Review: More People Should Play Megaton Musashi W: Wired

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Level-5 in full force! It suddenly bringing up its Level-5 Vision events in 2023 and 2024 were welcome news, even if many of the games ended up delayed. Megaton Musashi W: Wired is one of the ones that did roll out as expected and now that I’ve played it, I’m frankly a bit shocked more people aren’t talking about it. While you can see the remaining Megaton Musashi X free-to-play elements, such as currencies and login rewards, it’s completely compelling.

A part of this is due to a shockingly strong story with fantastic localization. Yamato Ichidaji is an orphan who, as the game begins, is getting in a fight with another delinquent named Ryugo Nijikata and his crew. When the police roll up, he’s jailed. Fellow classmate Teru Asami bails him out and promptly has Yamato and Ryugo get involved in a fight where they need to fight his robots together. It’s then they learn the shocking truth about the nature of their world.

Aliens invaded. 99% of the world’s population are gone, the planet’s wrecked, and most of the people in their town had their memories wiped when moved to this last bastion of humanity. Akagicho is actually in Shelter Ixia, and Teru is part of a group called Oblivion Bay that sends Rogue mech pilots out to safeguard and attempt to survive against the invading Draktors. Yamato’s memory being restored explains what really happened to his sister and parents, and a sudden Draktor attack means he heads out with Teru and Ryugo on their first fight.

While there are some pacing issues with the story in Megaton Musashi W: Wired, especially as it can feel like Level-5 is holding our hands a little too tightly at some parts when sending us around during some parts, it’s genuinely fascinating! While there are definite Draktor enemies, the nature of certain characters their and their goals show that it’s a complex situation and some of those folks aren’t “evil.” The cast of Rogue pilots end up being pretty interesting as well. I got invested in most of their stories, and the ones I didn’t connect with as much usually ended up that way because they didn’t get enough attention during the course of the adventure. Also, even NPCs are fun, and I’d talk to citizens for flavor text because their names and asides were genuinely clever.

The general progression here involves going through part of the story, heading out on missions tied to the campaign, so you can keep progressing. If you start to hit walls due to difficulty, you take side quests to earn additional parts for your Rogue mech. This means getting different parts — which do change how your unit looks — or specific weapons. Fights are action beat’em ups against Draktor foes across a ruined Earth’s maps, with special abilities that can be triggered and skills with cooldowns. Repeating fights is encouraged, as you can get materials to build up the skill tree or additional parts to improve your mech. I didn’t always feel like this was necessary, even though exploiting enemies’ weaknesses is great and needed, because the general difficulty of the campaign quests isn’t too high. However, those who gain satisfaction from seeing a full set of equipment in play or collecting (like me) might find themselves driven to keep going. 

During the course of the main game, the only real challenge I faced involved multiplayer. There are competitive and co-op quests in Megaton Musashi W: Wired. I was fortunate enough to have a crew to test cooperative matches out. However, the player pool is small and some of the tasks can be really difficult if you don’t find others. I only got to play one competitive fight, and it didn’t really stand up to the solo experience because of the trouble it took to play. 

While there are some of the former free-to-play elements rearing their heads in Megaton Musashi W: Wired, they exist in a way that doesn’t feel like it invades the overall experience. If you play every day, you get login rewards. There is a battle pass, but since it involved things you can earn for free by playing or cosmetics, it didn’t feel like it took away from it. I almost wonder if some of the story elements that felt a bit like I was railroaded into things and the pacing at points were also consequences of those types of limitations too. 

What I did appreciate is that even with its history, Megaton Musashi W: Wired looks great. The animated segments are fantastic. The battles involving Rogues in the field are clear and handled well. The 2D segments that explore the town generally look good as well. The only quibble I have is that some of the 2D character animations really make it seem evident that they have fixed “joints,” which detract a bit from the experience. 

Megaton Musashi W: Wired is much more enjoyable than I expected, and I’m genuinely surprised more people aren’t excited about it. The story is interesting and really goes some places. The execution is a bit sound, though it plays it easy at times with the difficulty. The remaining remnants from its free-to-play roots aren’t too pervasive or invasive. Plus the gameplay loop of going through the story, running and rerunning missions for parts, and taking on fights so you can learn and see more is fulfilling. It makes me hopeful for the future of Level-5 games.

Megaton Musashi W: Wired is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam. The anime is on Crunchyroll.