Nimbus INFINITY Review – You Had Me at Mech

The mech-action game Project Nimbus showed a lot of promise with its systems and design. Further, the dedication to providing a fast arcade-like mech experience didn’t go unnoticed by fans of the genre. Nimbus Infinity acts as a refined follow-up with a focus put on creating a story that heightens the stakes of this action experience. While the brilliance and beauty of mech battles shine through during every mission, it still manages to only scrape the surface of this genre’s full potential.

Nimbus Infinity puts you in the role of an ordinary delivery boy named Taiyo. He doesn’t seem too happy about the current state of his life, but that all gets overshadowed when he discovers a crashed Battle Frame and two female pilots. Following this encounter, enemies attack, and his instincts lead him to pilot the mech. Although unfamiliar with what’s going on, he joins a group of fighters to battle against the central CFN government.

There’s a rather interesting narrative that plays across each mission, but the developers don’t make it completely necessary. After the opening scenes, you can navigate a ship and talk to some of the other characters, or you can just start the next mission. If you don’t speak the crew, you’ll miss out on deeper context to the state of the planet and the next mission, which could really harm the overall experience this sequel has over its predecessor.

That said, the writing is rather surface-level and tough to follow at times, given the static illustrations of the characters. The UI itself has no interactive features, so you don’t know if you have auto-play on or not. Still, there is voice acting that may not win any awards, but I found it to be a nice touch for the price of the game.

However, even with the added story elements, the game fails to create a true rival from its early moments. I recall the opening of Zone of the Enders that sets up someone to hate and a reason to fight, but here, you’re more or less following orders until a boss-type character appears during a mission. There are a few cool fights that are matched up in the later missions, but they carried little substance to the overall plot.

The most significant feature of gameplay, though, are the mech battles. Before a mission, you can customize your loadout and change the colors. The customization is a bit basic, and you’re given a variety of weapons to choose from the very beginning. I wish there was a training mode available to get a quick preview of the weapon in action because sometimes I didn’t like the guns I equipped, but I was stuck with them for the mission.

Mission objectives vary, and by that, I mean some are very fast and fun, while others slow things down a bit. The objectives are clearly marked on the map, but the levels get pretty big, so sometimes I found myself in the wrong area. Regardless, the tutorials happen rather quickly, but they give you the basics of your arsenal and movement options.

I found the control layout to be rather intuitive, with options to change to the first-person. Still, I enjoyed the more arcady experience, so I didn’t need the immersion of being in the cock pit. The speed of this game is high, but I wish there were better sound effects given to the thrusters. There are three different modes to choose from, Offense, Defense, and Speed. These do change your overall performance, and I found myself switching them often depending on the situation.

One stand-out element of gameplay is the level designs that take place across a variety of themes. However, their size is remarkable to allow for some tense, high-stakes fights against some of the stronger mechs. It’s just really damn fun swiftly moving through the sky while firing at an approaching enemy. The graphics complement the experience as a whole, and playing on max setting and 4k resolution shows off this game’s true strength.

One thing missing, I feel, are proper melee options. There is a punch, but you’ll rarely have a chance to use it. I would have liked more options for closed-quarters combat, but the missions don’t exactly call for that; I just think it would be cool. One stand-out element is the soundtrack which really ramps up during some of the more emotional story scenes and battles.

Raising the difficulty really changes the over experience and tests your understanding of evasions and enemy movement. That said, the available actions are missing some limited desperation attacks that clear out surrounding enemies.

Nimbus Infinity shows significant improvement when compared to its predecessor. The speed of the action fuels this experience, but mission pacing remains questionable. Still, the characters and story elements give players a reason to care. I mean, as if you needed any reason to jump into a mech and rain bullets on waves of enemies.