I really enjoyed Gearbits. It was a cute action mecha game that had a great blend of horde-styled shooting, careful tactics against mechs, and objectives that felt right for this type of game. So, checking my Steam’s ‘What’s New’ page, I found that a spin-off had been released: Gearbits: Gear Angels.
At first glance, the most glaring change is that it's not a third-person action mecha game any more, but a side-scroller shooter. It still has the charm of Gearbits, with adorable character designs and a really well-done opening animation.
I’m not the most qualified person to even attempt at unpacking what works and what doesn’t in a shmup, so bear with me.
There are three stages total, with around three major enemy types, excluding boss enemies, and it’s a gauntlet run to get a high score and clear all stages in a single run.
During a run, you will shoot enemies to get two pickups: orange for energy and green for health. Orange pickups are going to be your bread and butter here, replenishing your energy to continue doing maximum damage, increasing accuracy, and maintaining shields. Energy can be replenished without picking them up, at the cost of no longer firing your weapon. So it is best to continue getting as many pickups as possible.
Additional weapons will drop from enemies: a Gatling gun, rockets, and missiles. The Gatling gun fires in a straight line, rockets shoot in three quadrants, giving you a great range to shoot from, and missiles track targets.
One thing to note: I believe the rocket and the missiles are supposed to be swapped in terms of their functions. See, the missile launcher has three pods they are supposed to fire from but only shoots one missile. The rockets end up firing in three directions, similar to how the missile pods are on the model. I might be stupid, and this is how it was intended, but it felt really off having a model with three pods on it only shooting one missile at a time.
Unlike Gearbits, which had you picking from mechs, you're picking from Gear Angels. Women in combat armor. Truly, a step up here.
Felicity, Mira, and Regina are your lineups, with each of them having different starting traits and disadvantages. Regina easily gets the best bonus with double ammo capacity on weapons. But firing depletes more of her energy, and the maximum shields you gain are cut in half. Felicity gets double energy from pickups, which can prove to be useful. But her charged fire is cut in half, and her energy does not recharge. Mira is the unfortunate case of getting no bonuses or disadvantages.
Regina was easily the most fun I had because of her double ammo capacity and getting to shred through enemies with her double-gatling gun.
For the story, there basically isn’t one. Gearbits didn’t have the most outstanding narrative and was more about getting you from place to place. Gear Angels only has the initial opening movie, the setup, and the congratulations screen saying you defeated the aliens. For a game of this type, I can hardly fault it for not including any narrative, but I was curious to see if it would continue the groundwork left by Gearbits. It didn't, but it didn't really need to.
The game is fine, short, and sweet. If you want a fun hour or so in a decent side-scroller, this is completely free and has integration for each character to become playable in Gearbits.
You got nothing to lose trying it out.
At first glance, the most glaring change is that it's not a third-person action mecha game any more, but a side-scroller shooter. It still has the charm of Gearbits, with adorable character designs and a really well-done opening animation.
I’m not the most qualified person to even attempt at unpacking what works and what doesn’t in a shmup, so bear with me.
There are three stages total, with around three major enemy types, excluding boss enemies, and it’s a gauntlet run to get a high score and clear all stages in a single run.
During a run, you will shoot enemies to get two pickups: orange for energy and green for health. Orange pickups are going to be your bread and butter here, replenishing your energy to continue doing maximum damage, increasing accuracy, and maintaining shields. Energy can be replenished without picking them up, at the cost of no longer firing your weapon. So it is best to continue getting as many pickups as possible.
Additional weapons will drop from enemies: a Gatling gun, rockets, and missiles. The Gatling gun fires in a straight line, rockets shoot in three quadrants, giving you a great range to shoot from, and missiles track targets.
One thing to note: I believe the rocket and the missiles are supposed to be swapped in terms of their functions. See, the missile launcher has three pods they are supposed to fire from but only shoots one missile. The rockets end up firing in three directions, similar to how the missile pods are on the model. I might be stupid, and this is how it was intended, but it felt really off having a model with three pods on it only shooting one missile at a time.
Unlike Gearbits, which had you picking from mechs, you're picking from Gear Angels. Women in combat armor. Truly, a step up here.
Felicity, Mira, and Regina are your lineups, with each of them having different starting traits and disadvantages. Regina easily gets the best bonus with double ammo capacity on weapons. But firing depletes more of her energy, and the maximum shields you gain are cut in half. Felicity gets double energy from pickups, which can prove to be useful. But her charged fire is cut in half, and her energy does not recharge. Mira is the unfortunate case of getting no bonuses or disadvantages.
Regina was easily the most fun I had because of her double ammo capacity and getting to shred through enemies with her double-gatling gun.
For the story, there basically isn’t one. Gearbits didn’t have the most outstanding narrative and was more about getting you from place to place. Gear Angels only has the initial opening movie, the setup, and the congratulations screen saying you defeated the aliens. For a game of this type, I can hardly fault it for not including any narrative, but I was curious to see if it would continue the groundwork left by Gearbits. It didn't, but it didn't really need to.
The game is fine, short, and sweet. If you want a fun hour or so in a decent side-scroller, this is completely free and has integration for each character to become playable in Gearbits.
You got nothing to lose trying it out.