Relayer Advanced (PC) review "An Epic Dramatic yet somber Girly Anime tactical Mecha Game"

Since time immemorial, I always been fascinated about mechs and combat robots as a youngling, playing Total Annihilation and watching a couple of Gundam Anime during my childhood days. There are only quite a few PC games that could satisfy such fascinations, Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun and Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath are one of the few ones. In addition, I vaguely remember playing some older games of MechWarrior as well in the past. It’s such a delight that I’ve discovered Relayer Advanced while watching some gameplay trailers.


Relayer Advanced is a turn based SRPG mecha game with some anime girls sprinkle on top of it. It is a very story driven game which primarily focuses on a particular woman named Tera, a young girl who possess the will of earth, it is a game wherein the wills of celestial body and solar systems are made manifest or personified into anime girls. They are known as Star children as beings who embodies the desires of the stars to oppose an entity known as the Relayers as they are the adversaries of humanity that seeks to destroy or bring utter Annihilation to all life not just on Earth but the entirety of the Solar System. These Star children are the only ones who can pilot some specialize Mechas or what the in-game lore refers to it as a Quasar, a special variant of it known as the Stellar Gears.






As these instruments of destruction or weapons are the keys to eliminating the planetary threat the Relayer poses. To make matters worse, not every faction on earth is compelled to cooperate with each other such as the United Earth Government and the independent entity: GT Labs, both groups share the same objective as in fighting off the Relayer invasion and yet the methods they used to achieve that goal differs with one another, thus an unavoidable conflict ensues.


The game starts off with Terra’s aimless wandering wherever the winds take her which this time took her to the Lunar colony of the moon. There she first encountered the repulsive Relayer invaders then found her long lost sister Luna assisting the enemy. Here begins the first of many battles to come. After the incident Terra meets fellow Star Children himiko, together they embark on a galactic journey in finding the other Star Children in an attempt to repel the Relayer menace. The journey itself brought them to the lush green plains and splendid blue surface of Planet Earth, to the red planet Mars, and as far as the unreachable depths of the Solar System, Planet Jupiter.


Relayer Advanced gameplay loop follows a turn-based grid system wherein you place your units on specific square grids to move units and attack the opposing team, for comparison’s sake, more akin to Super Robot Wars and less of a Fire Emblem type game. Each mech units are categorized into 4 jobs or classes, beginning with Assaulter, a mech unit that prioritizes offensive tactics and wields a two-handed sword, sniper is a long range unit that shoots sniper rounds at a reasonable distances, the tank is a shield wielding mech that focuses on survivability and generating aggro to draw enemies attention and is able to withstand punishing blows, then lastly is the scout class which is a support mech unit that can cast heals as well as debuff and buffing abilities. As your mech units progress in terms of level, special jobs/subclass are made available.






To add flavor to this seemingly ordinary job/class system each character you find along the way throughout mission stages has their own set of abilities exclusive to their own use. The level cap of the game reaches as far as the hundreds, level 300 being the maximum one unit can achieve through persistent grinding.

When you purchase the DLC packages, you will have the option of switching your current Stellar Gear into a new one with higher stats than their previous mecha, with exclusive custom bonuses that make them more powerful than even the standard models that are upgraded to the highest possible level. This is a Japanese SRPG, so grinding is mandatory to help your units acquire levels to be able to challenge the more powerful enemies as the story progresses forward. At first the game may look difficult due to the level difference of your units and the enemies mech unit, however once you get the option to do the battle simulator bonus missions, the game becomes manageable and if you push the grinding too far, it will be downright easy as you obtain resources like EXP for levels and money for buying new high tier weapons to equip your units. Mowing down enemies as they were nothing with your overpowered level mechs. Speaking of weapons there’s a simple upgrade system to improve its tier level of each weapon types for a fee and a chance to create the most sought-after weapon type of all, Dark Side Weapons due to its insane high damage output, although there’s a price you’ll have to pay to use these weapons types. Only the brave ones should to dare to obtain these kinds of weapons!


I am glad that the grinding in this game is somehow streamlined since you got the choice of allowing the game to be played Automatically without too much supervision on your part, eliminating the most frustrating part of playing a Japanese RPG for players who mostly just played Western RPGs all their lives. Unlike the Agarest and Neptunia game series which I’ve unable to beat due to their grindy nature. Relayer Advanced is one of the few Japanese SRPG games that I’ve got the pleasure of completing the main campaign. Grinding as a gaming mechanic seems to be a cultural phenomenon in Japan.






My overall thoughts in regards to the game itself is genuinely positive for the most part. The English voice acting of the casts was superb, the actors really nailed the personality of the characters they were assigned to act upon. The writing is spot on! Very lovely to read and easy to understand, the localization team did a splendid job translating the game into English without needly inserting some of their political views and personal stance on any controversial topics. Unlike some other localized titles such as the recently released Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes which is plagued with bad localization, bugs and moral agendas of its translators instead of just trying to properly translate the game word per word.


The game is very stable and no issues was found during playtime, runs very well on Windows 10, almost like a dream! I also appreciate the fact that the game has a build-in time counter on the amount of time you spent playing the game, this is pretty neat feature since I play the GOG version and I don’t want to use a third-party client launcher to know your in-game time duration. I love the 2D anime graphics mixed with 3D art assets. The soundtrack of the game seems to be serviceable enough, it’s not bad, although not that good either.


The highlight of the game is the mecha designs and the female characters leads, also the cinematic fighting cutscenes are neatly done. Though it may lack fanservice from the female cast, its rare and refreshing to find a Japanese game wherein the girls are not overly sexualized but can still look beautiful at the same time!


The only few complains I got with this game is that it lacks a decent mouse/keyboard controls for the PC Port and some Romance Subplots since it’s a Mecha Game with CUTE ANIME GIRLS! I also wish the game had a custom mouse cursor as oppose to the generic arrow pointer that you had on your windows desktop by default. For instance, such as Darkest Dungeon.






The setting of the narrative and gameplay sometimes does not match up: for example, if the story is stating that there are 3 or 2 parties involved in a given conflict, in actuality on the gameplay side your only fighting 1 opponent side, not different factions. Perhaps this is complicated for Japanese developers to pull off compared to western developers wherein they can easily distinguish a diverse set of enemy factions on their games.


The bonus missions or extra campaign has no voiceovers, be it English or Japanese voices, it really killed the mood and made me lose interest in playing the rest of the bonus content. Such a wasted potential although the replay value is there for those who wish to learn more of the game’s lore.


In addition, the ending is somewhat bitter sweet that Somehow tickles my sympathetic or empathetic side or tendencies. Hopefully there’s a sequel in the horizon. I would have given it an easy 5-star rating due to how interesting the plot is and engaging the characters are however the clunky controls prevents me from doing so.


Highly recommended for people who likes gundam, mecha robots and cute anime girls in general, in addition to being familiar with basic JRPG mechanics, to avoid any frustrations at all, there’s no shame in playing the game with a walkthrough or guide in hand.

Community review by templarseeker (July 14, 2024) PC Gamer Extraordinaire!