Inside hobby anime RPG, Plamo Gear: little robots, big battles

In the early days of 2024, indie developer motamotaBOX self-published Plamo Gear, a free "hobby anime RPG" about kids battling with 15-centimeter plastic model robot "Gears." Gears are customized by swapping out their parts, changing the battle commands available. The title quickly gained steam in the Japanese doujin scene for its of play depth and vibrant visual style; although it only takes ~5 hours to clear the story, exploring party variations can double that playtime.

There are two obvious touchstones for Plamo Gear, Imagineer's Medarot and Level-5's Danball Senki. (Respectively localized as Medabots and LBX.) The 3-on-3 battles, customizable robots, and even the plot beats evoke those cross-media works. The protagonist goes to buy a long-coveted Imperial Kaiser, but it's soon stolen. The shop's manager then hooks them up with a rare Ark Buster to win it back—a setup echoing elements of both Tenryō Ikki's fateful encounter with Metabee in Medarot, and Yamano Ban acquiring Achilles in Danball Senki.

There's a longer lineage behind this little game—the 1980s Plawres Sanshiro anime/manga and toyline, the 90s Game Boy/Color fighter Gekitō Power Modeler/Power Quest, Sunrise Interactive's Harobots RPGs, the Y2K action RPG franchise Custom Robo, and Capcom's 2003 Gotcha Force. Each of these works started from a similar premise and branched out into different themes.

But the "hobby anime" concept is specific to the top-down world of media mixes, where the monoculture created by television and manga magazines synergized with video games and toylines. It's a style of game that's getting rarer; as streaming and reader apps disrupted TV networks and manga anthologies, the monoculture eroded with these institutions. Plamo Gear is nostalgic for a time when CoroCoro and Comic BomBom were kingmakers.

The battle system puts most RPGs to shame. Destroyed Gears revive at the end of a round, during the "Repair Phase." Each team gets 1 Life for every Gear on their team, and the goal is to reduce the opponent's Lives to 0 by destroying their Gears. A party's defense is thus only as good its weakest Gear, which incentivizes looking for the weak link in a team and bullying it to point-race the opponent. Strategies form around protecting these weak links, removing protection, and spreading splash damage around so potshots can deny slower Gears actions.

Rather than a traditional magic bar, each Gear has a pool of Gear Points with starting and maximum value. A Gear has three sets of commands: Main and Sub Arms, and a separate menu of GP Arts. Main and Sub Arms generate GP when used, while GP Arts consume GP, granting every character a regenerating pool of points to spend on stronger actions. By locking the player's most important actions behind GP, Plamo Gear creates distinct openings, midgames, and endgames in each battle, where an RPG is normally all-endgame. Different choices in the opening lead to a different midgame, and how the player navigates that midgame changes the endgame.

The Ark Buster's default Main and Sub Arms serve as an introduction to the kinds of synergies the player will look for. The Pile Buster only recovers 5 GP, but deals more damage the more GP you have; the Charge Shooter has low power, but accumulates 20 GP per attack. Ark Buster's unique Special, Buster Impact, pierces Defense and inflicts Stun on the target to cancel its action that round. Timely use of Buster Impact can ruin an opponent's setup, but it consumes most of the GP Charge Shooter built up—which would otherwise be buffing Pile Buster. This is how the game encourages the player to manage their GP, thinking about when to spend it on Buster Impact, when to build it up with Charge Shooter, and when to just go for the damage with Pile Buster.

And just as soon as the player is comfortable with this setup, Plamo Gear flips the script. Early on they're given a Nova Cannon they can swap in as the Ark Buster's new Main, but its Nova Charge command just serves as massive GP ramp. Now they have a weapon that can generate 40 GP in a turn, but it's mutually exclusive with the Pile Buster that would benefit most from it—creating a pressure to explore all the different Sub Arms and discover a high-synergy combo.

In addition to swapping out their Main and Sub Arms between battles, players can also set two Options. (Systems-wise each Gear also has a Frame, but these are locked to specific characters.) Options act as accessories that provide stat bonuses, and all three types of equipment can add different GP Arts to the party's Gears.

GP Arts come in a few flavors. Instant Arts—marked with a star icon—activate as soon as they're selected, generally providing a buff like an Attack or Defense bonus. Melee and Shoot Arts are stronger melee and ranged attacks: melee moves are subject to counterattacks, while ranged attacks can't be countered. Special Arts are expensive Frame-specific moves with game-changing effects. (These are also called 必殺技 hissatsu but abbreviated "SP" in menus, hence the translation.)

As new characters join your party and fight alongside you, their friendship periodically levels up. Hanging out at the player's house after a friendship increase opens up different conversation topics, like miniaturized Persona Social Links. After confiding in the player, party members will start asking for help customizing their Gears, which gradually unlocks swapping out their Main and Sub Arms, awards unique parts, and increases their chain attack rate.

Chain attacks happen randomly after a Main or Sub Arm attack. Any party member can randomly chain into another's attack, and if everyone joins the chain the original attacker can activate its unique Union. This requires everyone to have 30 GP at the time the Union would activate, and in my ten hours with the game, I only saw a few—Ark Buster's Galactica Impact, Titan Bear's Yggdra Fortress, and Sakura Nadeshiko's Haousanrenka. (There's no reading given for 覇桜散連華 so this is a best-guess. A localization would be something like "Cherry Bloominance" or "Super Blossomfall.")

Each party member has a distinct style of play going beyond traditional tank-healer-DPS concepts.

• Tomonori's General Tank is a ranged attacker with buffs for different stats, while its Special uses all its GP and deals higher damage the more GP used.
• Akari's Lunastella inflicts ailments, heals allies, buffs defenses, and negates damage—all through a Special that randomly rolls an effect. She builds up GP by locking down enemies with walls.
• Haruka's Sakura Nadeshiko is an archer with access to Accuracy manipulation and stealth. Kagerō Enbu builds negates the next attack on her, while her Special is a single-target that never misses.
• Oyamono Taishō's Titanbear is a slow tank, with an Instant that bypasses turn order but locks him into wall moves. After building GP, he busts out a multitarget Special that Stuns all enemies.
• Karasuma Shin's Idatencrow has Mobility- and Evasion-boosting moves, and deals more damage the faster it gets. While it has a glass jaw, that doesn't matter if it never gets hit.

Ultimately, these character roles are suggestions the player is free to break out of as they unlock customization options. It's fine to completely ignore Shin's multitarget Special and go all-in on powering up his basic Tengu Blade to shred individual enemies; it's also possible to rebuild General Tank around spread damage with a Flare Grenade kit.

Status ailments play unique roles in Plamo Gear, with Freeze completely zeroing out the target's GP, Paralysis randomly canceling their action for the round, and Heat rapidly burning through their HP each turn. Inflicting Stun guarantees the target's next action will be canceled, but only in the round Stun is inflicted. Ailment resistance is uncommon and generally comes at the expense of equipping something else, making ailments useful both for the player and their enemies.

All these systems are complemented by some of the best encounter design in an RPG. Even the weakest party in the game gets creative: the first pair of Jet Girls the player faces use GP-burning Cracker Missiles to deny the use of Pile Buster and Buster Impact, but since they have to spend GP to burn GP the Girls periodically need to recharge.

That recharge turn opens them up to reprisal by double-targeting one of them, or using the turn to fire off Charge Shooter and setup a next-turn Pile Buster before the Cracker Missiles can hit.

Other early encounters lay the groundwork for later complexity. Crilignis's Ignition buffs its attack and makes its attacks multitarget, and its Criminferno SP Art is cheap enough to be spammed. However, it has to charge up with Ignition for a turn first, which creates multiple vulnerabilities:

• Firing off a Cold Missile on the first turn will immediately Freeze Cri-Ignis' GP and prevent it from using Ignition or Criminferno, so it will switch to spamming the basic Flame Sword move instead.
• Another option is charging up GP with Nova Cannon, then blowing it on a Burst Impact to stun Crilignis. It will lose the Ignition status, and need to Ignition again to regain it.
• Casting the Defense Order Instant Art will greatly reduce the incoming damage, which doesn't stop the spread of a charged-up Crilignis but does mitigate it to a point where it can lose a damage race.

Later encounters recontextualize this enemy by giving the player more to manage, like an upgraded Jet Girl (Rocket Girl) using Heat-inflicting grenades and GP-burn missiles.

The Blade and Shield Knights are the standout encounter of the first episode. After charging up its GP, Blade Knight will start spamming Grand Cross to deal heavy single-target damage each turn, while Shield Knight will use Guard Shift right from the first round. Guard Shift is so fast it normally resolves at the start of a round, and if Shield Knight isn't hit after casting it, on the next round its party's defenses will skyrocket. This puts pressure on the player to always attack Shield Knight, but Shield Knight has innately high defense that makes most attacks on it trade in its side's favor.

One strategy is to use Nova Cannon-Buster Impact to pierce Shield Knight's defense. Another is to use spread damage attacks like Flare Grenade to hit it while also hitting Blade Knight, and focus on plowing through Blade Knight's lower HP. Another is disrupting them with Paralysis or Freeze.

As the story progresses, different variations on the Knights occur. Sometimes a Shield Knight will turn up alongside a Crilignis and force the player to divide their attention between two key targets. Other times they'll be backed up by an Elite Knight, with an inherent "Absolute Guard" property that makes it a powerful tank but can be turned off by downing one of its party members.

The episode 3 encounters are the real highlight of the game. Voltech Surge uses Electro Storm to damage all opponents and inflict Paralysis, but to enable that it has to cast Volt Charge. Volt Charge makes it dodge almost all attacks until it's hit, and persists across multiple turns. There are a couple ways to manipulate Accuracy and lift the status, but the easiest is to use Sakura Nadeshiko's Shin'i Issen (Almighty Flash) Special, which inherently cannot miss. However, Shin'i Issen is an expensive move, which leaves Sakura playing defensive for most of the fight racking up GP with Kagerō Enbu.

The most high-concept fight is against Steam Galeos, which employs a special rule that if the player takes down Gaelos they automatically win. Galeos' HP pool is more than triple the norm, and every turn it simply charges its cannon and fires a weak multi-target vulcan. However, on the fourth turn Galeos will finish charging and fire the Supermassive Galeos Cannon, slaughtering the entire party—unless it misses, which can be forced with Sakura Nadeshiko's Kagerō Enbu or Idatencrow's Mobility buffs. Doing this, the Galeos Cannon can actually be exploited to the player's advantage, allowing it to go off to set them to 1 Life, enabling Ark Buster's Hyper Mode.

The player can also ignore Galeos entirely, and try to take out the Rocket Girls three times before the Supermassive Cannon fires. They just have to find ways to deal with the Girls' evasion-boosting.

One final highlight: Pinky Bunnette and her Assassinaid groupies. Every turn, Bunnette uses a higher level of "Love Chainsaw," starting at the pitiful Lv.1 and ending at the 9999-damage Love Chainsaw Lv. MAX. This makes her a nonentity in the first two turns, and walking nuke on turn 4, requiring the player to Stun her to disrupt the progression, or down her to reset the Chainsaw's level.

The Assassinaids throw single-target Enebottles that heal Bunnette to stop her from going down, and these outpace most non-GP damage. Sustaining aggro against her is hard due to how expensive GP Arts are, but putting damage on the Assassinaids makes them Enebottle themselves instead. Strong spread damage moves can disrupt their focus, opening up Bunnette to a timely kill.

Battle performance is ranked based on how many turns it took to win and how many Lives the player had remaining, with more Gacha Tickets and Battle Points awarded based on rank. There's a first-time bonus for beating an NPC that ensures the player always gets some reward for figuring out a strategy, while S-ranking is the surest way to get a steady supply of funds going.

Money matters because there's no concept of character level in Plamo Gear. Stats are only increased through Gear customization, making equipment everything in this game.

The gacha is a 4-rarity system, color-coded brown/silver/gold/foil. Many parts are in multiple rarities, and every version enables the same GP Arts, but the higher-rarity versions provide better stats. Super Rares are entirely unique "Expansion Options", and there can only be one Expansion on each Gear; these have wild effects like the Torque Gear that reduces your starting GP by 100 but generates 20% of its maximum every turn.

The overall structure of the game is sound, but there are a few oversights:

• While battles are otherwise symmetrical, enemies never chain or Union. This feels especially strange against an actual enemy three-character team with cut-ins and Specials, but no chains.
• Enemies also don't use Instant Arts. Many Instants seem inspired by Super Robot Wars' Spirit Commands, and enemies in those games are infamous for them, but there's none of that here.
• Plamo Gear has the MV refresh rate crash. This is a (fixable) bug in the MV engine that affects high refresh rate monitors. The crashes are infrequent but unpredictable, and require fiddling with your screen settings to prevent—or just saving all the time.

The pacing is clever. Right as the player gets comfortable with the mechanics and starts craving a third party member to fit all their offensive options on, episode 2 introduces Hoshikawa Akari and her Lumina Stella Gear with a defensive style of play. Once the player gets the hang of that and feels like they have all the mechanics down, going into the third day they unlock Hyper Mode and double the available party members, opening up a whole sandbox of abilities.

Hinode Town only contains a handful of areas, with the player navigating to them using a simple map. Each of the four episodes begins and ends at the player's home, with story scenes unfolding in Hinode Elementary School, and all the action taking place at Handa Model Shop's plaza. Advancing a character's friendship requires bringing them home to talk.

Plamo Gear's characters all feel a little more grounded—like kids you could've known growing up. The second half of the party stands out for having somewhat deeper inner lives:

• Haruka's time is dominated by piano, abacus, and other extracurriculars, but she just wants to be a kid playing with toys. She has to hide her love of Plamo Gears from her disapproving mother, but secretly wants to compete in the big tournaments.
• Taishō is bullied and struggles at sports, and depends on Shin as his only friend. Befriending Mashiro expands his world beyond just Shin, and stand up for himself against one of his bullies.
• Shin's developed a protection complex around Taishō, and gotten in trouble for fistfighting his bullies before. The story provides a chance for Shin to settle the score peacefully.

In RPGs we're accustomed to seeing world-saving crusades against evil emperors, and philosophical refutations of demiurges. The central conflict in Plamo Gear is ultimately over a stolen 1000-yen toy; a triviality to an adult, but everything to a 5th-grader.

By putting a spotlight on the small, trivial, meager lives of the most unimportant people imaginable, Plamo Gear achieves a sincerity that blockbuster RPGs never do. Kids like Haruka exist everywhere in the world, but we don't think of them as heroes...yet they are the heroes, of their own stories.

This tiny little RPG Maker MV game flies far beyond its muses. I never had this much fun with Medarot or Danball; the format makes it easy to lose the time running new strategies. Throughout it all I was thinking wholly about team setups, turn-by-turn plays, and how to adjust my Gears for the next match. (And suddenly, it was 1 AM...)

Plamo Gear captures a particular kind of magic, seeing big-picture ideas come together inside individual turns, and does it while telling us that whatever happened in our neighborhood is the most important thing that happened today. And it speaks with such sincerity that for a few fleeting hours, I can believe that's really true.