Vanillaware, the developer behind 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, is known for its sidescrolling RPGs, so you might be forgiven for thinking you're about to get more of the same when you fire up this latest offering. You would, however, be wrong. 13 Sentinels is a sprawling, knotty narrative adventure cut with sections of turn-based mech combat that offers a nuanced meta-commentary about the nature of story and how it impacts our lives. The titular 13 sentinels are teenagers spread across time but united (more or less) with a common goal - protect Japan from invading kaiju by piloting giant mech suits. It's not the most original premise, but that's kind of the point. Nested inside that overarching plot are 13 narratives that reference everything from Stranger Things to Neon Genesis Evangelion to Groundhog Day, threading together sci-fi concepts such as time travel, cloning and artificial intelligence into a dense, complex narrative that can be played (seemingly) in any order. It's ambitious stuff that ultimately tells a story about how we engage with narrative. It's one of those once-in-a-generation games that defies the expectations set by everything else in the space. And, yes, you get to fight giant monsters from the cockpit of a mech suit, too.
