Unlike many of the Gundam titles released for the previous generation of consoles, Dynasty Warriors Gundam is not a third-person shooter, but rather a free-roam hack-and-slash title based of the Dynasty Warriors franchise. Though still aimed largely at die-hard Gundam fans, this title may succeed in drawing some gamers unfamiliar with Gundam due to its accessibility and replay value.
Players can choose to play two major modes in Dynasty Warriors Gundam. The first is more objective-based and requires players to play out major battles from the main Universal Century Gundam series, including Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, and Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam. There are only so many missions to each of the main protagonists of each series, but these missions are fairly lengthy and feel rather involved and true to the respective shows as all the characters involved in said conflicts enter the fray.
The second major mode of gameplay involves an original story surrounding a mysterious planet on collision course with Earth, as well as constant appearances by the Shin-Musha Gundam. This mode involves major characters from both the Universal Century and Alternate Universes, such as Amuro Ray, Kamille Bidan, Heero Yuy, and Loran Cehack. Each character plays a different role in this overarching original story, and players will have to complete all of these individual story modes to complete the entire Shin-Musha Gundam storyline. Each major character is granted a squad of support units, usually secondary characters from various Gundam series (i.e. Master Asia, Roberto, Scirocco, etc.). Each mission will then pit the player and his/her squad against that of a CPU squad. So if, say, you were to play as Amuro (assisted by Char, Apolly, and Roberto) you would face off against Loran’s squad, then Domon’s squad, then Judau’s squad, and so on as each mission was completed.
A multiplayer split-screen mode is also included, which allows players to play cooperatively in the missions included in the official series. This inclusion wasn’t exactly necessary and probably would have been more effective for online play, but is still a nice addition to the game.
The sheer number of mobile suits and characters that collide from the various Gundam universes will make any hardcore Gundam fan feel like a kid in a candy store. Any characters from Gundam series that received English dubs over the years are voiced well-enough, even if the voices aren’t all provided by the anime voice actors. Characters from ZZ and Turn A Gundam, however, are voiced by actors who deliver emotionless lines one after another. Granted, they are likely unfamiliar with the series, but faking emotion would have been better than not delivering any at all. The game does provide the option of turning on the Japanese voice actors if players find the English voices annoying.
As players enter each new area of the battlefield, they are alerted to their current position at the top of the screen and can then determine via the field’s meter how many enemies need to be defeated before the field’s defenses fall. As nice as this is, most players will probably rely more heavily on the smaller radar screen in the corner of the screen in order to navigate the battlefield. As for controls, moving about a level is as simple as pressing forward on the left joystick, and steering with the right. The rifle attacks, beam sword/melee attacks, and boost ability can all be used by the pressing of a single button each and the basic attacks quickly build up a character’s meter to unleash their more powerful attacks. As players progress through the game and level up the characters and mobile suits, new and more powerful attacks are learned.
The game’s graphic aren’t going to win the developers any awards, but they are far from terrible. There is plenty of detail put into each player-controlled mobile suit, and the laser shots and beam saber slashes react just fine with the game’s frame rate. The enemy mobile suits, which usually attack in massive hordes, are lacking a bit in detail, though this may have been intentional to prevent players from losing sight of their Gundam in the sea of enemies. There are significantly more detailed models of every mobile suit encountered in the game accessible for viewing in the gallery. As for the characters, there are no computer-generated models, rather the game just uses their original anime drawn likenesses during mission briefings or for mid-battle transmissions.
While it may not be the greatest hack-and-slash action game this generation, Dynasty Warriors Gundam deserves some credit as being one of the best Gundam titles released to date. It’s obvious that plenty of time was spent in making each unit unique and the two story modes cohesive. The combat itself would have greatly benefitted from some variation in attacks and more mobility for players, but the fact that there is a level-up system as well as some minor customization included makes up for some of this. All in all, this game is still going to be more for hardcore Gundam fans, but might find a decent number of fans outside of the Gundam fanbase.
My rating: 7.25 (out of 10)
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