Mecharashi (Game)

Mecharashi

GAME » on December 8, 2023

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A squad of betrayed mech pilots must band together to uncover a conspiracy. Also there's gacha.

Plot

Kaidan and Dana, a pair of young Steel Trooper (ST) pilots turned mercenaries, manage to get a contract working for the UNCS military, and link up with a machinist named Grant to help repair their STs. However, after just a few missions of running off The Ashes, a supposed terrorist group in Milkhama, the three pilots are betrayed and taken to an underground base for experimentation. The trio manage to escape with the help of an ace pilot named Rosa, who has decided to defect from the military herself. However, after being chased to White Maple, Rosa gives her life to help the others escape. Having been branded as criminals who attacked White Maple and killed Rosa, the trio are forced into hiding in a region of Milkhama where the UNCS can't easily find them. From there, they use what little savings they have to start a delivery company called GKD (after their names: Grant, Kaidan, and Dana) and hope to lay low. However, while chasing down some missing cargo for a wealthy client, the group rescues a strange girl piloting a stolen ST, and finds themselves dragged back into action against the UNCS and other groups hoping to claim the secrets that she holds.

Gameplay

Players arrange a party of 4-5 STs and their Pilots to fight on a map. All STs have four separate HP bars: Body, Left Arm, Right Arm, and Legs. If Legs are destroyed, then the ST can only move 1 square on the map. If either arm is destroyed, then the weapon attached to that arm becomes unusable (or if wielding a 2-handed weapon, it becomes harder to hit the target). If the body is destroyed, the ST is removed from the battlefield completely. Most main stage objectives will involve eliminating all enemy units or a certain boss unit, but there are some others such as moving [x] units to a certain escape point, or holding off attackers for [x] turns.

Characters

All playable characters in the game will be "licensed" to pilot one of three weight classes of STs: Light, Medium, or Heavy. They cannot switch types, but they can equip almost any ST pieces within their class. They can also equip any weapon that ST can carry (provided it falls within the weight limit), however the Pilot's Active and Passive Skills may be more suited for specific weapons that will give them an edge on the battlefield.

Professions

Fighter: Specializes in melee combat with weapons like pilebunkers and polearms, often has skills allowing them to attack multiple times in one turn (with enough AP).
Raider: Prefers close-range assault weapons like shotguns, MGs, and some melee weapons, specializing in skills that let them do bursts of high-damage to single targets.
Sniper: Long-range sniper specialist, able to use skills to target specific parts of enemy STs.
Tactician: Long-range artillery STs, capable of firing missiles that cover great distances without retaliation. However, they have very little to counter close-range fighters.
Guardian: Usually Heavy ST Pilots who specialize in wielding shields and soaking up damage aimed at themselves or nearby allies.
Machinist: Medic ST capable of restoring allied STs, and can even regenerate entire missing parts (except for the ST body).

Weapon types

Knuckles: The lightest melee weapon, with a higher accuracy than the others.
Pilebunkers: A stronger one-handed melee weapon.
Polearms: Large, two-handed melee weapon capable of chopping an entire enemy part off in 1-2 hits. Accuracy is reduced if one ST arm is destroyed.
Shotgun: Close-range assault weapon capable of dishing out pain to multiple parts at once.
Machine Gun: Slightly less power than the shotgun but slightly longer range to balance it out.
Heavy Machine Gun: Two handed minigun with a large drum that can shred through enemy STs. Accuracy and damage are hampered if wielded with one arm destroyed.
Light Rifle: Single-shot rifle, useful for pinpoint strikes by non-snipers.
Sniper Rifle: The Sniper's weapon of choice, capable of eliminating entire parts in 1-2 shots. Accuracy is usually halved if the ST has to fire one-handed.
Missile Launcher: Shoulder-mounted artillery weapon that can bombard a 3x3 square with missiles.
Rocket Launcher: Similar to ML above, but focuses on single targets with artillery strikes.
Small Shield: A relatively light defensive choice that can be used to counter melee attacks in a pinch.
Large Shield: The equipment of choice for Guardian ST Pilots, capable of soaking up damage until the arm carrying it is destroyed.
Railgun: A backpack-mounted weapon that takes extra power to equip, but dishes out devastating attacks in a straight line when used correctly.

Development

Mecharashi allegedly started out as a spinoff to the Front Mission franchise, titled Front Mission 2089: Borderscape. The game was developed by BlackJack Studio and produced by Square Enix for mobile devices, and they even released a concept trailer and held a closed beta test of the gameplay in April 2022. However, the game was announced as cancelled in October of that same year. No explanation was given but BlackJack Studio said they wanted "more continuity and control in content creation." Both sides removed all footage and news of Borderscape from their public web sites, but archived footage and news of the stillborn game still exists in other places. The developer, however, still held onto the assets from the beta, and later they released a game called "Mecharashi" in December 2023 in China, with a Japanese release following a few months later (as Metal Storm). It wasn't until March 2025, when Ten Tree Games announced their plans to release Mecharashi in western territories, that Squarenix finally sued BlackJack Studio for copyright infringement in a Japanese court, demanding they take down their game from online storefronts and pay about $150,000 for each infringement. However, in May of the same year, the two sides reached a settlement, and the game was allowed to be listed on global storefronts such as Steam and Google Play. The terms of the settlement were undisclosed, but the dev team reportedly worked to remove any obvious linkage to the Front Mission franchise before releasing the game globally.

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