I was initially intrigued by Battle Suit Aces because I’ve been getting into Gundam a lot lately and, woah, battle suits. Battle Suit Aces’ story is primarily one of happenstance, with a captain/pilot duo stumbling upon a battle suit and using it to fight off an attack by the Frenzied, an alien species that appears to be consuming our energy. Once successful, they’re given their own ship and tasked with recruiting new battle suit pilots to fight the frenzied. It’s a pretty light premise for such a dialogue-heavy game.
Heathcliff, who appears to be the main protagonist, is the ship’s captain. Playing more of a strategic role on the ship, he commands the battle suit pilots during battle. Battle Suit Aces is a bit of a deckbuilder. Initially, I was just getting cards and finding upgrade pieces after a battle. A faction system is introduced in short order, and that sets you on a course for unlocking new cards. Play faction-specific battle suits or complete faction-specific bounties, and you’ll gain reputation with that faction. Every time a faction levels up, you’ll gain access to new cards and can recruit one of them.
I had a pretty good time progressing through factions and unlocking cards. To embolden my army further, I received Energy Crystals at the end of each battle, allowing me to craft mods for my battle suits. Once a mod is crafted, you can’t craft any more of it. Things like +2 health made way for things like increasing movement speed or unlocking Captain’s Cards. Everything requires resources, and your battle suits come in two flavors, cherry and bluebe-no- wait, red and blue. When the round begins, you get energy based on how many blue or red cards you have on the field. Movement is also a resource, allowing you to move X amount of battle suits or drones on the battlefield based on your movement resource.
Captain’s Cards came in and added an extra layer of strategy, allowing me to do things like reduce the cost to attack for all units by 1 energy, or give me 4 blue energy to spend. Battling in Battle Suit Aces was initially boring and way too straightforward, but it blossomed into a compelling combat system. By the time the demo ended, I really felt like I had a strong grasp on what was offered to me, and I was enjoying battles. The cards I was fighting became more complex as well, with some battles having shields behind the enemy troops with X amount of armor before I could attack the enemy ship. Some cards also have effects that result after they die, like being replaced by two cards after one dies or having an ally fire off their weapon if another card dies.
Between battles, you can navigate the ship performing tasks like unlocking new cards, creating mods, unlocking new abilities in the SIM chamber, or navigating to your next destination to continue the story. Aside from navigating rooms, members of the crew will be placed throughout the USS Zephyr with conversational options to have. Talking to my crewmates gave me more information about the world and their personalities, colorful peppering that made me enjoy the relationships my crew had with each other.
I found the character art and card art very pretty. What really took my breath away was some of the colorful world art. Sometimes you’d be on these beautifully lush foliage-laden planets that really paired well with the art style, which is very consistent. And while the soundtrack didn’t wow me initially, some of the battle themes go really hard. Blaring horns, jazzy beats, a single piano, I’d enter into a battle and my headphones would come alive with tunes that helped put my ass into the battle suit as opposed to looking at a card game from above.
Battle Suit Aces took some time to get me interested. The battle system felt too straightforward, and the story and character dialogue had me rolling my eyes early on. Once the mechanics were explained and I started taking the reins from the tutorial, everything picked up. Soon enough, I was becoming more invested in what I was doing in-game, and battles were more exciting. It’s worth visiting the demo to see if Battle Suit Aces is for you, because it put this game on my radar, and now, I’m anticipating its release.
