I have been wanting a fun space shooter for a while. My friends and I used to wear out Freelancer, Starlancer and Tie Fighter (the all-time king of space sims IMO). Strike Suit Zero was a fun diversion, had some cool moments, but towards the end had a very rinse-and-repeat feel to it that took a bit of the wind out of my sails. Target capital ship - lock on with unlimited missiles - fire missiles to destroy subsystems - fly to other side - target and lock on - fire unlimited missiles - and done.
It is a fun game, and thats what matters, though, once I got the strike suit and learned to use it effectively, the game got too easy. I got all Platinums and all upgrades and after that there wasn't much point. Its also a tad short I think.

Fun ride while it lasts. Its cheap and enjoyable, but not a ton of content really. Mission objectives are pretty much always, go here and kill this before X dies. I enjoyed it but I wont be coming back to it much.

6.5/10

It's always been a little odd to me that an idea as freaking cool as mecha has be so minimally explored in games.

I guess the easy answer for that would be because making a quality mecha game is a lot harder than it sounds, which Strike Suit Zero exemplifies even as it comes possibly closer than anyone to pulling it off. In the same breath it also attempts to revitalize space combat shooters, again succeeding to a commendable degree yet still failing to shake the nagging issues that quickly present themselves. Strike Suit Zero's potential and ambition never wanes, but that doesn't stop its aspirations to come crashing down when they collide with reality.

Strike Suit Zero as stated before, is a merging of large scale space fighter-pilot combat and screen filling mecha insanity, by way of the titular Strike Suit which can transform between a fast, maneuverable ship and the extremely power mecha form. The dynamic of swooping around picking off stray fighters and then switching forms to annihilate larger enemies is strategic but also just super cool, making you feel like the all-powerful terror your enemies supposedly see you as and gives developer Born Ready Games an excuse to blow the particle effects out during massive space battles that if nothing else are incredible to look at.

There's a weight to your ship that feels powerful, but without the limited mobility that often comes with higher firepower. It's balanced by requiring you to charge up your ship by killing enemies before you can transformed, and this limited fuel makes combat fast and frantic, as you chain together attacks to keep your meter full while trying to keep track of the situation. Strike Suit Zero excels at making you feel like just one small part of the giant battles going on around you, but still one capable of destroying giant cruisers and chasing down fighters.

Unfortunately Born Ready Games has flown a little too close to the sun as the scale of the game quickly seems to get away from them, and the experience as a whole suffers quite a bit for it. Pacing is on of Strike Suit Zero's biggest opponents, and a concept it's fairly unconcerned with. Early missions are plodding, slow excursions as stiff bombing ships before you're given the Strike Suit, but even after missions have a tendency to stretch on and on as they continue to pile on new objectives which look very much like the last. Mission variety is virtually nonexistent, giving you largely the exact same scenarios each mission but ratcheting up the difficulty to uncomfortable levels.

These difficulty spikes and the unequaled number of checkpoints intensifies the lack of mission variation, which may have gone unnoticed for awhile but becomes hard to ignore when you already had to complete said objective dozens of times do to some untimely deaths. The vagueness with which objectives are explains only makes things worse, often overwhelming me with different tasks to where I didn't even know how to start or simply saying one thing while expecting me to infer the actual objective myself, usually by watching my ship explode and then reloading to hopefully get it the second time. Or the third. Or the forth. That's if I'm lucky.

Much of this difficulty could likely be the result of having missed upgrades the game expected me to have, as each is tied to a specific optional mission objective which are typically much harder to achieve than the original scenario. You can likely see the problem with a system like this, as it rewards skilled play but leaves everyone else in a state of incapable inferiority. The only option then is to replay old missions attempting to unlock the necessary upgrade or pray you can somehow scrape through anyway, which in my case usually involved copious amounts of perseverance and luck.

If not for the constant interruption of a cutscene I'd have likely forgotten there was a narrative here at all, one note and vague on details, delivered with monotone voiceovers telling of events you don't care about and characters you can't remember. There's the basis of something really interesting here, but it waits until the last moment to tell you any of it and by then it's too late to salvage much of anything from a story which for all intents and purposes is just you blowing up countless enemies that for some reason hate your guts.

The moments when Strike Suit Zero opens up, when the pieces click into place and its firing on all cylinders, are amazing and what kept me playing despite them being perpetuated with frustration and monotony. Born Ready Games has so entirely nailed the feel of the game they wanted to create, if only the scenarios you were placed in could keep up or give you any reason to want to continue on with them.

I don't understand some of the posited reviews saying that this game is too hard or chaotic or bland.

The game is not too difficult, it just has a bit of a learning curve. Truly, I thought it was too easy at first. If you're a passable shot in Wing Commander or Ace Combat or anything like that, you should be a dead-eye marksman in this. I went through the first three levels not using the lock-on function. It was only later that I discovered the game has a freaking target-lead reticle. If you cant shoot using that, don't say anything about it because you're a walking advocate for gun control.

Of course, then comes the part where you get a mech. Maybe that part was easier for others. I had no idea how to use the damn thing at first. I'll tell you this much; it's not a fighter, but once you get the hang of it and get some strike mode upgrades it's hell on...legs. The Strike Suit is unbelievably maneuverable, not the slow thing some would have you believe. I became an ace with it fairly quickly just by spamming random momvement input and keeping the cursor on-track. Anybody can do that.

As for chatoic; yeah, it's chatoic. Gloriously chaotic. Ever play "Homeworld" and wonder what it would be like to be an interceptor pilot in one of those mad dogfights where everyone is set to evasive tactics? That is this, glowing contrails and all. Even so, it is not unmanageable. The "F" key will helpfully direct you to what you're supposed to be shooting at. Just use it and use it fast because you will need time to orient yourself to which side of the a capital ship or somesuch your target is actually on. An improvement to this game would be to make targets with no LOS a different shade of red.

Then there's blandness, an argument I have seen in every video review. There aren't enough varieties of enemy ships or varieties in missions. I can sorta see that; everything boils down to attacking or defending, rather than including the more diverse missions of space fighters, like attending airshows or flying to Cancun for a weekend.

I jest, for there is some merit to the argument. Why doesn't the mech do more mech things, for instance. Well, for starters this began as a freeware game and doesn't have the engine for that sort of thing. For another, it's a Japanese mech so it doesn't have to make sense. It's all about awesome battles set to goregous backdrops and great music. Call me crazy, but getting those out of the way is a major step to making a decent game, so I don't regret a cent of the cost for the steam mega bundle.

That said, one of the really nice surprises in this game is not just the chaos, but the frenetic pace of the action. Hands up if you've played an "intense" game where something needs to be done "right now" and it turns out that you've got forever and a couple of sick days to do it. Not so in SS0, thank the powers that be. When told to ignore the enemy fighters and flak, it's no joke most of the time. You really do have to be quick, especially if you want the juicy upgrades.

It's not a game for everyone. If you don't like explosive arcade flight sims, you won't like this game. If you think the Strigoi Squadron in Ace Combat was too easy, you need to spend a few hours in a centrifuge to learn some respect for gravity due to acceleration, but if you're somewhere in-between I think you'll like this game.

Strike Suit Zero is one of the best space battle games I've come across. You take the place of U.N.E pilot Adams as he is given a prototype strike-suit in an attempt to stem the advancement of the Colonials in a really good story-driven campaign. The game is quite challenging and some of the battles are of epic proportions with hundreds of vessels of various sizes fighting at the same time! The strike-suit brings my thoughts to the good mecha-anime-series and it is pretty bad-♥♥♥ but not invincible. The game is unfortunately a bit spoiled by a very frustrating monologuing last chapter that would be fine if it wasn't so unforgiving due to the somewhat wanting control mechanics. Still, it's a fairly minor issue with a game that is otherwise awesome so it still gets a recommendation!

The funnest flight/space sim I've played since Rogue Squadron on the N64—similar structure too.

You'll get the basic patrol mission stuff to start, then you're slowly introduced to combat. The missions are relatively straightforward to begin with. Like Rogue Squadron, eventually the missions start evolving halfway through—simple missions become heated dog fights as enemy reinforcements arrive.

The learning curve is a bit steeper than something like Rogue Squadron though; there are a lot of dynamics involved that the game trains you in at a good pace. This is how it's supposed to work.

I definitely recommend a gamepad. I'm a keyboard user, but this is the sort of thing gamepads are built for. By the last missions, you'll be twitching and flicking buttons without hesitation or thought.

One more thing that makes this fantastic: the soundtrack. The blend of synthetica, ambients and old school woodwinds gives you something along the lines of space-age maritime music. I can't quite nail it down, but they definitely nailed the mood. Cruising towards the black fleet to the harrowing tune of a clarinet (oboe?) doesn't seem awesome on paper, but it is.

Strike Suit Zero is a well-paced mission-based arcade style space odyssey set in the distant future when humans have colonized the galaxy, and a civil war has broken out among mankind. The player plays as a reformed fighter pilot who is re-commissioned to the front lines in a desperate suicidal struggle to stop the rebel onslaught against Earth, along with their new and mysterious weapon that is literally ripping holes through entire fleets and worlds.

While you have very little interaction with the enemy faction, what are incredible are the believable archetypes of the allies and friends you make along the way. You will care very much about the allies you rescue and that rescue you from the perils of interstellar warfare. With themes from several science fiction settings and ominous overtones about the rise and fall of mankind, there is plenty of depth to be excited about as you meet new characters and face new challenges.

The gameplay is magnificent and convincing; once you get ahold of the strike suit, you go from being a regular pilot hanging on to life with sheer grit to a space hero like unto those in anime of this genre, hell-bent on keeping your friends and comrades alive through each and every encounter. You will hang turns, glide around gigantic ships and launch attacks so devastating that afterwards you can't help but jump up and roar with righteous vindication. To that end, the protagonist and the enemies are so quiet that you are left space to imagine you are any kind of hero or anti-hero you like, the plot ambiguous enough to let you have your own adventure while still shaping the events and circumstances you fight your way through. Are you a grizzled space cowboy back for one last ride? Or are you a bloodthirsty convict, with nothing left but a war to fight? It's up to you to impose your personal motivations on the main character. In spite of or perhaps due to these intentional gaps in information, the story telling, the sound, the visuals and the music are all clearly a labor of love and do exactly what they're intended to do: Let you have your own robot space fighter fantasy.

Are there negatives? Yes, a few. The game is too short. The director's cut is oddly paced and undercuts the original vision of the game. The combat is samey and the upgrades are extremely difficult, impossible in some cases, to obtain without replaying missions later on, which greatly pads out the playtime with replay. However, as an Indi title and one of the best games so far this millennium, all of these negatives can be completely overlooked. There are plenty of modes and versions for you to satisfy your desire to dogfight and ace your way to victory, and ultimately all add up to satisfying content. Never mind how amazing some of the mods are for this game.

11/10. If you like arcade shooters, sci-fi, anime, space odyssey, warfare, dogfighting, or just stupidly impressive visuals, play this game. Strike Suit Zero is a fantastic time.

Buying this game was somewhat of a gamble to me.
At first I only wanted to play some space sim because I missed Freelancer, and I got disappointed quickly because apparently SSZ is not an open world game. It's more of an arcade/action game, with level-based progression. However, just because it's not open world doesn't mean it's a bad game. In fact, it's really cool!

Gameplay is fast, control is so smooth and works well both with mouse-keyboard or gamepad (I prefer gamepad though). Cockpit view is nice, and the graphics are good enough albeit nothing special. The difficulty is a bit high at times, especially if you want to get the Optional Objectives. Once you've unlocked the Strike Suit, the gameplay changes DRAMMATICALLY. It feels so empowering, so great to be liberated from the normal movement of a spaceship.

The soundtrack is also pretty good, especially when it includes vocal track by KOKIA (one of my most favorite Japanese singers). You can get the Strike Suit Zero Mega Bundle cheap these days, so I recommend you buy the bundle altogether. It's a fun game!

Strike Suit Zero is excellent, though to reach it's full potential I find that a controller or joystick is best.

The combat is it's strength. Combat is SSZ is fun, first and foremost. The game does an excellent job of providing a degree of power fantasy while still giving a good challenge.

Graphics are phenomenal. It's a cinematic game to say the least. Not all the designs are the most original (the main fighter looks like a Terran Sabre from X3:TC), but I didn't notice anything deliberately stolen, and there's nice variety.

The plot is mostly a device for getting from one place to one place where you feel like a badass or get your ♥♥♥♥ wrecked to another place where you do more of the same.

I would note, the Director's edition fixed my main complaint of *giving* me the shiny new death machine, but then not letting me *use* it half the time.

In any case, I enjoyed the game thoroughly. I recommend the DLC as well.

first mission meh rest just ♥♥♥♥in epic !
also + for another mecha game!

I honestly don't know what to write positive or negative because of...below.
It could be so great(positive reviews don't even explain that),but bad things make it worse.
1st,this game sends you into action,where you try to kill enemies fast as possible to achive best score and of course have a good ending that is hard to get even on easy difficulty.
2nd you feel in this game underpowered(see above),as your weapons deal normal,but still small enough to kill enemies en masse.
3rd the story is bad,the voice acting is meh,and finale is really hard,as you forced to fly trough a hoop that is about 5 mins long(i completed it in director's cut though),with NO respawns.
4th is the fact,that it has a good soundtrack,but i don't much listen of it right now.
Does this game has charather development? NO. Your allies are basically commanders of sort,but without changing over the course of the game. They just give orders and not learning from that.
The game's backstory? Its unexsistent. The game's enemy is a faceless evil that is trying to destroy you for no reason: the pre-game cutscene says because of failed deal and so war happend,but what exactly enemy was? No explaination.
Of course i'd say this game is ok,but also has bad facts,so...It earns a 6/10 rating.
It could be great,but controls,bad and short story,near impossible ending and such makes it wrong.
And overpriced for content it offers. Got it from bundle though.
Is this game worth 20$? Its worth 10$ or 5$. Above 10$? Somewhat,but mostly no.
Those who asking you to buy it for full price are those who want your money into wind.

My advice? Stick around until around mission 4 or 5.

Mish 1: "Wow this looks like crap compared to the screenshots i've seen. Combat is a little dry is there anything else to this game? No? Just combat? oh...

Mish 2: "Nhnn why'd I even buy this space/plane games arn't really my thing and the story to this is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥ I mean who the hell is this guy supposed to be? WHO ARE YOU SHOULD I EVEN CARE??"

Mish 3: "Yeah gettin bored of th- oh a mech suit cool. Pretty awkward to control though.."

Mish 4: "These space fights are looking pretty cool now...missles n' ships n' particle effects all up in my face...Think i'm getting used to controling this thing now to..."

Mish 5: "I am Hamster Jelly. Hero of space"

Badass mecha game, gameplay is splendid, feels so much like freelancer but with more fight and less freelance

I loved this game, it had a great balance with Storyline and Gameplay. The HUD was helpful, and not in one's way. The flight controls weren't hard, but had a realistic feel to them. All in all, a 10/10! I recommend this game highly.

I like this game a lot, has a Japanese robot feeling to it which I really like. Graphics are very nice considering, gameplay is smooth and fun. Would recommend to anyone :)

Love It!
All I every wanted in a mech game!
Guns!
Plasma Guns!
Rockets!
Mechs!
#Missle Galore!

I didn't beat this one, I beat the Director's Cut because it was on sale to upgrade for like $2, but either way this game was a lot of fun.

Big fast mechs/ships in space. The story telling is pretty weak but the game play makes up for it when its not too drawn-out or repetitive.

Fun game and very fast paced. The game isn't repetitive, it's an arcade style ship combat game... it's the nature of the game! What do you expect, crafting etc? The game is a lot of fun and I suggest picking it up as soon as you can!

Awsome combo of star wars and Gundam

If you have hard time controlling the ship, try swap roll-yaw axis.

Good aircraft dogfight game, btw.