Against all odds there’s been a bit of a resurgence of mech games in 2025, and as a fan of classic Gundam anime it’s made me incredibly happy. The year kicked off with Stories from Sol: The Gundog, which was a classic adventure game throwback clearly inspired by all the Japanese animation I watched as a teen. A handful of months later I was playing Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion, which had a gritty open world to explore and fast paced explosive combat. Now though it’s time once again to strap into a robot suit, in a Game of the Year contender that mashes up card combat, army building and a whole lot of heart. Battle Suit Aces is the total package, and a game you simply cannot ignore.
Your role in Battle Suit Aces is that of Captain Heathcliff, a retired pilot of massive spaceships just hoping to adopt a child and settle down. When an alien threat emerges and attacks you and a friend though, this dream goes on hold and a battle to save the galaxy takes its place. The discovery of ancient mechs with incredible powers known as Relic Suits could be the only way to stop life as we know it coming to an end, so a mission to investigate them and find more needs the very best personnel.
With Heathcliff running the show, it’s your job to head across the known universe in search of pilots willing to join your cause and great minds who can bring out their potential. Along the way though you’ll need to nudge the right people to get financial backing for your quest, and deal with the interpersonal relationships of the crew. The whole narrative has a wonderful Mass Effect energy, with a delightful sprinkling of mech anime magic.
As you’d probably expect from a game about big robots fighting aliens, Battle Suit Aces features a lot of combat. Fights take place on a battlefield made up of five columns, and you place one of your units on these columns each turn. The enemy does the same, and whoever defeats all the enemy units or reduces the foe’s base health to zero wins. It’s an easy to grasp combat system that has a wonderful amount of depth as you progress, and improve your army of fighter pilots.
Your units come in all shapes and sizes, powered by different colours of energy you need to bank and with different attacks and effects. Early on I relied on a unit that attacked every enemy on the field at once for a single point of damage, combined with another who boosted her attack for a lovely combo. There are loads of different ways units can interact though to experiment with, who you’ll continue to recruit the entire adventure. It’s a lot of fun figuring out the best offensive options, from thorny units that love to take a hit to ones that get stronger whenever a rival scores a kill.
As you progress you’ll be able to strengthen your units too, with different mods. Some of these are simple like boosting attack strength or HP, whereas others will add powerful effects like granting bonus energy or a bonus attack if you move to a new space. These added abilities can completely change how you use a unit, making them a much more exciting draw in a tense battle.
To create all the mods you need to improve your crew and even your base ship itself you need materials, which you’ll gain in a variety of ways. Admittedly these are all fairly combat based, but there are story missions, bounties and even puzzles which are a thoughtful change of pace. For a game all about card combat there’s a lot of variety within Battle Suit Aces, and it makes it very difficult to put down for the night.
While the puzzles were probably my favourite side activity in Battle Suit Aces, the bounties are great because beating them will improve your relationship with a specific faction. Each faction gives out different rewards of units, mods and other upgrades if you help them out enough, and depending on your preferred battle strategy you’ll likely lean towards a specific themed group of ragtag mech pilots.
Between various scraps you can spend time on your base, and access all the various upgrades facilities and missions. You can also just hang out with the crew though, and see them interact with each other in their downtime. I loved getting to know the crewmates, and if you put the effort in you’ll even unlock special friendship missions with each character that provide an extra way to connect with them and unlock bonus slots for equipment. It’s all very Mass Effect 2, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Battle Suit Aces is a truly wonderful card combat RPG, and it’s hard to really come up with any complaint about it. I think the biggest issue I had was early on, when the game added a load of new mechanics back to back and I started to feel a little overwhelmed. This pacing of new additions meant I lost a few fights without really knowing what I did wrong, and if these new systems and status effects had been introduced a touch slower I’d have had a much better time climbing a smoother learning curve.
Battle Suit Aces is a sensational card-based RPG, with combat that kept me gripped from start to finish. Alongside this there are so many side activities to jump into, and even more characters you’ll love to get to know. I can’t remember the last time a game surprised me in such a pleasant manner, and if you’re a fan of anything from mecha anime to card games you’ll almost certainly find something to love if you suit up and join the cause.
