BREAK ARTS II

Cool concept, meh execution.

This game cured my terminal illness known as hemeroids and gave me a reason to scream at my friends for what was Armored Core mixed with Mario Kart. Damn good game. Cant wait for the third one.

Break Arts 2 is a game with a really cool concept—a futuristic mech-racing battle hybrid with an awesome mech customisation system. Designing your own mech is easily the highlight of the game, allowing for deep customisation and creativity.

Unfortunately, the racing mechanics fall flat. The game doesn't flow well, and the core design feels frustrating rather than exhilarating. You move far too slowly by default, forcing you to constantly boost just to maintain a decent speed. Worse yet, if you go a centimetre over the track, it slows you down to a halt within a fraction of a second, which makes things feel incredibly bad. Instead of feeling fast and fluid, the whole experience ends up jarring and unsatisfying.

The track designs are weak and lack any real inspiration. There's very little variety or creativity in their layouts, and the art direction and visual effects make it incredibly hard to see where you’re going most of the time. Instead of feeling like high-speed racing, it just becomes a frustrating guessing game.

Combat doesn't fare much better—it lacks impact, with weak sound effects and uninspired weapon mechanics that don’t add much excitement. The AI also doesn’t even have proper mech models—instead, you’re just racing against floating spheres, which completely kills the immersion and makes it feel like you’re not even competing against real opponents.

If you're coming to this as a mech fan or a racing fan, you might be disappointed. The gameplay doesn’t offer much depth in either category. Unless you love games like Mass Builder and just want to sink hours into mech customisation, there's not much to keep you engaged.

I'm really hoping Break Arts 3 addresses all these pain points, because this could be an incredible game if executed properly.

++
A battle racing mech game if you like the idea
or if you liked the first game then you might gonna like this.
Playable with no internet connection compared to the first game.

!!
The ultra "build your own" freedom levels of customization might be too complex for your brain to handle
compared to the first game's easy Armored Core level customization
or maybe the parts just don't have enough description.
Also the game feels slightly unpolished.

Extra info
Break arts 1 is still playable but you can no longer recover your progress
and must start new everytime you delete the game.

Game gets way better to manage if you bring cornering to 1.4. Ideally you should get it while it's on sale, as the singleplayer can be rough with the AI being a little too cheaty

fun game, i reccamend it. but buy it on sale like i did.

pros:
cool robot game.
racing is ok, not great
its pretty easy to make a cool looking robot.

cons:
the parts don't have enough description in order to create a good robot, its very hard to tell if a part is going to affect your mech in a way that you want it. it should be really easy to tell whats going to happen to your mech and the way it will.

some of the races just are impossible to get higher than 2nd place, just because for some reason the mechs in first just go so fucking fast there is no reason to even try to go for first.
i think a rubber banding would make for a better experience. just make it if a CPU racer is just supremely ahead slow them down somehow.

other than those few problems, fun little game. but buy it on sale. hopefully the sequel will make it better.

It's a game that combines robot customization with battle racing. Yet, for some reason, I find myself more drawn to customization than to the actual racing.

With having just recently bought this on sale, this game is about everything i could have hoped it to be.

That is to say, i hoped for a neat little mech builder system, and a neat little racing game as an excuse to build those mechs. A lot of people have talked about the lack of a flourishing online playerbase, and while i definitely feel the void for it, the singleplayer races and grand prix have been consistently challenging enough to get me going back and tuning my different mechs over and over again. Races go between feeling really hectic and desperate, to feeling really fluid if you can find a line and a flow to maintain speed. If you liked Bionicles, IGPX, and Armored Core, you are gonna like this.

It isnt without it's downsides. Like previously mentioned, the online just isnt there (though i havent checked out any discord or anything) and i can imagine theres a lot of people for who that aspect is way more important. Leveling up to unlock everything without online play is definitely a bit of a grind, but luckily there is an option to just unlock everything once youre tired of the drip feed of parts. There is also some general sort of "indie game jank" that will occasionally make you aware of the less polished edges of the game. some levels are a little overly technical, and will leave you consistently frustrated walking out of them after getting your butt handed you you by an AI that is Built Very Specifically For That Track. I also think that other racers being rendered as little diamonds when a certain distance away is unfortunate, and i wish there was more of a fanfare that showed off participants better before and after races.

All together, if this game is on sale (i got it for like $4.50) i think its a really delightful little waste of time, but its not without a little funk. That being said, there is apparently a 3rd game announced that i think has a lot of promise, but until more info comes out about that, this scratches an itch i've had for a while.

;

was pretty fun until i got to the last few batches of quick races. the difficulty spiked so hard and became incredibly annoying. was fun for a few hours

energy levels are low

Mecha Racing. Build a mech and race it against other mechs, either AI or other players. Customization is relatively straightforward, each part has specific stats and you can put them nearly anywhere. I made a pegasus centaur mech with unfolding wings and it actually did pretty good.

Just remember: YOU'RE AN ARTIST! IMAGINE! :D

it's decidedly pretty alright I guess. I got bored of it after about 6 hours and gave up at 10. mech builder is fine, gameplay is fine, visual and sound effects are lacking though. scratches my weird itch for a mech racing game well enough though so I can't complain.