This Japanese indie mech screams with the sounds of 90s anime | PC Gamer - hamiltonthimence1951

This Japanese indie mech screams with the sounds of 90s gum anime

(Image acknowledgment: Robo Lover)

Sorry, everyone. Despite positioning myself as the self-proclaimed Mech-liker on stave, I've ne'er actually been huge on Gundam. I simply prefer my giant robots to look a trifle less toylike, I'm afraid. But while I'm not that hot on how Mecha anime often looks, I'm a sucker for how it sounds—and in that, Marauder: Unlimited Frontier perfectly nails its target.

A free indie project from a Japanese developer sledding by Robo Lover (ロボ好き), Vulture made the rounds on my Twitter feed earlier this week. It may not look more than, but trust me, you'll deprivation to crank that volume right up.

That's the good englut, innit? There's a real, identifiable texture to 90s Mecha gum anime, and the developer has captured it perfectly. The unsounded booms of a Eruca sativa, the sharp ticking of machinery, the almost foreigner sound of thrusters screaming through with the broadcast, wholly delivered with a quality that calls back to the crummy speakers on your parents' CRT telly.

The game itself is a fun enough little mech dogfighter. The menus might be rough, and models are low detail up adjacent—simply in the moment, intense through the sky, unloading missiles on a half-dozen targets painted against a bright blue sky, IT's a joy. At least, it was once I worked out the controls, which are hard to specify considering much of the game's UI lacks an English translation.

Vulture UF is free to download here, but heads up the host's a little larghissimo—despite being a 2GB download, there's a good chance you'll be waiting a few hours.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Receiving set Proximo for the first off time—and she's not stopped mentation virtually games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from terzetto years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Scattergun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and having herself developed critically acclaimed micro games look-alike Can Androids Beg off, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next unexcelled indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She's also played for a combative Splatoon team, and unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.