Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble advances to war on PC
Little Big Mechas
The rise of Advance Wars-alikes on PC continues later this year with Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble. Sequel to Area 35's original Tiny Metal (released in late 2017), it looks like more of the same - chunky polygon graphics wrapped around a familiar light strategy formula and an overbearingly anime storyline. This time round, they're adding big stompy warbots to the unit list. Beyond mechs making everything automatically better, the sequel boasts a campaign double the length of the original plus 77 skirmish maps, with details on multiplayer coming later. Below, an awkwardly narrated trailer.
Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble was being demoed at PAX East earlier this year, and Gamespot captured some footage, highlighting its similarities (and differences) to Advance Wars. The mechs add a sixth core unit type to the game, complicating the rock/paper/scissors web of what hurts what the most, and there are more complex attack options than just 'shoot'. Units have the option to attack as normal, assault a location to push the enemy back (at the cost of the enemy firing first) or hold position to synchronise attacks with adjacent allies. While obviously similar to the recent Wargroove, it's not as strictly adherent to Advance Wars design.
The original Tiny Metal had a rough launch amidst flying accusations of embezzling, as covered here by Kotaku and apparently settled later. This, plus a thin feature-list (no multiplayer) led to the game being mostly forgotten. Developers Area 35 thankfully kept pouring resources into it for a full year after launch, including major balance tweaks, adding local and online multiplayer and expanding the game's story. It took a while to get there, but they've got a decent strategy foundation to build on, and I'm hoping that the sequel isn't plagued by the problems its predecessor had.
There's no PC release date for Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble yet, but they'll be showing the game off at E3 from June 11th to 13th. While not listing a PC price-tag, the official page says the upcoming Switch version will cost $15, so hopefully it'll be the same for us. It's published by Delightworks.