Giga Wrecker Alt.

released on Apr 30, 2019

GIGA WRECKER ALT. combines frantic platforming, intense combat and physics-based puzzle challenges into one exciting adventure. By destroying robotic enemies and the world around her, Reika can form the resulting debris into all manner of weapons and tools. Use these to overcome obstacles and solve puzzles, navigate through platform-laiden levels, then take the fight to the robot invaders and save mankind from extinction before it's too late!


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interesting idea but this game is janky as hell

neat idea for a puzzle-platformer with mildly janky execution and pretty high difficulty, along with bosses that will take dozens of attempts to get right (usually by design), I mostly had fun with it in the end

Objectively speaking: this game is jank. A lot of the physics are... strange, to say the least, making some of the puzzles a lot more difficult than they're probably intended to be. The lack of a dodge also makes combat a bit more annoying than it should be at times, especially when there are those enemies that fire projectiles at you from afar.

That said... I loved it??? Like, far more than I should have??? The art style is beautiful, and the character designs are all really, really good. Once I got used to the weird physics, I was always trying to figure out weird ways to manipulate them to cheat my way through some puzzles, and I succeeded a couple of times, but even then sometimes it feels like they intended you to really mess with their own engine.

Barring the first boss fight and the aforementioned projectile enemy, I feel like all of the enemies you go up against are all pretty fun to deal with. And even then, it's not that these two are 'bad', more that the first boss seems to be the most difficult in comparison for some reason (and that might be because your movements aren't exactly the fastest) and both are generally more annoying than anything.

Like I said, objectively speaking this game is probably mediocre at best - probably deserving nothing more than a 2.5 or 3 - but I haven't been able to get it off of my mind ever since I played it. I REALLY liked it, and I'd love a sequel.

It is my favourite Game Freak title since Pokemon Black and White 2, and I say that honestly and genuinely.

I have been playing this game off and on over the course of 2+ years, and I've finally reached the point where, with a heavy heart, I'm giving up. I wanted to give every single non-Pokemon Game Freak title a fair shot, but I have reached my limit on this one.

Giga Wrecker is a puzzle-platformer with an emphasis on physics and debris. Your character, Reika Rekkeiji, can pull painted debris towards her, and hold it as a giant mass. You can use the debris for combat, breaking stuff, weighing down switches, and even eventually transform your debris into useful tools. Control over Reika feels unfortunately very floaty and imprecise. This also ties into the fact that the physics in this game are inconsistent, full stop. You can do several puzzles in this game the way they were intended to be solved, and it will usually still take multiple tries to get that way to actually work. I would be lying if I said I didn't find some of that jank charming to a degree, though.

Worse yet are what caused me to quit the game, which are the boss fights. Combat in Giga Wrecker is centered around having a big enough debris mass to attack and defeat the enemies in your way. It's not completely mindless; some enemies have a little trick to them, such as requiring you to bait an attack out so you can counter it and get some debris, but it's fairly standard otherwise. Boss fights are a different story, however. They're fast paced and require quick reflexes and accuracy that Reika just doesn't have. The fights themselves are centered around figuring out how to get debris, and then building up enough of it to be able to damage the boss. The initial versions of the boss fights are tough, but I could brute force them after a handful of tries. Later in the game, you have to rematch harder versions of those bosses, and it asks way too much out of you in my opinion. I think the one boss I enjoyed both times was Astra Kadru. Its balance of tough attacks and recognizable patterns feels just right to me.

One thing I can praise with no reservation is the artwork in this game. Vibrant colors contrasting with muted tones, world design that looks like it's always active, yet ready to crumble at any second. The character designs are kinda "extra", if you know what I mean, but I think it really works for the setting. Massive kudos to the artist for this game. For what it's worth, the plot drew me in surprisingly well. You uncover the social/hierarchical issues of your invaders' society through data logs, and gradually paint a bleak picture of how the world reached the state it's in, all the while attempting to reach the person who both rescued and tried to kill you.

With all due fairness, this game should get a 1.5/5, but I'm giving it a 2/5 because I can see what they were going for here. With (much) more polish, I can see this game being something really good! I wish I could've seen it through to the end, but the rematch with Astra Vinata is just too much of a roadblock for me. I might return to this game once again someday, but I'm gonna let it stop weighing on my mind from now on.

Mkay, let me start this out saying I bought this game on Limited Runs Games mostly on the box and the few screenshots they gave (Fun fact: Game Freak made this game) I don't recall having seen the trailer at all or I would known exactly what I'm about to kinda complain about.

Okay, for starters....this game looks pretty good to me, it reminds me of DEAD or SCHOOL, (I'm sure few have played that but it's my profile of games, good game) the artstyle in my opinion isn't bad, I've seen people complain but I like it. The music is pretty chill and fits the environment of a dystopian metal future in ruins (you know the deal.) The story is actually pretty interesting, it seems kind of manga/anime-like (I don't watch or read either much so it's the best I can describe.) and honestly if it weren't for what I'm about to mention I would have kept playing.

This game's biggest sticking point to it which lost me is....this game is a platform puzzle game, had I looked up more about it and not bought it on a whim I would have made a better judgement, but most of the time I can handle a few puzzles....this game is like all puzzles, every room is some kind of puzzle you have to figure out by using debris and enemies, without going into too much detail the gimmick of the game is using defeated enemy parts and junk heaps to make platforms, attack with, and solve puzzles dealing with kinetic momentum and such. I'll say the game does a good job and these puzzles can be head scratchers, BUT it gets tiring because every room or second room is some kind of puzzle, it becomes a lot to take in when you look at the overall map and thing to yourself "Can I really handle anymore puzzles? Every room so far is going to be a more time consuming puzzle..." I think I was at the halfway mark of the game, mental exhausted but said "I can keep going, I bought this I should finish it." All it took was the next room after I said that was a balancing puzzle with enemy placement and destroying parts of the room to make a scale AND path and I stopped. If I had looked up more about the game prior I likely wouldn't have got it, so I'm done with it.

I know it's weird I'd give it a high rating but honestly is a good game on the surface, it's just the wrong genre for me.