Comment by metricodus

This thing made me think of the japanese-language-only, Sega Dreamcast-only 1999 "Marionette Handler" mech programming game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqcvhR568E

It was something else, at least back then. (I do remember thinking it would be really hard to play without having someone understanding at least basic japanese around.)

The programming screen is shown briefly here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqcvhR568E&t=188

I found this video from this web page, where there's more text and images: (Chrome with Google Translate works okayish.)

http://sesesega.blog90.fc2.com/blog-entry-940.html