Metal Warriors Saw Titanfall Coming Three Decades Early
The pilot-and-mech switching that Metal Warriors built on the Super Famicom, and that its staff carried into Titanfall, is the design thread connecting a Japan-unreleased 1995 cartridge to the modern mecha shooter.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
Metal Warriors, a Super Famicom mecha game developed by LucasArts and published by Konami, shipped in America in 1995 and was never released in Japan. It borrowed heavily from Cybernator, also known as Assault Suits Valken, including its six selectable mecha and side-scrolling stages, but let players leave the cockpit, fly as the pilot, fight human-sized enemies, and board a different mech. Some staff later worked on Titanfall.
Start with who made it. LucasArts developed Metal Warriors, Konami published it, and much of the team had already worked on Star Wars games. The foundation came from Zombies Ate My Neighbors, another Super Famicom title that also skipped Japan.
The design departed from Cybernator in one place. Players could dismount, fly around as the pilot, fight human-sized enemies, and board a new mech. Some of the people behind that system later worked on the Titanfall series, where on-foot combat and Titan combat sit side by side.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.