPGs, Metallic Child is a dungeon crawler that flirts with the roguelike genre just enough that it may catch the eye of hungry Hades droves, especially on the Nintendo Switch.
Players patch into a security camera on the orbiting Life Stream space station. Nearly every robot on the station has gone rogue and their creator is seemingly helping them crash the station into Earth. Metallic Child is told through the perspective of a camera that is livestreaming the action, indicated by a flashing red icon and the words “LIVE” in the upper-right corner of the screen. A human on Earth has somehow stumbled upon Rona, a helpless robot who has been nearly destroyed. Because she has lost function of her internal controls, she allows the Earth-based entity to control her remotely.
The game’s introduction serves as a noble set up for the wealth of mechanics encountered across Metallic Child. Interestingly, though, it allows players the opportunity to create a kind of persona of this person on Earth. Existing primarily as an unseen presence, Rona and her helper Pan will talk to the “streamer” and dialog options are presented that players can select from. Players can choose responses to be playful, confident, mean, flirty, cocky, and a number of other things. I chose the streamer’s personality as confident, willing to lift up Rona when she was feeling down. While these options don’t necessarily affect gameplay, they often elicit a reaction from Rona. It’s a cute touch but players can also be creepy or jokers if they feel like it. I especially loved how several of the dialog options centered around the streamer’s skills as a gamer and a few times when I chose that path, Rona and Pan acted confused.
The story of Metallic Child is overall quite simple and unfolds between runs and after major boss fights. Put simply, Rona is a Metallic Child but not one built for combat. Rona’s creator, who she dubs “Mother”, seems responsible for unleashing the other Metallic Children on the Life Stream. When Rona defeats one of the other Metallic Children who is built for combat, she earns an energy core that is used to give the Life Stream more power until it finally stops its course for Earth. NPCs who provide side quests during runs and an extensive index of journal entries further flesh out the world in an admirable way that will reward invested players.
There’s an opportunity after each run that players can explore the hub area of the Life Stream and upgrade Rona, explore new weapons, investigate data logs, or take a small moment to look at Earth and the distance of the station from the planet. For some reason, this small touch brought me closer to the narrative of Metallic Child. It may be a bombastic explosion of anime robots and Japanese voice acting, yet I felt someone bonded with Rona and embodied this streamer just a bit in this serene-like moment. When a game–no matter how strange–manages to give a small touch like this impact, it’s hard not to warm up to it.
A quirky story is one thing but Metallic Child hinges on being a frantic dungeon crawler where players go through floors of destruction in hopes of defeating a robot boss before dying. While it might seem to be in the vein of Mega Man where each boss has its own specific power or affinity and can be tackled in any order, Metallic Child focuses on melee combat where Rona can equip a hammer, gauntlets, or a sword and shield combo. Initially, the combat approaches confusion because the tutorial front-loads nearly every mechanic. However, after my first couple runs where I kept forgetting about one attack or ability, familiarity and confidence set in.
Each weapon type has a normal attack with combos and a special attack. With a gauntlet or a hammer, Rona can roll dodge and avoid damage while a sword and shield allows her to block and parry at the right moment. During a combo, players can press a trigger button and activate a weapon chain that switches to the secondary weapon by engaging a special attack for increased damage. Across dungeons, players will encounter higher tiered weapons that not only have better stats but often have much better special attacks that do increased damage.
The map layout of a typical level in Metallic Child is fairly large, often spanning a few dozen rooms full of traps, enemies, and helpful stations to spend disk-based currency. Rooms can often feel claustrophobic, rapidly filling up with enemies and danger, making the player take caution depending on the layout. With an isometric view, there were times I would have to run Rona from one end of a room to the other if a stray enemy was loitering in a corner but the joy with Metallic Child is that rooms can be cleared in a matter of seconds. Players receive a letter ranking (D, C, B, A, S) based on performance and it feels amazing to chain rooms and reap the bonus rewards.
Rona can grapple most enemies and throw them into traps and instantly kill them, making the move often laughably overpowered. Often I would hurdle a group into a wall or pool of fire without being unscathed and smile at hearing Rona say “S” for my rank. But caution is advised. Throws, weapon chains, and special attacks require battery power or are on cooldowns, meaning they can’t be constantly spammed. It’s a way to prevent players from being too strong too early. Most enemies aren’t horrible threats but Rona’s major flaw is that without the proper upgrade, she can be stunned for a split second after being hit, breaking up a combo or a charge attack. It’s important to take stock of and learn what enemies can execute long range attacks and which ones come in for the kill so as not to be overwhelmed.
Metallic Child‘s major difference in melee combat is the use of cores. Being a robot, Rona needs energy to engage in combat and stay alive. Players can equip Rona with three mini cores at one time that provide temporary benefits until they run out. Cores can reward Rona life after completing a battle, increase attack power, allow her to throw most enemies, or decrease cooldowns. When three mini cores are installed Rona will enter a “Core Connect” mode that increases her power.
To throw a wrench into things, bugged and viral cores can also be acquired which provide detrimental effects. Bugged cores can impair the actual gameplay by lowering the resolution of the action, cause Rona to lose disks when being injured, and slow her down. The latter nearly ended my run because I encountered a room where I needed to jump over a fire pit and Rona’s slow speed meant I had to make nearly pixel-perfect jumps… which I barely did. Bugged cores eventually run out but viral ones stick with Rona until they are removed at a station.
Both a blessing and a curse, mini cores don’t seem to run out when not engaged in combat, meaning that players are stuck with their good and bad effects while exploring the Life Stream’s metallic halls. Players can also level up mini cores to increase their bonus properties and refresh their time. Along the way, Rona can also earn super cores which provide buffs that last the entirety of the run. Super cores may require data from bugged cores to unlock, meaning that some reward can be granted from detrimental effects. Players will likely gravitate towards specific super cores that speak to their current playstyle or offer a universal boon to gameplay. However, players will only be able to acquire a limited amount of super cores so figuring out whether to acquire a string of them or level up individual cores becomes a key strategy.
Cores are awarded through chests, by ripping them out of enemies in lieu of disks, or purchased at shops. Cores also come in the form of helpful buddies that stick with Rona, dealing damage or granting bonuses. The core system of Metallic Child may sound complicated but after a run or two, its intricacies should be sussed out by the player so they can begin focusing on what works best for the situations at hand.
My primary issue with Metallic Child is that a successful run from the start through the four levels and boss takes about an hour. In terms of a fast-paced roguelike, this can often feel grueling. Players can get rewarded for discovering 100 percent of a level but based on how many branching paths one room can take, it isn’t as quick as it may sound. I tackled Fira as my first boss, dying on my first run and and then beating her on my second. Both runs took a little under an hour a piece with me scouring every inch and fighting the mini bosses in between.
Upon defeat or success, players can invest chips earned into permanent improvements for Rona. From battery capacity, maximum health, weapon find, and a few other stats, players can incrementally improve Rona’s chances of survival. But the chip investments are fairly high for what feels like minimal increases. If I remember correctly, after my first run I had about 150 chips, which was good enough for one upgrade. I spent it on Rona’s max HP but it maybe boosted it about five hit points. Upon my second successful run, I was able to invest in two upgrades at about 125 chips each. But after the first upgrade, the number of chips required rose to over 200, meaning that it would take a lot of time to see drastic differences.
Players can also complete specific challenges that reward chips. Defeating bosses allows Rona to equip a powerful special attack that uses up finite “magic” points, which then becomes a new point of core focusing. Additionally, chips can be used to purchase outfits that grant a bonus but are fairly pricey. I’m sure a balancing act between the various difficulties of Metallic Child and growing improvements was difficult, but just know that it is a time investment to truly improve Rona’s capabilities.
Metallic Child doesn’t really suffer from anything aside from its lengthy dungeon crawls. Even then, the frenetic melee combat and constantly shifting nature of its core mechanic provide many avenues for players to maximize their time. Compact rooms mean that challenges are never too difficult and can be cleared rapidly. Mostly, though, I was surprised by the game’s charming take on narrative perspective and the colorful worlds that really popped on the Nintendo Switch. It might not be the most traditional spin on a roguelike but Metallic Child offers enough action and bosses to entertain you for quite some time.
