Left Alive is not a very fun game to play. Its mashup of stealth gameplay and mech combat is clunky and frustrating. But these gameplay shifts do create spectacular contrasts that capture one of the most important features of the giant robot genre: the human costs of mech combat.

Left Alive, the new game by Square Enix, sounds amazing. It mixes intense sneaking and massive robot battles, and if that doesn’t sound familiar enough, it even has art from Metal Gear’s Yoji Shinkawa to drive the point home. But the reality is less impressive than the concept. Left Alive is a clunky disaster whose good ideas are undercut by horrible gameplay.

What happens when you get a bunch of devs from the Metal Gear Solid games, Armored Core, Xenobnlade Chronicles X and tell them to make an action survival game? You end up spending most of the time crafting, apparently.

So, what exactly is Left Alive, anyway?

Launched earlier this year in Japan, Left Alive is coming to the West next week. Chances are you missed all of that, however, so here's 14 minutes of gameplay to get you up to speed.