I can summarize Full Metal Schoolgirls thusly: it feels like a PlayStation 2 game, in the best of ways. It's a simple concept, but one that manages to be plenty of fun, despite its workman-like execution. The concept is also charmingly high-concept: a schoolgirl rebels against an all-powerful corporation in a fictional timeline where the Showa era never ended (the game takes place in "year 168 of Showa"). The Kamen Rider-esque intro clinches it all in a nice bow. This game is cheesy and tongue-in-cheek from start to finish, and even if it's got a few rough edges, I can't find myself disliking it.

While the game presents you with a choice of two schoolgirls at the outset, you choose one for your playthrough. Which one you choose is purely aesthetic. What matters more (and is more fun) is your weapon choices: you have a variety of weapons you can strap onto your cyborg schoolgirl's arms (one melee weapon, one ranged weapon), with each weapon behaving differently. For example, chainsaws have high energy demands but land multiple hits, while arm blades deal a bit less damage but much wider range with their combos. There is tons of room for experimentation when you consider not only the variety of weapons but also the variety of abilities with weapons. I liked using chainguns as a ranged option, and found myself torn between a variant with bouncing bullets and a variant that dealt more damage the longer you continued firing. This is on top of your Punishment moves, which serve as your super-moves; these only vary slightly depending on your loadout.

Goodness knows, you get plenty of opportunities to experiment, because you're going to go through a lot of floors of Meternal Jobz' tower and chop through a ton of the Working Dead. And the entire trip is fairly light-hearted: while banter from the Working Dead gets a bit repetitive, they're plenty charming, from dispatched workers asking about workers' compensation to complaining about minors not respecting their elders. You also have your randomized 'CashChats,' which serve as challenges for certain rooms. The option to double down on challenges in exchange for extra money also serves as a tantalizing option. It takes a bit for traversal to get interesting, though; early floors don't have much in the way of obstacles besides rooms full of enemies and the occasional pitfall. Later floors get more creative with traps, like mines (read: car batteries). And even early traps can be difficult to manage; jumping feels stiff in Full Metal Schoolgirl, and I took more than a few unwanted hits while I got used to my schoolgirl's jump range. Adding to this is how early runs require you to lose, due to how the game doles out some of your abilities.

Upgrading your abilities is fun and definitely encourages further replays; there's a lot of difficulty at first, given the aforementioned forced failures and the steep penalties for death (dying costs you some of the materials you gather from enemies). But diligent play also rewards you with enough materials to upgrade your stats, Punishment attacks, energy reserves--even your material penalties upon death. You can even reset your upgrades if you want to give yourself a new challenge. The upgrades strike that perfect balance between tangible improvements yet always feeling like you're just a few materials away from another upgrade.

Repetition is the greatest enemy in Full Metal Schoolgirl, especially since banter doesn't replay on floors you've already cleared. This is compounded by how future progress works: you can skip whole sections of the building once you've beaten the corresponding boss (for example, skipping to Floor 10 after you beat the first boss), but the key you use for that is single-use only. If you die on that run, you have no choice but to start from Floor 1. It's bad enough when you have to get to Floor 11; imagine how frustrating it would be if you had to get to Floor 50 or 70. On the one hand, this is the kind of player antagonism that gives a game some chest hair; a spot of bad pool that reminds you of the sly dog you're dealing with. On the other hand, it's annoying.

Similarly, Full Metal Schoolgirl's tongue is firmly planted in its cheek, what with its mechanized schoolgirls taking on robot office workers--and livestreaming themselves while doing it (hence the "CashChats"). Every time I dash, it makes me smile to see that the "baggy socks" the characters wear are actually hiding leg-mounted boosters. You also get occasional background gags, like Working Dead having a romantic kabedon in the stairwell. But like any kind of grindhouse media, some of it might turn away a possible audience. It's simple enough when one of your girls climbs the stairs with her hand behind her, reminding her audience not to look up her skirt. It's a bit worse when the upgrade process in-game involves your teenage cyborg getting chained to a slab, spread-eagled, while a scantily-clad mad scientist in a bikini is practically drooling at the chance to get her hands on them ("Relax your muscles!", she says as her grabby-hands approach the camera). In the spirit of Full Metal Schoolgirl's high-concept vibes, I get where they're coming from. But it's definitely something the audience needs to be prepared for. Also, given real-world contexts, the idea of an armed teen livestreaming themselves while they run roughshod in an office building might be triggering for some.

Full Metal Schoolgirl's budget origins are inescapable: the game is a bit rough around the edges, it's a bit repetitive, and its humor might potentially turn people away. And those are valid flaws, but these rough edges also give the game charm. And above all else, it never stops taking itself seriously, from its goofy characters to the incidental bits of worldbuilding. More than just a time-waster, Full Metal Schoolgirl has all the makings of a cult favorite.