This fighter is Marvel Vs Capcom for classic mecha anime sickos, launching into early access with a strategy RPG story mode on its heels

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who can recognize Getter Robo and Mazinger Z immediately from their silhouettes, and people who have no idea what any of those words mean. Iron Saga Vs, making its debut on Steam today, is a fighting game aimed squarely at the former group. And for the latter, you still might get some fun out of it if you like the idea of skyscraper-sized robots (many from classic ‘70s and ‘80s anime) beating ten shades of metal paint out of each other.

While I’ve yet to go hands-on and put the game through its paces, the gameplay in the debut/roadmap trailer below looks satisfyingly hefty. The mechs themselves are the stylized ‘Super Deformed’ style designs that you see in games like SD Gundam Battle Alliance, giving them a cute and chunky look that kinda softens some of the designs.

Despite the cuteness, their signature attacks are as big and flashy as ever, referencing classic anime and manga panels (for the crossover mechs, at least), and with each robot having two distinct weapon loadouts, packaged with its own set of moves, there should be plenty to offset the game’s relatively slim launch roster of twelve.

Weirdly, despite having almost half of its initial lineup of characters taken from classic anime (specifically Mazinger Z, Shin Getter Robo Armageddon and Super Beast Machine God Dancouga—god, I love classic mecha titles) Iron Saga Vs is technically a spinoff from mobile gacha game Iron Saga, an overhead-view action RPG featuring its own cast.

Seven of Vs’s mechs are taken from the mobile game, but it seems they’ll soon be overtaken by more visiting robots from the age of grainy VHS transfers, along with an unusual and ambitious story mode, and what I’m personally most excited for.

While the initial release of the game seems to be a reasonable package complete with full rollback netcode for smooth online multiplayer, it looks like developers Gameduchy have some ambitions for it, judging by the roadmap trailer above. There’s four more mechs coming (all classic anime mecha, including Shin Getter Robo, Mazinkaiser, Black Getter and the lesser-known Zeorymer of the Heavens)—two paid, two free—but what really stands out is the planned RPG story mode, that alternates between tactical turn-based combat on an isometric grid (in the vein of the Super Robot Wars series) and traditional fighting.

This strategy layer is also coming as a free update, but not debuting until Autumn, so you’ll have to deal with the less intellectual and stat-driven side of giant cartoon robot violence until then.

Iron Saga Vs is out now on Steam for £21.24/$25.49, with no word yet on how much the first round of DLC characters will cost, merely that they’ll be available in mid-June and Winter respectively. But those who can’t wait to see these robots on a grid-based battleground, don’t forget that Super Robot Wars 30 (not the 30th game in the series - there’s far more of them than than that) features all of the crossover mechs and characters here along with an extensive fanfiction’y story to tie it all together.