• Price: $24.99 USD
• Developer: Trinket Studios
• Publisher: Outersloth
• Release Date: October 7, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by The Hevia Group on behalf of Trinket Studios and Outersloth. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

I was drawn to Battle Suit Aces for several reasons. The art style really appealed to me, and the idea of a card-battling RPG with mechs was intriguing! Additionally, the game is made by the creators of acclaimed “puzzle-brawler” RPG Battle Chef Brigade, so I was even more excited to start playing.

Starting up the game, we meet best friends Heathcliff and Felix, who run a mechanic shop together after retiring from their jobs in “the Guard.” Unfortunately, their hard-earned peace comes to an end when their shop – and home – is destroyed by a new threat to the galaxy. Putting their dreams on hold, the pair joins the effort to protect the galaxy once more.

After they use a legendary mech known as a Relic Suit to defeat the “Frenzied” enemies who destroyed their home, Heathcliff is made the Captain of the Patchworks team, a motley crew of mech pilots, biologists, engineers, “xenoarchaeologists,” and more. The team aims to find additional Relic Suits in the hopes that their combined might will be enough to finish off the Frenzied for good.

You’ll travel across a map with “more than 50 plot-driven and character-focused missions.” The Patchworks team will inevitably end up fighting monsters, space pirates, and/or the Frenzied in 5 vs. 5 card battles on each mission. There are 3 difficulty options in the game.

Both your team and the enemy use their own energy systems to power the mech, drone, or other types of cards placed on the battle line. There are 3 colors of energy, and suits and drones can only use energy banked for the color associated with their card. Every card has an attack value and HP value, and they require a certain amount of energy in order to attack, so the actions you can take each turn are limited.

Unless you fulfill certain conditions, you can only place one card on the field per turn. At the beginning of each turn you get to draw one suit card and one drone card to place one of them, and you also get one free redraw per turn. I never really used the drone cards that much since I had so many mech pilots. You can’t edit your deck and remove any cards, so it was nice to have the free redraw option in battle.

I really enjoyed learning how the cards worked; some of them – allies or enemies alike – have passive abilities that trigger when they’re deployed or damaged, or when an ally defeats an enemy. These abilities can cause positive effects, such as increasing allies’ attack or giving them shielding, or they can inflict status effects such as confusion or paralysis.

You also need to consider the cards’ targeting capabilities; some can only target one enemy, while others can target multiple. The cards on your side of the field guard your ship’s HP meter. Similarly, the minor enemies (cards) will usually protect the HP meter for the missions “big boss.” A few of your pilots can damage an enemy card and hit the boss’ HP behind them.

If your ship’s HP meter is depleted it’s game over and you’ll have to replay the battle. They do warn you which enemies will attack in the next turn, so I thought it was pretty easy to protect the ship for the most part since you can preemptively move cards to the slots where the enemy will (try to) attack the ship directly.

Besides the cards you place on the battle line, you also get to use Command cards, which can help your team’s cards in some way or harm the enemy. Their use is more limited, as you can only use one Command card per turn compared to the suit and drone cards, whose actions are based on your energy stores each turn.

Battles were just so fun and dynamic; I liked the way all the different elements of the card battles worked together, and the battlefield felt quite animated with the special effects and the way that the characters constantly talk to each other (with voiced commentary). It was also cool to see how they’d (temporarily) change the character portraits on their cards based on their current attire. That was a nice little detail.

Once you’ve completed a mission you’ll head back to your ship, where you can participate in a variety of activities. You can talk to a few crew members in between missions, although the crew members you speak to each time are selected for you. Conversations may or may not include Captain Heathcliff, and they range from serious discussions about the current situation to silly interactions.

You get crafting materials after each battle, which you can combine in the workshop to create mods that increase your suits and drones’ health, their damage, etc. (I did wish we could craft more than one of the same mod.) Then you have to go to the hangar and equip a mod in the mod slot for each card. There are ways to increase a card’s mod slots.

Eventually you can craft mods for your ship as well, giving you the ability to add shielding or increase the maximum energy you can store for a color. In later battles the enemy bosses will also have mods that reflect or block damage the way your ship can.

There are a lot of different options for participating in card battles. You have the main story missions of course, but you can also take jobs from the bounty board on your ship, check out the sim chamber, and go on crew missions and faction missions.

You’ll meet a lot of interesting characters as you explore the galaxy, and they’re often affiliated with a Faction. Increasing your Faction ranks is a crucial part of strengthening your team because you get to choose a reward each time you level up your reputation with a Faction.

Reward options include new suit pilots, drones, mods, and even Command cards. I appreciated getting to see a character’s introduction to the ship after we redeem Faction rewards to unlock them/their card.

The bounty board on board ha the ship offers 2 jobs in between each mission; each option improves your reputation with a different Faction, and you’ll also earn crafting materials. You can also level up your reputation by using the sim chamber, which contains “puzzle” battles that have to be “solved” a certain way like the Tactics Drills in Fire Emblem Heroes.

To unlock crew missions, you must do something specific with a character’s card in battle, such as using an attack a number of times. You unlock a Command card for completing a crew mission. Some of the crew mission stories are pretty hilarious, while others may make you tear up a little.

I don’t think you have to do anything specific to unlock access to the Faction missions. Unfortunately, you can’t complete all of the crew missions and Faction missions in one playthrough, which is a real shame. There also isn’t a New Game+ option, so you can’t go through the game again faster to experience more crew missions using upgrades obtained in your first playthrough.

I loved the story and the characters, so I do plan on replaying the game to see all of its content. As far as the writing goes, there were only some minor issues, such as the amount of typos. Sometimes it felt like relationships moved too fast or arguments were resolved too quickly, but since the game’s format is somewhat episodic I didn’t mind it too much.

I really enjoyed learning more about the crew as they go on missions to try to find ways to defeat the Frenzied. Everyone on the ship works together to support each other and their mission. There were some particularly touching scenes; the mission called “A Moment Worth Protecting” was one of the best ones, and Heathcliff’s crew mission was very emotional.

I don’t think there were any team members I disliked. My favorites were probably Heathcliff, Felix, Daciana, Hanako, Ayana, and Jules. And speaking of Jules (the ship’s xenoarchaeologist), he contributes to another one of my favorite parts of the game, which is the lore.

The Patchworks team must investigate ruins from an alien civilization for possible clues about the whereabouts of additional Relic Suits. I love history and linguistics (even in fictional settings), and Jules’ work not only helps the crew figure out what to do next, but it also gives us more background on the galaxy they’re trying to save.

There’s just so much to like about Battle Suit Aces. I would’ve changed a few things about it, such as the inability to experience all the content in one playthrough as well as the lack of New Game+. But overall it does a lot of things right for me.

I thought the card-based battles were such a unique way to implement mech combat, and I really appreciated being able to fight in multiple contexts outside of the main storyline. Playing on the normal difficulty, I didn’t think it was too difficult or too easy. It took me about 15 hours+ to complete the game.

The artistic elements of the game are fantastic as well. I loved the character designs, as well as the mech and card designs. The CGs depicting important moments in a scene are absolutely gorgeous, as are the views of each planet (both from space and on the surface).

The audio was equally impressive; I was a fan of the soundtrack from the moment I heard the song on the main menu, and there’s an awesome song with vocals during a key scene in the main story. Additionally, all of the dialogue is voiced – and voiced well.

I think this has to be one of my favorite games that I’ve played this year. I’d absolutely love to see a sequel that continues the story of the Patchworks crew – perhaps with old and new members on board as well as cameos from anyone who’s retired? I don’t know if that’s… “in the cards” for Trinket Studios, but what I do know is that they sure are amazing at making games. ⭐️

8.5/10