A Robot Playground
The gameplay for DW: Gundam is like that of previous Dynasty Warriors titles. The buttons are very simple: a button for melee attacks, a charge button, and a SP attack button. In standard DW style, pressing the charge button after melee attacks allow for differing attacks at the end of a combo. This game includes a dash button too, which actually adds a decent element to the gameplay. The dash allows you to quickly move around the battlefield, escape more effectively from enemies, as well as to get around an enemies’ guard. You can also launch into a dash at the end of your stationary combo to land up to three more attacks. The SP attacks gain power as your Mobile Suit level increases. There are three levels that your SP gauge can achieve, each one adding new elements to the attacks it unleashes.
This work includes fields, which are areas on the battlefield that can be captured or eliminated. Within these fields, the controlling force’s mobile suits are enhanced, losing life less quickly. Fields can link to other friendly fields, further augmenting their strengths. Capturing the fields requires dispatching the standard mobile suits within it. Some fields will then come under your control, while others will then require you to defeat one to three defense Guards or an Ace pilot. Fields give a purpose to the constant slaughter of the many standard mobile suits.
The only real challenge to the game lies in battling the enemy’s Ace pilots, since standard Mobile Suits are easily dispatched in a few hits. Rather than the previous DW method of overlapping attacks with enemy officers resulting in a button mashing frenzy to acquire advantage, DW: Gundam now causes both your character and the enemy to step away from each other and receive a short bonus to attack.
Your Newtype Skills
Your characters gain stats by acquiring pilot points and gaining pilot levels. Each pilot also gains Mobile Suit points and levels, which also increases stats for that pilot while in that particular MS. Equipping parts found from defeated Ace pilots and capturing fields also increases your attack power, defense, as well as vitality. These parts are not extinguished after a mission, but instead will always be available to that character. The parts belong to one of six different engineers. Parts belonging to the same engineer increase the effect of the other parts from that engineer. Some combinations of parts may also result in a special ability. Your pilots also receive various skills to select from to further increase their abilities in the field. Usually the abilities are things like increasing your damage with a higher combo counter, or a certain percentage of your attacks breaking enemy guards.
The game offers an Official and Original mode of play. The Official Mode sets you on a campaign based on the Gundam series set in the Universal Century. No backstory was included to this mode of play, so unless you follow the show you will feel a little lost as the game thrusts you directly into fight between the AEUG, Titans, and the Axis forces. The Original Mode, not derived from any Gundam canon, opens a campaign involving most of the characters and a mysterious planet that appears and heads toward earth. A few of the playable characters include Kamille Bidan, Amuro Ray, Judau Ashtau, Paptimus Scirocco, and Haman Karn.
Battles take place either in space or planetside. Very little difference exists between the mechanics of the two locales though. Both occur along a 2D plane, but on the planets inclines and valleys are included. The environments look decent, but there is not a lot to them. The characters’ voices also are adequate.
The Gundam Way
Neither Official Mode nor Original Mode is all that long. It may only take you a couple hours to play through the entire campaign for a given character. However, completing the campaigns unlocks various characters to play as well as different mobile suits to choose. Depending on which character you choose, the story plays out a little differently each time by giving that character’s perspective on the battles they participate in as the story. Character’s campaigns vary in their assignment as well as the number they consist of. Given that there are over a dozen different characters between the two modes of play, provides reason to play through the campaigns several different times.
The game poses an appropriate difficulty. The numerous, weaker enemies do not present very much of a challenge while Ace pilots can be troublesome at times, especially when two are more take you on at once, but usually are not too much to handle. Increase the difficulty to Hard and then not only will the enemy Ace pilots do more damage and be harder to land unblocked blows, but the standard Mobile Suits will tend to attack a bit more. This can, while providing more of a challenge, be a little frustrating if you try to fight amidst a large group of enemies. While you focus your attention on an Ace pilot, a grunt blasts you from the crowd, knocking you down. This tends to promote the necessity of the player to increase their mobility and constantly move about. Dashing was very important to survival on the harder difficulty. Some of the best parts available for your mobile suit are only available from playing on the hard difficulty as well.
The game presents an experience not unlike that of previous Dynasty Warriors iterations. Nothing groundbreaking has been done to the gameplay yet the game itself feels like it possesses a better pace. The standard Mobile Suits you encounter actually need to be destroyed to capture fields, whether for strategic purposes or to bring out some Ace pilot.