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Dynasty Warriors Gundam (Xbox 360)
Overview:
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, more aptly titled Gundam Musou in Japan, is the umpteenth Dynasty Warriors title to bludgeon its way into the hands of gamers all over the world. It manages to successful merge the tried-and-true (if a bit stale) gameplay mechanic of Dynasty Warriors with the world of Gundam, and the Universal Century--as well as several of the alternate universes, which may be more familiar to the typical Western gamer. If you tend to think "oh, it's another Dynasty Warriors game. It's probably not very good." Or "oh, it's another Gundam game. It's probably not very good." then Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is not for you. On that hand, gaming as a whole isn't for you, and you might be better off keeping away from music, movies, and books as well.
On the back of the box, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam has the tagline "this is THE Gundam game you've been waiting for!" Now, every reviewer carries a certain bias with him or her, and I will freely admit that this tagline applies very much to me. From the first time I saw a screenshot of the Turn-A Gundam cutting up Zakus, I knew it was a game I had to buy. I went into the game both as a fan of Gundam, and as a fan of Dynasty Warriors. Fortunately, the game did not disappoint. There are flaws, to be sure. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam lacks a certain amount of polish and care that we would prefer to see. However, the only changes that are needed in the game are fairly minor, and if the long-recurring Dynasty Warriors series has taught us anything, it's that small incremental changes are the series' hallmark.
Make no mistake. I believe Dynasty Warriors: Gundam to be an excellent game, well worth the purchase in every aspect. However, I can also see how Dynasty Warriors: Gundam could be seen as a mediocre-to-bad title. This is true of nearly every Dynasty Warriors title, but it is--perhaps--especially true of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.
Gameplay:
One versus many. Those three words describe, more or less, what you'll be doing for the entirety of the game. The Dynasty Warriors gameplay mechanic is simple, and mostly unchanged from the very first game. You control a single warrior (in this case a combination of a specific pilot and a specific mobile suit) and are placed in a large, often labyrinthine environment, where you have to run from base to base, defending your own from enemy incursions and capturing enemy bases as you advance. Most of your enemies are grunts--very weak footsoldiers that put up little fight, and are only truly menacing in terms of the sheer quantity of them you'll be facing at the same time. Of course, you'll also run into other characters--also combinations of mobile suits and pilots--that are just as strong as you are. These fights provide a bit more challenge, but once you grasp the basic strategy to take down a particular mobile suit, they become much easier. This format of gameplay is essentially identical to that found in the myriad of Dynasty Warriors titles found on the Playstation 2, and later Xbox gaming consoles. The only notable difference is that base-areas are now much, much larger--and very clearly defined. You now have to weaken enemy bases by defeating a certain number of grunts and guards (strengthened grunts or other named characters) before claiming it as your own.
There are several different modes of gameplay: first, there are the original and official modes (both of which support co-operative multiplayer). Missions in the original mode follow an original story that is somewhat interesting, but mostly not, involving a mysterious planet that looks kind of like Mars on a collision course with Earth. In this mode, characters from all of the different Gundam universes interact with one another, which is a lot of fun for someone that is a fan of Gundam (Jerrid becoming Maser Asia's disciple, Domon taking his shining-finger to Judau's ZZ Gundam's head, etc., are very, very cool if you're familiar with the characters) but are probably not quite so interesting to someone who is unfamiliar with the various characters and stories. Fortunately, a lot of this character action takes place in in-game cutscenes that are beautifully animated. Watching these cutscenes a Gundam fan will think "damn, that's awesome!" But someone who knows nothing about Gundam would probably think the same thing. The quality of the animation in these cutscenes really is phenomenal, and often times each cutscene will last for a minute or two and be filled to-the-brim with over the top action sequences. This is a big part of the fun in the game, and for me, a big reason to play through all of the original story modes. The official mode is pretty much the canonical stories of Gundam--limited only to the Universal Century, in this version--all though certain liberties were taken. The game does an excellent job of providing the historical context of each battle, along with in-game radio chatter to really get the point across that you're fighting in an epic battle of the past. This is a very, very cool feeling to have in any game, and a pretty rare one at that.
Other than original and official modes, there's also a straight-up multiplayer mode. Unfortunately (and this is one of the BIG flaws of the game) there is absolutely no online multiplayer. At all. You can play with up to four other players by way of a split screen and compete with one another in three or four different types of games, but for the most part the multiplayer is pretty lacklustre.
It's pretty hard to describe just how the game feels to play. There are downloadable demos, so if you can connect your console to the Internet I suggest you do so. Basically, everything feels right. You're playing a Dynasty Warriors game. It feels like a Dynasty Warriors game, it even looks like one--but at the same time the Gundams have a very distinct, different feel to them that really help to create the illusion that you're piloting a giant robotic machine. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam could very well have felt like a simple mod to Dynasty Warriors, but it doesn't. And this is a very very good, very very refreshing thing.
When fighting in a mission, you are given three basic attacks. You have the main attacks, which is always a melee, with a starting combo length of four hits. You also have a ranged attack, which varies from tiny chest-mounted vulcan machine cannons, to rifles the spew streams of ignited gas or super-charged mega particles at the enemy. Ranged attacks are pretty simple, if monotonous. Generally, the rate of fire for ranged weapons is pretty slow (to prevent abuse, I imagine) and they will automatically target the nearest enemy. Sometimes auto-targeting can be a pain, but here you'll almost always hit an enemy so it's not that bad. Of course, you'll hardly ever need or want to use ranged attacks because so much of the combat in the game is up-close-and-personal. The only real advantage to blasting at an enemy from a distance is that it will momentarily stun them--which, again, are not much of a result when you're getting charged by 200 enemies.
A lot of the games problems have to do with the melee system. It's simple. Very simple. You can kill every enemy by repeatedly hitting the same attack button. Attack combos have a limit of four different animations, and the length of each combo can be increased by gaining mobile suit levels. Unfortunately, even though you can string a combo of twelve or more hits together, you don't get any more than the base four attack animations, so it's basically the same four-hit combo being repeated three times over, or more. This can make fighting look and feel pretty repetitive (more so than in previous Dynasty Warriors titles) although it is possible to break the monotony by introducing slightly more advanced combos by using the ranged attack button mid-combo. Some of these additional combos can be very cool; the God Gundam, for example, will whip out two beam sabers, leap into the air and start spinning very fast--like a top--cutting through every enemy in its path. The Wing Gundam Zero, on the other hand, will split it's twin beam rifle in two, and fire two shots each with each rifle to hit all four direction rapidly. These "special" combos are very well animated, and really stand out in the game.
As with all Musou games, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam has special super-attacks called "Musou Attacks", though I believe this was translated to "SP Attacks" in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam to fit with a more sci-fi feel. Despite the differing terminology, the concept is basically the same as it's always been. As you defeat more and more enemies, you slowly build up your musou gauge. When your musou gauge if full, you can press the special attack button to unleash a massive, spectacular attack against a single enemy, or groups of enemies, depending on the mobile suit. As your mobile suit levels continue to increase, you can unlock up to three additional musou gauges--which correlate to two new musou attacks, for a total of three. This is where it gets a bit weird. With one musou gauge full, you unleash your first musou attack. With two musou gauges filled, you unleash your first musou attack and then you unleash the second musou attack, which is often slightly stronger in power. If you fill up all three musou gauges, then you automatically perform the first, second and third attacks, making for a kind of bizarre musou combo.
For certain mobile suits, an additional gameplay mechanic is added--transformation. The Zeta Gundam, Wing Gundam Zero and Epyon can all transform into fighter-like aircraft that can fly over the battlefields faster than any other unit. This is done simply by jumping into the air and then boosting. The transformation looks pretty cool, and gives you a different ranged attack (depending on the mobile suit) and greatly increased your speed. The only real detriment to transforming is that camera control can sometimes be a bit confusing, but never to the point of distraction.
The enemies you'll encounter in each mission will be pretty varied. The official missions have you fighting a coherent group of enemy forces. The Earth Federation will fight Zeon. The AEUG will fight the Titans or Neo-Zeon depending on the time. In the original mode, however, you fight a hodgepodge of enemy forces, from all different eras of the Universal Century. Unfortunately, no enemy grunts hail from any of the alternate universes. Of particular note, some of the enemy grunts will find the form of top-tier mobile suits--from Qubeleys to Gundams--and can provide quite a bit more of a challenge as such, even if they're still a bit weaker than the same suits piloted by named characters.
After each mission, you'll earn two different sets of experience. Your pilot will gain a certain amount, which determines attributes like melee and ranged damage, speed, boost power, etcetera. And mobile suit points, that level up the mobile suit. Mobile suit levels determine the health of a particular mobile suit, how many combos it can perform, and what musou attacks it can use. Each pilot starts out with a specific mobile suit, but by beating that pilots story mode you can then select any unlocked mobile suit for that pilot. Each pilot's mobile suit starts at level one, and mobile suit values earned by one pilot will not carry over to a different pilot. This means that if you level up Loran's Turn-A Gundam to the maximum level, you cannot start playing the Turn-A with Amuro or Char and expect it to start out at the same level. This all seems very, very logical to me--but I have heard some complaints.
In addition, after the completion of a mission you will earn (if you find them in battle or fulfil the correct conditions) a variety of mobile suit parts and pilot skill you can use to tweak the capabilities of your mobile suit and pilot. Pilot skills (which must be equipped to be used) do little things, like increasing level-up rates, boost speed and melee damage, whereas parts (which also must be equipped to be used) boost one or more of the four different stats for each mobile suit--speed, armor, defense, ranged attack and melee attack. I'm not entirely certain on what the difference is between armor and defense, but your own mobile suit will be dishing out a lot more damage than it takes, so I don't see that it matters all that much, aside from being a bit redundant. Unfortunately, equipping new parts and skills does nothing to effect the aesthetics of your mobile suit, and there are no new weapons to be found or used.
All in all, the gameplay is very solid and well-animated, if a bit boring. Thankfully, the varying effects and mission structures help to add variety, but this doesn't do much to make you forget that you're spending nearly an hour per mission tapping the same button over and over.
Rating: 12/20
Difficulty & Replay Content:
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam has three different levels of difficulty: easy, normal and hard. Unfortunately, these difficulty settings don't do very much other than bolster the health and attack ratings of the enemies you'll face. The A.I., sadly, is pretty tame throughout the game. For instance, if you approach a huddle of one or two hundred mobile suits, only ten or twenty will actively attack you--and of those ten or twenty, only one or two will attack with a ranged attack--which is actually kind of a good thing, since ranged attacks can get pretty annoying. In any single mission, you're likely to rack up no less than five hundred kills, which sounds a bit more impressive than it actually is.
While the individual A.I. is pretty meek, the overall group (strategic?) A.I. is pretty good and aggressive. Enemy incursions into allied territory range from mild, which are easy to repel, to almost absurdly determined, where the enemies just keep coming and coming. This can mean a lot of running from one area to the next to defend against concerted enemy attacks, and really helps to lend the impression that you're fighting in a fluid battle, not just killing everything in front of you. The individual A.I. of enemy pilots is pretty good, so far as I can tell, but given the overall simplicity of gameplay there's really not much to say.
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam truly shines when you look at it from the perspective of replayability and unlockable content. In terms of raw replayability, you can go through and level up each mobile suit for each pilot and collect every part and skill possible. Some people can spend hours and hours doing this. I am not one of them. Fortunately, there's something else that's very, very cool (in my opinion) to work on unlocking--the Gallery. I'm a big fan of galleries, in every way shape or form. The Gallery in Dynasty Warrior’s: Gundam is unlocked by playing through the game. You'll unlock models of every single mobile suit, mobile armor and warship in the game, which you can then zoom in and out and rotate all around to your heart's content. You can unlock short biographies of every character in the game--even the very, very minor ones, as well as music and voice tracks, which allow you to replay certain lines of dialogue from specific characters at your leisure. There's a ton of content in the Gallery, and it can take some time to finish up. But even with all the extra unlockable content and replay value aside, we're still looking at forty or so hours of gameplay just to beat most of the story-modes for each character, so it's a very, very solid experience.
Rating: 15/20
Audio:
Dynasty Warriors games have notoriously bad dubs. Fortunately that trend did not infect Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, in no small part due to many of the English voice-actors reprising their roles from the anime. The only exceptions I took notice of in the game were Domon Kasshu, of G Gundam, who is voiced by someone with a much more mature, hostile voice (a better fit for the character than what was in the anime dub) and Heero Yuy, of Gundam Wing. Heero's voice is very similar to the voice from the anime--only it has a bit more emotion and character to it, so it's a very positive change in my opinion. For the most part, the English dialogue is pretty damn good. There are a few weird moments, such as half the characters mispronouncing the name Ramba Ral (including the voice actor for Ramba Ral, surprisingly) and the other half going over it with no trouble. Also, the name of ZZ's favourite loli character, Elpe Puru, is now Elpeo Puru. Why an additional syllable was added, I have no idea--but it makes the name that much more awkward to say.
Of the characters from series' that have not been dubbed into English, the voices are still pretty good. Glemy Toto's voice is dead-on perfect, and I really hope they get the same actor to do the voice if ZZ ever comes to North America. Puru Two's voice is also a dead-ringer, and Loran Cehack's voice is pretty close--but a bit too feminine for the character, I think. And for anyone that does not care for the English dub, the full Japanese audio track is also available, and very easy to switch.
The sounds of weapons firing, mobile suits moving, and things exploding are all perfect. I use the word perfect because the same sounds from the anime are used, and it all works to devastatingly good effect. You can almost tell what universe a mobile suit is from simply by listening to the sound it makes when it moves, or shoots a beam rifle. To a non-gundam fan, this equates to the statement that each mobile suit has its own unique sounds, which are very realistic.
Music-wise, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is nothing special. The soundtrack is a bit better than previous Dynasty Warriors games, but not by much. This is a shame, because Gundam traditionally has very, very good music. This is an especially hard blow, if not an unexpected one, to anyone hoping to hear the Turn-A OST playing in the background.
Rating: 18/20
Graphics & Presentation:
Spectacular. The graphics of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam are spectacular. All of the mobile suits, mobile armor and warships are stunning. The lighting effects and textures are amazing. The environments are large, lush and vibrant. Everything is fast-paced, looks great, and has virtually no lag or slowdown at any point. Five characters doing triple musou attacks at the same time, with four-hundred enemies on screen? No problem. This is easily the best looking game I currently own.
There are some problems, for example. While water looks amazing and will ripple and splash with explosions, simply walking through it keeps the water static and motionless. While several of the objects on the map are destructible, just as many are not and there's not much logic to what can be destroyed and what can't. Although ships fly through the air, they don't have any attack animations. As part of the flow-of-mission, these ships will sometimes use their weapons to cut out swaths of land--generally mountains or glaciers--out of the way to reform the map. Unfortunately, as is the case in most Dynasty Warriors games, these scripted events have pretty mild effects. The Argama will attack a glacier, and all you'll see is that glacier rippled by a few tiny explosions, then it'll turn to a big blue-white cloud and disappear. This is a bit disappointing, especially given the level of care that went into the animation of nearly everything else in the game.
The actual animation of the mobile suits is near-perfect. Each movement and attack is incredibly fluid. With each step your mobile suit takes, you really get a sense of just how much work went into programming that movement. When you slice up enemies, you cut of different pieces of armor, sever arms and legs and head, and everything falls to the ground as the mobile suit crumples to the ground and explodes. The lighting and effects on the beam sabers, beam rifles, machine guns and cannons is all amazing. It is, for lack of a more suitable term, spectacular.
Rating: 18/20
Final Comments:
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is an amazing game. Within weeks of its original release in Japan, it became the top-selling game on the Playstation 3. It's a lot of fun to play, it looks great, and there are tons of stuff to do and enough variety to the gameplay to keep you from getting too bored doing it. Even better, it manages to do all of this while looking amazing. It has flaws, of course. Gameplay is very, very simple, the A.I. is substandard, but passable, and there's not a whole lot of point to the customization options. The biggest detriment to the game is, as you've likely already gathered, the very simplistic combo system for combat. The simplicity itself can seem a bit inane, and soak up a lot of the fun of the game. If you're not a die-hard Dynasty Warriors or Gundam fan, and you don't think you'll be able to play through a game based solely on the lacklustre gameplay, then you probably ought to think twice before purchasing the game. If you are a Dynasty Warriors fan, or a Gundam fan, this game is different and interesting and very much worthy of your playtime. This title is very much a love-it or hate-it kind of game, and a lot of that depends on where you're coming from.
As a fan of both the myriad series' of the Gundam Universe and the myriad games of the Dynasty Warriors series, I can say with great certainty that this is THE game I've been waiting for. It is perfect and I love--and so will you, if you're anything like me.
Rating: 20/20
Final Score: 83/100
