Mekton Zeta
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2025 12:24 am
I originally stumbled onto this ancient game (republished in 1995) while I tripped over Teenagers From Outer Space. (I honestly forget HOW I found that game!) Anyway, after mistakenly purchasing the expansion book (Mekton Zeta Plus), I started researching how to play this Anime Mecha game on Reddit and YouTube. Lo and behold, I discovered the error of my ways! Anyway, so now I'm hooked. I've got the core book and I'm excited to try out this game!
But what is Anime Mecha? If you're familiar with older anime titles, such as Bubblegum Crisis, Neon Genesis Evangelion, RoboTech, or Macross, you'll know that we're talking about huge robots that are outfitted with futuristic weapons that are typically piloted by humans-- in most anime, typically like 16-year kids, who are the last line of defense to save Earth from certain doom (and random alien invasions. Anyway, Mekton...
It has a pretty robust character creation section. You have the option to roll-up your character, and it can get really detailed, like even your friends and family and enemies! Almost like a high-school drama game, but ... there's mecha too! You get to completely create your mecha with nuts and bolts (I honestly haven't gotten this far in the book yet, but trust me, it's coming, and with the Expansion book, there are endless possibilities!) Mekton Zeta is told to be one of the crunchiest role playing games out there. In fact, this game system is so flexible, that you should be able to build a Magical Girl using the Mecha rules!! (Totally foaming at the mouth here).
The system uses a d10, and although many people on the Internet state there are problems with this game (mostly because the weapons don't impact the armor, a simple tweak/hack to the math fixes the majority of this problem). There are I think eight Stats, and they aren't your typical Strength and Dexterity values. There are things like Attractiveness and Cool.
The (PDF) of the game is $15 on DriveThruRPG, and I was surprised to see there is still some older people who enjoy this style of game (older/classic/super crunchy/Character Build systems). There is support on Roll20, I believe too. I might just have to build support for Foundry VTT! I think this would be an awesome game to play using the VTT technologies we have available today. You're totally going to want to have a HEX grid handy to play this game.
But what is Anime Mecha? If you're familiar with older anime titles, such as Bubblegum Crisis, Neon Genesis Evangelion, RoboTech, or Macross, you'll know that we're talking about huge robots that are outfitted with futuristic weapons that are typically piloted by humans-- in most anime, typically like 16-year kids, who are the last line of defense to save Earth from certain doom (and random alien invasions. Anyway, Mekton...
It has a pretty robust character creation section. You have the option to roll-up your character, and it can get really detailed, like even your friends and family and enemies! Almost like a high-school drama game, but ... there's mecha too! You get to completely create your mecha with nuts and bolts (I honestly haven't gotten this far in the book yet, but trust me, it's coming, and with the Expansion book, there are endless possibilities!) Mekton Zeta is told to be one of the crunchiest role playing games out there. In fact, this game system is so flexible, that you should be able to build a Magical Girl using the Mecha rules!! (Totally foaming at the mouth here).
The system uses a d10, and although many people on the Internet state there are problems with this game (mostly because the weapons don't impact the armor, a simple tweak/hack to the math fixes the majority of this problem). There are I think eight Stats, and they aren't your typical Strength and Dexterity values. There are things like Attractiveness and Cool.
The (PDF) of the game is $15 on DriveThruRPG, and I was surprised to see there is still some older people who enjoy this style of game (older/classic/super crunchy/Character Build systems). There is support on Roll20, I believe too. I might just have to build support for Foundry VTT! I think this would be an awesome game to play using the VTT technologies we have available today. You're totally going to want to have a HEX grid handy to play this game.