For this game I played through the first level.

The Premise

In the future, Earth is torn by a massive global war over limited natural resources. Jake Brain is a mecha pilot for the United Pacific States Marine Corps, and together with the crew of the Mech Carrier Versis, they do battle with the forces of the evil Axis for the safety of Earth.

The Good

This has some of the best controls for any of the mecha action games I’ve played. Only Metal Storm has better controls, in my opinion. I had no problems pulling off shooting in almost 360 degrees. The shield system seems to work well, though I never got in the hang of using it.

The Bad

The original version of the game had portraits of the characters during the mini-cutscenes during missions. These were even visible in the game’s coverage in Nintendo Power. Those portraits are absent from the released game, which is unfortunate as they really fleshed out the game’s characters, and helped give the story more depth.

The Ugly

The game gives the player a limited ammunition supply, and in the first level I couldn’t find any way to replenish my ammunition supply for any of my weapons. While I didn’t run out of ammunition for my weapons, I came pretty close, and I couldn’t find any health power-ups at all. Considering that you have only one life in this game  (though you have 3 continues), that’s a pretty significant problem. Additionally, there’s no password option, so this is a single-play-through game.

The Verdict

Despite some grievous flaws under “The Ugly”, I still had some fun with this game. I probably wouldn’t necessarily pay $10-30 plus shipping on eBay to get the game. However, if I had a SNES and came across it at Goodwill, or at one of my local retro video game stores, I’d definitely consider picking it up. Similarly, if I had a Wii, I’d consider getting it from Virtual Console.