ADMIN NOTE: Welcome a brand new writer; Legend of Link!

MechQuest is a recently released online flash RPG, from the makers of AdventureQuest and Dragonfable. According to the creators, it was heavily inspired by the art from every single mecha and giant robot series ever created. Primarily though, it has been an attempt to combine futuristic weaponry and settings with gameplay elements reminiscent of fantasy RPGs.

MechQuest’s main storyline begins aboard a space vessel. After you’ve customized your character and Mech color, the game starts, at which point you begin to discover just what is happening. Basically, you’re a teenager on your way to Soluna City, where you will be attending GEARS University. Once you have arrived there’s much you can do: not only may you attend classes at the University, but you can take up various jobs to earn credits and experience. The job system is addictive, and each one will likely make you want to come back every once in a while, even after you’ve been promoted to the max. Not only that, but some of them are set up rather like quests, and have storylines. Right now you can only deliver pizza and join the Soluna Police Department(S.P.D.), but the game has major updates every week and features like new jobs will be added often.

The University can be fun for the same reasons: for example, the energy blade class is quite like a martial art dojo, and as you participate your belt rank rises. In a sense, the game seems to affectively capture what going off to collage might be like a couple thousand years from now.

MechQuest’s combat is turn-based, meaning you, and your opponents, take turns launching attacks at each other. The going is slow in the combat department at first, since you start off with one rifle, but if you’re buying the right weapons you can really dominate the NPC’s. The weapon types include Machine Guns, Plasma Rifles, Swords, Flamethrowers, Lasers, Sniper Rifles, and, my personal favorite, Missile Launchers.

The combat system is pretty unique. Each weapon can be equipped to a certain item slot around your Mech’s body. Also, each weapon comes with an energy level, and cool down rate. These are important because the energy level determines how much Energy will be deducted from the yellow bar when you use a weapon, and the cool down is how many turns you must wait to use a weapon again after you’ve used it. Complicated? Not really. But if either all your guns are cooling of at the same time, or your energy bar is depleted, your weapons won’t fire for that turn.

Fortunately, you regain some energy each turn, and if you use your items in the right order they shouldn’t all end up cooling down at once. There are also a couple weapons with a cool down rate of zero, which can come in real handy.

In addition to the game’s primary combat system, there are missions where you can exit your Mech and saber duel on foot. This should gain the player some satisfaction, since it contributes to the amount of variety in this game. However, the saber combat isn’t nearly as strategical or fun as the Mech one. And attacking is actually quite repetitive. Fortunately, this issue has been addressed on the site’s forums, and the creators are now working to make changes.

You point and click to navigate the game’s environments. Screen shots can’t really do the game justice. It’s like leaping into a detailed storybook. It’s something you have to experience yourself. The running and combat animations, as well as some really neat backround animations, look fantastic. The way enemy Mech’s move and attack is just cool. It’s plain to see that this is the work of experts.

For the most part, the game runs very smoothly. If you have a slow connection, you can go into options and tone down the graphics detail. That usually helps.

Though this game is free to play, there’s an option to make a one-time payment for additional features. However, you can have a whole lot of fun with this game, and keep coming back to it, without paying anything. The free version is enough of a whole, solid game on it’s own.

Definitely something to check out!

Rating: Everyone

Wii Compatible?: No

Play MechQuest!