13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Preview - Get Ready To Suit Up

thegamer.com:

Sunlight bursts from the clear blue sky in the background, a stark contrast to the more muted colour palette of the urban setting. In the centre of the screen, a schoolgirl with delicate features stands ready. A large mech materialises behind the cityscape and the lighting changes to a range of warm shades that cascade down upon the street. This beautiful artstyle unmistakably belongs to Vanillaware, the studio that brought us the likes of Odin Sphere and Dragon’s Crown, and it’s these gorgeous hand-drawn graphics that will capture your attention first.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is getting its second chance at life on a handheld console with its port to the Nintendo Switch next month. It originally launched for PlayStation 4 in 2020, and though there had initially been plans for a PlayStation Vita version, these were ultimately scrapped. Despite owning a PS4 copy, I’m a little ashamed to admit it’s firmly sat in my pile of shame and is still sealed, despite my love for Vanillaware games.

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Thanks to the port, I’ve finally had a good excuse to dive in and see what all the fuss was about, and surprisingly, I’m glad I waited. The gameplay feels comfortably at home on a handheld, as it’s a mixture of different genres that often work best in the palm of your hand. The Remembrance segments are visual novel-like, featuring 2D scrolling sections where you control a character and interact with your environment to progress the storyline, while the Destruction segments are RTS battles where you pilot Sentinels to defend against the invading kaiju.

The RTS section is a top-down 3D city map that has you controlling different Sentinels manned by the