Mobile Suit Baba is a Turn-Based Strategy Block Puzzle game developed by Arvi Teikari of Hempuli and a Spin-Off of Baba is You. The game was released on December 21, 2023, free for its first week, and can be downloaded from Hempuli's itch.io page
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In this game, Baba and friends are an elite unit called the Baba Defense Force, a mech-driving squadron enlisted to protect the world's fruit reserves. When the Skulls, lead by a mysterious commander, launch an all-out offensive on the fruit, the Baba Defense Force must fight back.
Heavily inspired by Into the Breach, players control Baba and friends to complete an objective on each level within a set amount of turns. Each mech can push units and all non-Worm mechs have a unique movement ability to aid in these objectives. The game incorporates the rules system of Baba is You, where text blocks can be rearranged to change how units and tiles operate and interact with other units.
This game contains examples of:
- Actionized Sequel: Baba is You was pretty minimal on action, and (outside the rule phrase gimmick) was a pretty by-the-books block puzzle game. This game has enemy units that move around to try to impede the player, multiple ally types that can perform different special techniques, and a plot that follows two warring factions fighting over a food source. Even though the only basic action is still bumping objects around, Mobile Suit Baba recontextualizes it as a form of attack, which can set off Hair Trigger Explosives or destroy anything that can't handle being bumped.
- Ascended Extra: Bird and Crab had a small number of appearances in the original Baba is You, while Jiji, Fofo, It, and Worm were even less common (only appearing in the New Adventures update). In this game, they stand with Baba, Keke, and Me with equal prominence.
- Badass in Distress: Me is kidnapped at the end of Area F by a Skull. This means that they're not present for the subsequent level, but the Baba Defense Force catches up to them by the next one.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: The final fight against Mevil would be impossible to clear if not for the fact that Mevil's Grant Anti-Fruit Satellite can obliterate its master.
- Conveniently Empty Building: One of the levels is titled "abandoned city". The victory condition necessitates that the heroic Baba explodes a number of conveniently abandoned skyscrapers.
- Dash Attack: Jiji's unique ability causes them to dash forward any number of tiles in a straight line in any of the four cardinal directions. If a unit is present on the tile that Jiji dashes to, that unit will be shoved backwards until they hit an obstacle, be it another unit, destructive terrain, or the edge of the map. However, if the unit that Jiji dashes into has the "BOOM" adjective, it will explode on impact, destroying itself and Jiji simultaneously.
- Denser and Wackier: Compared to Baba is You, which lacked any semblance of a plot but had a few questionably creepy moments, Mobile Suit Baba has an Excuse Plot and is a rather goofy and lighthearted affair.
- Difficulty Levels: The difficulty of the game can be adjusted in the options menu, where you can give yourself 1 or 3 additional turns per map to make the game easier.
- A Dog Named "Dog": All of the characters are named after their species; at one point, Me refers to themselves as "a Me", implying the existence of other Mes.
- Fastball Special: Baba's unique ability allows them to lob an adjacent unit any number of squares forward to an unoccupied tile, bypassing any obstacles in the way. Once the unit lands, they will slide forward an additional tile unless the subsequent tile is occupied. Naturally, this ability extends to allied units.
- Freudian Excuse: Mevil's motivation for destroying all the fruit is getting hit by an apple on the head while resting beneath a tree. They haven't even eaten apples before, but that's reason enough to destroy all apples.
- Gender-Inclusive Writing: None of the characters have any obvious gender indicators. As such, everyone uses the gender-ambiguous they/them in dialogue.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Inverted, for one of the playable units is a giant allied crab.
- Giant Food: At one point, Baba, Jiji and Fofo come across city-sized apples, which Jiji points out are formally called "Skyscrapples". Unlike normal Fruit, which is treated as a special type of terrain tile, Skyscrapples are considered units and can be manipulated by allied mech abilities and affected by the qualities of other units.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: If the rule "MECH IS DEFEAT" is formed, anything that your allied mechs interact with will explode after moving. This includes other units, allowing you to beat faraway foes by throwing units into other units, or even throwing your allied mechs into other units.
- Ground Pound: Whenever It lands from a jump, It creates shockwaves that push all adjacent units.
- Guide Dang It!: Although most of the rules are intuitive, the fact that "DEFEAT" and "SINK" are functionally different when applied to terrain isn't immediately obvious. The "SINK" adjective allows any unit to wade one tile through it before immediately being destroyed, or alternatively destroys a unit if it stops over the affected space. The "DEFEAT" adjective, by comparison, only destroys a unit if it ends its movement on that space; it can otherwise pass through it harmlessly as long as it does not stop there. This is required knowledge to beat some levels.
- Humongous Mecha: All of the Baba is You characters ride city-sized giant mechs in this game, although they are shaped exactly like the pilots so the only visual difference from Baba is You is a thick black outline.
- I Do Not Speak Nonverbal: Crab can only speak by snapping their pincers. Baba is the only one who can understand them.
- In a Single Bound: It's signature ability (the mech owned by It, in case that's unclear) is the ability to jump an unlimited distance in four directions.
- Inconsistent Coloring: While most of the characters appear pretty much the same as they do in Baba is You plus some extra shades of color, Bird is purple in this game (they were orange in Baba is You).
- Intelligible Unintelligible: Baba only speaks in Pokémon Speak, but the other characters have no problems understanding them.
- Isometric Projection: The game is viewed from an isometric perspective.
- Jack of All Stats: The Baba mech is a good all-rounder type of mech. Baba moves 3 spaces per turn (slower than the agile Jiji's 4 tiles, but faster than the shared lowest speed of 2 tiles), and their special Throw ability is fairly average compared to other push-type moves (it's more precise than Jiji's ramming but less so than Keke's shove,
- Joke Character: Worm. It has 2 Speed (the slowest in the game) and unlike the other characters with 2 Speed, it has no special ability. It can still push though.They aren't very fast and have no special skill, but they try their best.
- Kill Sat: The Grand Anti-Fruit Satellite is an orbital weapon that beams down giant lasers onto the Baba Defence Force.
- Lethal Joke Character: In-universe, Fofo outfitted their mech with a tractor beam as a joke. In practice, this makes them one of the few units that can move something without being adjacent to it, and moreover makes them them the few units that can break up rule sentences that are crammed into a corner and can't be pushed.
- Lightning Bruiser:
- When you finally confront Mevil, not only do they move at a respectable 3 spaces each turn and destroy everything around them before and after each step, they also have the MEVIL is SAFE phrase in the arena, making them invulnerable to damage.
- The bonus level "Quarters" features an unkillable Bedsheet Ghost that can move the entire board's distance and One-Hit Kill your units.
- Made of Explodium: If a unit has the "BOOM" adjective, it will detonate immediately upon being struck by an external force or pushed into another unit or otherwise occupied tile, destroying itself and any units adjacent to it.
- Mighty Glacier: The Keke mech is one of the slower mechs, but they have the unique trait of being able to push units any distance they want, and are the only one able to move two units with a single action.
- No-Sell: A unit with the "SAFE" adjective cannot be destroyed by any means. If it would come in contact with a terrain modified by a rule that would otherwise destroy it, such as "WATER IS SINK", it will negate it and spawn flat ground in its place.
- One-Hit Kill:
- The "DEFEAT" adjective, when applied to a unit, enables that unit to instantly destroy any other unit that it interacts with or runs into.
- The "WEAK" adjective makes it so the target unit is immediately destroyed if any other unit stops movement over the space it occupies.
- Me's unique ability is to instantly destroy adjacent objects. It's the only mech that can inherently break things at all.
- Outside-the-Box Tactic: Encouraged, just like Baba is You.
- Text blocks are treated as units. This not only allows playable characters to interact with them but also allows them to be affected by the properties of other units. You can solve some puzzles in creative manners by breaking otherwise "unbreakable" rules via throwing a unit affected by the "DEFEAT" or "BOOM" adjective into that rule, destroying the text and disabling it.
- The mission "Abandoned City (Bonus) tasks a single Baba to "visit every city" by the final turn. The problem is that there are only 5 turns, but more than 9 cities, which a single Baba cannot visit in time. The solution is to use exploding skulls to destroy the extra cities. By the Exact Words of the goal, if there are only 4 cities left in existence after the bombs drop and all of those are visited, then by definition Baba has visited every city. The subtitle lampshades this, reading "If it works..." as a reference to the old engineering adage of "if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid".
- Pokémon Speak: This game reveals that Baba can only speak in variations of the syllable "ba". However, every other character can understand them perfectly.
- Reaction Shot: When the Grand Anti-Fruit Satellite goes off, all of the characters (except Fofo, who slept through it) are shown reacting to it with an incredulous wide-eyed stare.
- Replay Value: Once you pass a certain point of the game, you unlock the ability to edit your starting team on maps that you have already completed. Clearing a map again with a custom team awards a second star for that map.
- Shout-Out:
- The title, being a parody of Mobile Suit Gundam.
- The intro sequence is a pastiche of the intro of Mega Man 4, featuring the same "exploding city" cutscene and music as it, only with a Baba is You paintover. And in case the reference isn't clear enough, the credits feature this bit:APOLOGIES TO: Mega Man 4
- Simple, yet Awesome: The game itself says that Bird's ability (swapping themselves with a nearby unit) is really powerful. It really is, since it enables a ton of tactics, like dislodging phrases out of corners, placing enemies into precise locations, extending Bird's otherwise-paltry 2-tile movement speed, and letting them get to the opposite side of walls.
- Suddenly Voiced: All of the Baba is You characters now talk in this game (except Baba, who uses Pokémon Speak).
- Switch-Out Move: Bird's unique ability is to switch positions with any unit 3 spaces away from it.
- Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: The core mechanic of Baba is You is still present, although given the drastically different format its presence is downplayed somewhat. Units and terrain (except the playable cast, which have certain predefined attributes) have no innate properties until a rule is formed somewhere on the map by combining a noun, a preposition, and an adjective. Using your team's movement abilities to push the text pieces into place to enable and disable rules is a key element of completing objectives.
- Tractor Beam: The signature ability of Fofo is a tractor beam that Fofo installed on their mech as a joke. It allows them to pull distant units by one tile.
- Wave-Motion Gun: UFOs, Dread Spires, and the Grand Anti-Fruit Satellite all shoot massive lasers that obliterate whatever they hit.
