Some things simply just make sense together. A union of two things that, after they’ve come together once, you can’t help but expect to see again and again. Many such iconic pairings spring to mind, like the roguelike genre and deck-building mechanics, DeviantArt creators from the early 2000s and OCs that are half-angel half-demon, or Nintendo Directs and not hearing any news about Silksong. The gaming industry is already obsessed with the setting of World War 2, but the inclusion of giant death-dealing mechs to the mix in a game like Grit & Valor – 1949 is – while perhaps not a new original take – almost always a net gain for everyone involved (well, probably with the exception of the people killed by said mechs).

Grit and Valor – 1949 is, on paper, a perfect storm of well-suited setting, gameplay genres, and aesthetics. A tactical, squad-based, mech-controlling roguelike, with progression mechanics to improve your mechs between runs, and the well-loved paper-scissors-rock based combat triangle to influence how and when you’ll field particular units to suit the coming threats. It has a well-executed, deeply entrenched (no pun intended) aesthetic that puts a dieselpunk spin on classic mech designs like the scuttling spider-bot, the heavily stomping mortar mobile, and the bipedal ‘man with two guns but he’s 20 feet tall and made of metal’ robo-special. The heroes are scrappy underdogs fighting the good fight to save the world, the villains are wildly exaggerated war criminals whose malevolence is only matched by their egos and love of dramatic cliche, and everyone is just ridiculously horny for enormous bullet-spewing war machines.

Within the first few runs, the major issues become starkly apparent. The gameplay loop takes a traditional roguelike formula: running a gauntlet of maps in which enemies spawn in waves, and you’re forced to defend visually and structurally similar locations, while working towards an extremely limited number of possible side objectives (defend X building, blow up X missiles, etc). Sometimes, you’ll engage in fights labelled as being more challenging, but these primarily revolve around different randomised dangers that force you to move to dodge bombs, avoid traps and other simple obstacles – technically more challenging, but largely uninteresting mechanically. There’s a shop you can buy upgrades from along the way, there’s a tough boss encounter at the end of the run, and there are branching routes to pick from that make little difference in the end. It’s all the classics of a roguelike, with none of the unique improvisational charm that makes the icons of the genre stand out.

When you die, you return to base to spend scrap on mech ‘mods’ that allow you to make your numbers go up, valor on pilot upgrades that… make your numbers go up again, or unlock new visually different but mechanically similar mechs. Your combat achievements allow you to research minor improvements across the board, but there’s little engaging about the between-run process.

Grit and Valor – 1949 also lacks some features that feel like must-haves from a tactical standpoint, like the ability to target specific enemies – something which feels particularly horrible to not include when using a paper-scissors-rock combat strengths model. And on a more nitpicky note, mechs are almost always capable of firing while moving, but here you’re forced to interrupt your glorious death-spewing barrage of firepower to trudge a few steps out of the constantly dropping airstrike, turrets and other environmental hazards, only able to continue shooting once you’re fully stationary again. These are design choices rather than errors, but ones that I just don’t understand the reasoning for, as they feel like missed opportunities more than the intentional sculpting of a gameplay experience.

Grit and Valor – 1949 isn’t a bad game necessarily, it just isn’t good either. It runs perfectly well, has a distinct visual appeal, and commits fully to the over-the-top dramatic vibe it’s portraying, but it, unfortunately, just… isn’t very fun or interesting.