This top-down, twin-stick, Roguelike shooter stars a small robot with swappable body parts. It’s an idea that ties into the upgrade system perfectly, with each body part giving new abilities and having its own stats. Not only this, but they vary radically in size and colour too. Something is endearing about seeing the initially cute, boxy monitor-wearing, hero change into a snarling beast with tank treads and a spinning buzzsaw headpiece.
If you’ve played recent Roguelikes, you’ll know the deal here. It’s a straightforward case of clearing out enemies room-by-room in a randomised dungeon before facing a random boss, all the while equipping new gear and collecting currency (red chips, in this instance) that unlock permanent upgrades. These are your ticket to eventual success, incrementally increasing speed, strength, and so forth. Of course, there’s the chance to stumble on rare weapons, which greatly assist in reaching areas far beyond those explored before – something often teased, just to keep you returning.
One of the more unique twists here is the presence of challenge rooms, where you may have to kill more enemies than an AI drone, or stop a robotic loot goblin from emptying chests. Curses feature too, albeit ones that also grant a boon of some kind. You may have to think twice about dabbling.
There’s a tutorial to ease you in, and there isn’t much to complain about with the responsiveness of the controls, with the evade button smartly mapped to LT. Even so, progression here is tough. This can be attributed to a couple of things. Firstly, the bosses are bullet sponges that require you to avoid their attacks for a good five minutes while you whittle down their shield and health bars. It’s a tall order, especially when some offscreen attacks aren’t highlighted. Secondly, grinding for red chips is a slog – I put in six hours before writing this review, and didn’t get much further than unlocking the second tier of stat upgrades, with a good dozen tiers to buy into.
It also doesn’t help that the UI isn’t very user friendly, leading to confusion early on. Sometimes ‘B’ is used to back out of menus; other times it’s the start button. Movement on the map/teleport screen is inverted, and the choice of fonts is inconsistent, with text occasionally overlapping boxes. More detrimental is that upgrading and means to restore armour slow things down a tad, tucked away behind the loadout menu. The icons for upgrades (and weapons, incidentally) aren’t too clear either, and it isn’t obvious what should be invested in first. While this does allow for experimentation, it leads to more confusion too. Around a dozen upgrades are listed before improved firing speed – which is vital in something this gung-ho. This results in a lot of needless icon cycling.
The shooting aspect is fun though, helping to gloss over some of the rough patches. The first dungeon has electric pylons and explosive charges to shoot to help kill several enemies at once, while the industrial location has crushers and bellowing flames. Red markings indicate where enemies are about to spawn, and there are markers to show off-screen enemies too. While this may suggest that the action is easy to read, smaller enemies are prone to spawning and circling ‘ol CRT head within seconds of entering a room, while the Xenomorph-style adversaries lunge without warning. Only armour can be replenished, so if you reach a boss with no health, the odds will be stacked high.
Metal Mind represents reasonable value for money – and the pixel art is appealing for the most part, recalling Xeno Crisis – but this can be attributed to how challenging the experience is, and how much time is required to unlock new rigs and permanent upgrades. After six hours of play, I started to feel increasingly discouraged with every retry, as if the ending was still out of grasp, when ideally, I should have felt well and truly spurred on by this point. I can’t say that everyone going into Metal Mind will have the same experience as me – it’s a randomised affair, after all – but it would pay to be mindful of how finicky some of its concepts are.
Whirllaxy Studio’s Metal Mind hits Xbox One on 28th December. Published by E-Home Entertainment. It first launched on PC and Switch in 2022.