Back on the PlayStation Vita, I played my first Earth Defense Force game with Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space. This was also my introduction to D3Publisher. I’ve since played basically every Earth Defense Force game, but I also ended up buying a game called Onechanbara Z2 Chaos on PlayStation 4. These action games are good, mindless fun, or podcast games if you will. When D3Publisher announced Full Metal Schoolgirl, a new action game that blends elements of roguelites with Onechanbara and Earth Defense Force combat, I was sold. I even remember almost immediately asking to review it because I have played and had fun with every Onechanbara and Earth Defense Force game released on PS4 and Switch.
Whenever I discuss those franchises, I never really care much for the story or narrative. It is all about the core gameplay loop. With Full Metal Schoolgirl, I think the team did a great job with the writing and the localization, including the English dub. Full Metal Schoolgirl is set in the year 2089, where you play as a cyborg schoolgirl armed with melee and ranged weapons, taking on the corporate superpower of Meternal Jobz.
Your aim is to reach the top of the 100-floor tower, plowing through the Working Dead enemies of various sizes and forms with the help of your drone. You initially get to select one of two playable characters in Full Metal Schoolgirl and continue to attempt a run through the tower. As you defeat enemies, you earn money and materials that you can use to augment and upgrade yourself. Each run will also see the tower layout and enemy placements change. This is the roguelite aspect of Full Metal Schoolgirl.
As for the combat, Full Metal Schoolgirl features very simple but fun mechanics. You have the ability to sprint, use a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and select Punishment Moves (special skills). I initially thought D3Publisher was only using Onechanbara and Earth Defense Force in name, but they have brought elements of both games into the combat and movement here. This isn’t always a good thing, though, because it does feel janky sometimes, with many occasions where you will take damage off-camera, annoyingly.
After a few hours of Full Metal Schoolgirl, I was hooked and looked forward to running through the dozens of floors initially to work towards getting closer to the top, but I soon started tiring of how repetitive the initial part of a run is. I say this because you will soon unlock the ability to use a key to start from a higher floor in the tower, but this is a one-time use key, meaning you will have to start from the bottom the next run.
Roguelite elements can feel repetitive for sure, but how a game manages to mask this with lore and remixed gameplay is what elevates it to being great. I ended up trying out new weapon types quite often to keep things fresh, and feel like Yuke’s, the game’s developer, can polish Full Metal Schoolgirl into something well worth getting with some balance adjustments in how progression is handled, and also once there’s some optimization done for the technical issues on Nintendo Switch 2.
Full Metal Schoolgirl is a game I wanted to love, but it sadly doesn’t feel ready for the mainstream at its current price point. There’s still fun to be had here, and I will be doing a run or two daily on Switch 2, but it isn’t there yet.
The tower itself starts to spice things up after a few runs with platforming, lasers, more traps, and varied enemies, but redoing the opening floors can get really boring even on higher difficulties. I wish each set of floors (they change their theme with every set) were more varied in their structure. I get that this is a tower and I shouldn’t expect too much variety, but even what is there feels monotonous quickly.
Visually, Full Metal Schoolgirl is quite colorful, and I love the aesthetic. Even the Working Dead enemies, NPCs, and major characters you encounter in the tower look good. I also want to praise the cinematic cuts during combat animations, but the camera cuts when you finish a room get really annoying quickly. I soon started to realize that a lot of Full Metal Schoolgirl wastes my time. The load times in between floors, some loading in between rooms, and then the camera cuts with the same slow animation when you finish a room and have to wait for the chest to open with a reward add up to annoy me even more.
Speaking of visuals, Full Metal Schoolgirl on Switch 2 could’ve used more optimization. Now, I have played the Onechanbara and Earth Defense Force games on consoles, and I know how they can run, but given the structure and layout of Full Metal Schoolgirl, it shouldn’t run this badly. Don’t get fooled into thinking it is just uncapped initially, where it can hit 60 frames per second often, because you will soon run into enemy encounters in a room or boss fights where it drops well below 30 frames per second on Switch 2. I got used to the frame rate, but the load times continued to annoy me. I hope these can be addressed in patches. I appreciate the inclusion of gyro controls on Switch 2, though. I used them a lot while playing.
On the audio side, while I enjoyed the soundtrack for a few hours, it needs more variety. Thankfully, the voice acting and delivery are good throughout. I also appreciate the game’s theme song and the addition of English voice acting.
I had access to the Steam version as well, and while I haven’t played that for more than a few hours, you can get Full Metal Schoolgirl to run better on Steam Deck than Switch 2, albeit with visual cutbacks. This makes me hope Yuke’s can add a performance or quality mode on Switch 2 that allows for a more stable frame rate.
Right now, Full Metal Schoolgirl is available as a base game and with a Season Pass that adds downloadable content. I don’t have access to any of the DLC to comment on it, but it appears to just be cosmetic or music-related. Given that there is more DLC in the works, I hope we see Joy-Con 2 mouse controls added in a future update as well.
With Full Metal Schoolgirl, D3Publisher and Yuke’s have a solid base to build on, but it has a few too many annoying issues holding it back from an easy recommendation. The constant loading and time-wasting cut-scenes when you finish a room, accompanied by technical issues on Nintendo Switch 2, make it one to wait on for potential updates. Despite that, Full Metal Schoolgirl’s strong core gameplay with a good localization and aesthetic made me want to keep coming back to it for a run or two every day since getting it.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review copy provided by D3 Publisher
