REVIEW: Metallic Child


Title	Metallic Child
Developer	Studio HG
Publisher	Crest
Release Date	September 15th, 2021 (Steam) September 16th, 2021 (Switch)
Genre	Action
Platform	PC, Nintendo Switch
Age Rating	Mature
Official Website

Every once in a while I decide to review a game on a whim. This is exactly what happened when I decided to take on Metallic Child. I saw the amazing opening animation by Studio Trigger, and was very interested to see what a rogue-lite robot hunting game would play like. After putting in 10 hours and completing all the main story missions, I have many thoughts on this one. Let’s see if they are good or bad.

The story begins as Rona, an android known as a Metallic Child, finds herself in a very damaged state. An uprising has occurred in the space laboratory, Life Stream, and it is now falling to Earth. The ship is now on a collision course with Earth and many lives will be lost. Rona has lost the ability to self-repair so you, the player, will have to control her actions. She must now defeat the other Metallic Children and use their cores to prevent a disaster on Earth, and also unravel the mystery of how this uprising occurred, and the fate of her mother, Dr. Irene.

While this isn’t the deepest story ever written, the plot certainly keeps you engaged as you press through each of the game’s stages. They did a great job of building a history for this world, and making you feel like there were many things at stake here. I certainly enjoyed Rona as a character, and she played well off the other Metallic Children, and had some really cute interactions with the player as well. I hope I see her in more stories going forward, she really is a great character.

Graphically, Metallic Child looks great. I played the game on PC at 4k and was really impressed with the amount of detail they put into this one. You can tell a lot of work was put into Rona’s character model and the cute customizations you can unlock. The other Metallic Children are nicely done with looks that fit their characters to a tee as well. The environments look great as well and are pretty much what you would expect. You have cave levels, lava levels and the basic things you would expect to find. There are two stages on rails thrown in here to spice things up. I didn’t expect one of them to be in space, but it worked out very well. I thought this was a great way to keep the action fresh and they did a great job here.

I have to say this game has a very catchy soundtrack. It doesn’t stray far from what you would expect, plenty of upbeat Techno tunes that you get into a groove with as you bust your foes into a million pieces. The Japanese voice cast does a great job giving these characters life. Rona’s voice actor, specifically, gives her a ton of personality and really gets you into the story beats.

Let’s dig into what makes Metallic Child really shine, the gameplay. The game is done in a top down style and you guide Rona through each level and defeat the Metallic Child waiting at the end. Each stage has four levels you will have to explore in order to face the boss. On these floors you will find things like shops, power-ups and even some random quests to earn disks and gears. These floors are randomly generated, so these rooms or side quests will appear at random.

Combat itself is fast and furious. Rona has three different types of weapons at her disposal: blades, hammer and gauntlets. Each comes with its own set of combo and charged attacks. Different weapons will also have unique special attacks and these can be chained together with your second weapon’s skill as well. Weapons also have damage traits and other buffs, so you will need to keep all of this in mind when you start trading out the weapons you have for one dropped in the dungeon. In addition to these attacks, Rona can also throw certain robots. I found this very useful in rooms with a ton of enemies since you bang them against each other, but this does leave you open to attacks.

As you defeat the enemy robots, you can acquire their cores. These will have various good, and bad, effects on Rona. Some will offer you buffs to your various skills and attacks while others can hinder you in some pretty horrible ways. Some of the worse ones lower the resolution of the screen, add additional enemies, reduce your movement, and more. These will only last for a limited time and when they are gone, you will gain some core energy that will help you on your way to obtaining super cores. These will appear automatically after Rona has absorbed enough energy and will give you permanent perks for the rest of the stage. You will need to pick and choose which ones you take carefully since you will max out at ten of these per stage.

I know this sounds like this combat system is a bit complicated, but honestly it’s not. Once you get in there and beat down baddies, I feel most people will take to this one very easily. The game offers many different difficulties for players to choose from, and after a bit of story progression, some mini-games will unlock that will allow you to earn gears that can be spent to upgrade Rona’s various starting stats.

I am very glad I decided to review Metallic Child. I had so much fun exploring each level and watching Rona’s story unfold. The combat here is easy to get into, and has enough depth that advanced players have plenty to dig into as well. The bosses were all unique and a lot of fun to challenge, and the little extras they threw in here were a great bonus. Things like Rona’s customizations that give her starter weapons or perks, a ton of unlockable messages that build the world, and even some awesome fan art to unlock. It took me around 10 hours to complete the main story, but I could easily spend another 10 obtaining everything and doing post-game challenges. This game is well worth the asking price of $24.99. I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys a good action game, or a cute android protagonist. You won’t be disappointed if you pick this one up.