Battle Divas: Slay Mecha is a Strategy-RPG with real depth

There’s something about chance in gacha games that makes them strangely addictive. But some of us pine for simpler days, when games were all about skill and effort. 

Battle Divas: Slay Mecha is a welcome return to that more wholesome time. It dispenses with the need for endless character gacha summons, allowing you to obtain all the characters you need through gameplay progression (though you still summon weapons) . 

The game is set in the distant future, which, as everybody agrees, will be significantly worse than the present. In this version of the future, a nuclear war has rendered the planet uninhabitable, and the surviving rump of mankind has decamped to a huge space station called Icarus VI.

Decades after this exodus, the first astronauts are sent back to Earth to see how life is coping without human interference. They expect to find a world in which nature is healing the planet and restoring ecological harmony, but instead they encounter “unimaginable monstrosities”. Damn.

Unfortunately for these monsters, the Battle Divas have arrived. In a series of turn-based stages you need to take them down and reclaim your homeworld. 

Battle Divas: Slay Mecha gives you much more control than most mobile RPGs. Not only are you responsible for unlocking all of your own heroes, without any assistance from Lady Luck, but you can control your heroes on the battlefield too.  

Each stage takes the form of a grid on which you can move your Divas around, positioning them in the way that takes advantage of their strengths and minimises their weaknesses. 

While most stages sees you going up against a squad of baddies, some involve taking down a boss monster. You’ll need to chip away at them, destroying their components and disabling their skills until there’s nothing left. 

And if you want some human company you can play in one of the many PvE and PvP events. 

Outside combat there are 400 parts to collect, giving your heroes different abilities to help you take on the increasingly challenging mecha monsters.

Battle Divas: Slay Mecha looks like an invigorating alternative to all those gacha RPGs on the mobile app stores. You can download it for free right now on Android and iOS.