Battle Suit Aces review

This has to be the most cheerful game about aliens destroying the universe that I’ve ever played. Often making Lego Star Wars look like Andor, Battle Suit Aces is a hugely heartfelt sci-fi visual novel. The fact it’s a great deckbuilder too is just showing off.

You’re Captain Heathcliff, travelling the galaxy in his fight against the Frenzied, a pretty dull alien enemy. Fortunately, that faceless threat is one of the few dud narrative notes. The rest of the cast are great fun, often joyously queer, and… well, admittedly, maybe slightly too chipper at times. Oh, but ignore me. I’m just too British to understand this emotion you humans call ‘joy’.

A fairly rote save-the-universe-from-aliens plot is livened up considerably by constant silly digressions. Like the side mission where one of my crew accidentally ingested hallucinogenic strawberries and convinced himself he was a bear. Or when another crew member went undercover as an obnoxious celebrity to expose an arms dealer.

That obviously makes about as much sense as a concrete parachute, as does the mission where you take part in a major sports tournament solely so you can spread the word about the Frenzied in the commentary box. Realism has been kicked out of the cockpit in a game that’s packed with sincerity but unafraid to indulge its sillier side. Hear hear!

Early missions send you across the galaxy, recruiting new crew members and their lethal battle suits. Turn-based combat plays out on two 5v5 rows, each guarding a ship. Initially you want to deploy attack drones and units as quickly as possible to guard your ship. Each turn you can deploy a unit, move a unit, and ideally fire some attacks if you’ve banked enough power. Whoever destroys the opposing ship first, wins.

Easy enough to get your head around, but Battle Suit Aces starts complicating matters almost immediately. You’ll almost never face a monster that simply attacks and waits patiently for you to kill it. They’ll have spikes that hurt you, counter-attacks, or some awful buff that makes their neighbours stronger when you hit them. And that barely scratches the surface.

It’s a little intimidating to figure out all these new rules - Battle Suit Aces can be a bit of a hands-off teacher - but it’s also thrilling to play something that’s keen to get you to the good stuff swiftly. The difficulty ramps up pretty slowly, too, so there’s plenty of room for trial and error as you figure out its complications and quirks.

Mission success is rewarded with crafting materials (stop sighing at the back) for building suit/drone mods and defences for your ship. Early on you’ll often get the chance to recruit a new crew member too, and you’ll soon have a fine fleet of cannon fodder beloved pilots to send into battle. Suit mods start dull - three more health, is it? - but there’s interesting stuff too, like auto-attacking whenever your ship takes damage, or getting nice bonuses when teammates take out an enemy. There’s plenty of depth here to build a unique deck of battle suits that sync nicely.

Between battles you can gossip with crew members around the ship. These are short asides which add some welcome character. Proper story interludes between battles can go on a bit, but it’s a fun tale well told, so who cares? There’s no Persona-style system wherein you can get crew members to die for you if you become good enough pals with them (sometimes I think we forget how bizarre Persona is). Instead you can go on optional crew missions, which’ll give you a chunk of story and reward you with bonuses like an extra suit mod slot for them permanently.

All nicely executed, but I preferred the in-combat way of unlocking suit mod slots. Every crew member has a specific criteria that can be met in battle to unlock that crucial extra slot. E.g. activate their passive ability three times on the same turn. A clever way of ‘levelling up’ characters in the thick of the fights and encouraging you to try out the whole team.

It’s a nice touch in a game bursting with them. Like the way that different members of the cast shout the game’s name before story missions (brilliantly, not always with enthusiasm). Or the excellent little puzzle mode that’s tucked away on the ship, where you have to win specific scenarios in one turn. It’s a really pleasant universe to spend time in. More games should make time for a mission where everyone dresses to the nines for a fancy space gala (don’t worry, it gets attacked by pirates).

If you’ve still got PTSD from playing Mouthwashing last year, then you could do a lot worse than spending time with this delightful crew. Yes, yes, the universe is at stake, but we’re gonna make time for a gay wedding anyway. It’s refreshing playing something so proudly, unashamedly queer in a time when awful Gamergatey crap is constantly trying to seep back into the games industry.

Flaws? Well, the opening is a bit cliched, making the classic narrative mistake of beginning with a major tragedy before we’ve really had a chance to meet anyone yet, so it’s hard to care. The Frenzied being a total non-entity feels like a missed opportunity given the strong character writing and delightfully hammy villains you do eventually meet. Standard difficulty could probably do with being a bit tougher too, though there’s plenty you’ll miss on your first playthrough to justify replaying on hard.

This kind of minor nitpicking is why Captain Heathcliff won’t be recruiting me onto his sunny spaceship anytime soon. Give this mix of mech deckbuilder and visual novel a chance and the combat might go easy on you, but good luck resisting its charms.