Panzermagd – Review by Ozark

Review by: Ozark
Originally posted: 02.01.2019

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Review of “Panzermagd”, written by Fernglas
Up to Thread 11

Synopsis: In the not-so-far alternate future of around-2075, the Earth is divided in two somewhat equal camps that are locked in ferocious combat using massive mechs called Panzerknecht supported by smaller mechs called Panzermagd. While the Vereinigte/VC (a coalition of ‘Murica and Western Europe) claim the moral high-ground against the Hanguo/IRH (Eastern Bloc and Asia), they are not above using shady means to further their cause and it is in this climate of unease that Samuel Armistead must protect his squad from nanomachines, spooks, A.I and other wonderful things.
tl;dr: Battlefield 2142 + “Nanomachines, son”


Story:
The story focuses around Lance Corporal Samuel “Sam” Armistead as he leads his men (Lis and Jennings) under his new commanding officer Durga while delving further in the conflict between the VC and IRH. Between the sighting of new machines and enemies on the field, the always controversial presence of nanomachines and sneaky politicians maneuvering behind Sam’s back, there is always something looming on the horizon.
Now for the scenario itself, it’s pretty standard as far as most war stories go (and it honestly doesn’t need to be anything else) besides the occasional sci-fi aspect thrown though I will congratulate Fernglas for avoiding the use of “unobtainium” and being somewhat high on the scale of “science-fiction believability” despite the use of techno-babble.
Though the plot hasn’t advanced a lot from the start, as much of the threads are dedicated to firefights and mission progression, this isn’t much of a detriment because it’s an opportunity to get to know our teammates better… in theory.
Note: “DESIRE TO KNOW MORE INTENSIFIES/20”


Setting:
Again as with the story, the attention is less towards the grander scale of the war (as honestly the VC and the IRH are pretty generic) and more towards the down-to-earth struggle of our 4-man squad.
As such, the setting generally hasn’t been explored that much and we know little beyond the fact that it’s very obviously in the future. While I would like Fernglas to give the story’s backdrop more prominence I can understand his desire to focus on the squad instead, though it does come at the expense of some dramatic tension since the odds are somewhat hazy.
Note: “A WEAPON TO SURPASS METAL GEAR/20”


Writing in general:
Okay, the writing… I first want to preface that the writing has severely improved since the start and it’s expected that someone’s first quest will have to work out a few kinks.

The complaints I have about the writing are mostly that it doesn’t take to properly establish the surroundings, characters and so on. Especially in the beginning I had to backtrack to see if we had changed locations, were still in our mech, were talking to someone else; something that could be fixed by going into more detail and elaborating more on what we’re doing and feeling.
We’re up to thread 11 and I still feel like most of the details we should know by now are missing because we haven’t taken to properly broach them. Be it on a broader scale (what are the countries around us, who is the MC, what is our motivation) or on a smaller “present time” scale (what are we shooting at, who is with us, what equipment we got) there is always this haziness of sorts that permeates the writing and makes it difficult to understand what’s happening in a way that is pretty infuriating when you have to make decisions based on information you’re not sure is there.
This, I can only guess, is the mark of a writer who is so vividly picturing his own work (and setting) that he forgets that other people aren’t living it from the inside. It’s not enough that it looks good to you, it has to look good to the strangers who might have a completely different outlook on the setting. That means you have to set things in stone by detailing semi-exhaustively important characters, places, etc; make it stick to the mind of the reader.
(A great example was when I saw the word Locust at around thread 9 and had to go back to thread 2 to remember what it was… when that could have been avoided by simply saying “lightly armored IRH mech”)

That said, I will concede that the quest WILL make you feel like Sam is a soldier; it’s important to mention that what little established stuff there is will instantly stick out from the rest to immerse you in the battle. Even if my inner /k/ommando wishes that there was more attention paid to the eponymous warmachines and their armament I can only be content with what is shown.
As of late, especially with Oriel, a real Ace-Combat vibe kind of banter with the enemy has emerged that hits especially well and helps with fleshing out the encounters rather than having featureless mooks & nameless machines mown down as padding for the fights. In essence, banter (inbetween enemies and allies too) in combat is good because it’s a great way to flesh out everybody involved and further interactions… plus it helps with the pacing to space inbetween descriptions.
Note: “GORILLA WARFARE/20”


Main Character:
Samuel Armistead is a relatively blank slate that honestly hasn’t much to differentiate him from your average CoD protagonist other than the fact that one of his sisters died and he enlisted to prevent the other from being drafted.
I feel like he could gain from a flashback or some other narrative crutch to prop him up because he doesn’t display much personality – besides “daring protagonist” – which is admittedly due to him being a quest MC… I can only hope he’ll gain more depth as the quest progresses.
Note: “RAMIREZ, DO EVERYTHING/20”


Side Characters:
I’ll briefly skim over Lis and Jennings because… they’re kinda boring? I dunno, they’re just very flat – Lis being no-nonsense and Jennings being a kidder – and we haven’t gotten to know much about them. They should be more fleshed out, Jennings especially because at least Lis has that whole “catfight” aspect with Durga.
Durga? Oh boy Durga. I’ll be honest, I really have trouble liking her – this is more personal preference than anything – and I’ve narrowed my reasons why to three main points: 1) We don’t know anything about her and she can’t/wont tell us more 2)She is agressive(ly dumb at some points) and prone to doing her own thing 3)She apparently isn’t properly trained in “soldierly” matters. The first is a problem because it makes us harder for us to empathize with her and predict what she’s going to do, the second is a chore to deal with because she constantly goes under our nose and takes action at the wrong moments and the third… Dealing with somebody who does their own thing, won’t explain why and default to “DRIVE ME CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY PLASMA CANNON” is annoying on its own… but if they can’t even do that well because they’re untrained?  Oh and did I mention she’s supposed to be our COMMANDING OFFICER?
Finally, I can’t say much about Mia… other that I’m surprised she’s even a thing at all. Without spoiling too much, I didn’t expect nanomachines to have that kind of effect

The crew chilled out during thread 2 and got to talk about their respective interests and hobbies which was nice but such a moment didn’t really reappear since then and I’m left wondering why the plot didn’t slow down a bit more to shine some light on the people we’re literally sharing our life with. There are some definite attempts at having the character interact with each other – such as Alex doing… swimsuit modelling?  - but it’s less a given character taking some time off to talk to the rest and more quickly mentioning this on the way to the next plot point. It’s improving but I look forward to more downtime to maybe come to term with the other characters, address their character flaws, work on the team dynamic and have some great interactions.

The rest of the characters are certainly serviceable but as expected aren’t the focus and are thus glanced over before moving on, I will say Hawke makes a convincing spook though and Alex gets a swimsuit scene and is therefore best waifu.
Note: “BAND OF BROTHERS/20”


Rolling/Dices:
It’s a classic “3d100 to beat a set DC” though I greatly approve the addition of Bonuses that requires posters to use their fucking brain for once.
Note: “BONUS/20”

End word/Recap:
So, why read this quest? Well, if you want mechs, nanomachines, rogue A.I and a solid feeling of being a soldier then this should be your thing.
I can’t exactly recommend the quest as is to just about anybody unless their interest already match but given enough time and development I’m confident it can really become something worth watching. Assuming my review isn’t just a bunch a bunch of crap and it actually helps, I think there’s some real potential to have some great Metal Gear-like shenanigans with the crew during later missions.

If you liked this, you might want to check out: Brigador(game), Tom Clancy’s works (games, books, etc), Generation Kill(series)