G@mers Reviews
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Dynasty Warriors: Gundam What do you get when you cross everyone’s favourite Koei franchise with a long running anime series? No, not Samurai Warriors: Neon Genesis Evangelion, but Dynasty Warriors: Gundam. It’s taken quite a while to reach our shores, mainly as all shipping vessels containing copies were constantly being destroyed by Zeon. Don’t sound too surprised though, they’ve been destroying Nintendo and Sony vessels headed to our shores for years!! Gundam games have been usually are a bit, well… crap in the past, with the odd exception of titles such as Gundam AD0079: Rise from the Ashes on the Dreamcast, they’ve been more or less been Armored Core clones since that series’ inception, so tagging the license along with a well loved franchise such as Dynasty Warriors which has it’s cult following already can surely be a good thing? |
It’s actually not too bad, once you get your head round the first impressions of it being just a regular edition Dynasty Warriors with a Gundam sprite swap, it’s quite an enjoyable game, in some ways even adds to the Dynasty Warriors franchise, the first thing that’s different is that it’s done away with the ability to conquer sections of the map by ignoring all the infantry and going straight for the Gate Master (who for those who’ve never played a Dynasty Warriors game before, Gate Masters control a gateway to the map where enemies will constantly respawn until He’s/She’s defeated – which basically means beating the crud out of them non-stop until they’re dead, as they rarely put up a fight) and instead opted for an enemy balance bar, where you or the A.I. need to defeat a set amount of enemies before claiming the area. Dynasty Warriors: Gundam’s single player campaign has been split into two main modes. The first, “Official Mode” contains six playable characters and follows the storyline of the original 80’s anime series and continues on with the Zeta Gundam and ZZ Gundam series later on. While the second “Original Mode” doesn’t exactly cover any storyline from the anime and instead combines the characters from G Gundam, Gundam Wing and Turn-A Gundam in a story about a mysterious red planet on a collision course with Earth. Gundam pilots from different times in history joining forces to save the planet, so it’s basically Star Trek: Generations meets Armageddon with slightly less over the top acting and no Bruce Willis. The game retains some of the old niggles that all previous Dynasty Warriors (and some Samurai Warriors titles) have like the fact when you’re low on energy, you spend ten minutes scouring the entire map looking for health in crates that you hopefully haven’t already destroyed looking for other goodies (the series is in desperate need of a rechargeable health bar now) and battles with more than one boss at a time usually has the other guy getting cheap shots on you by hitting you when you’re in the middle of a combo attack on the other. The other frustration is the fact there’s no vehicles in the game this time, which have been a staple in the DW series since Dynasty Warriors 4 Extreme, with Horses and Elephants, All there is to traverse quickly is a dash button which you constantly need to press to boost and then need to let recharge, Gundam suits can fly for hundreds of miles into space for flips sake, so why not on land? It’s still got Hundreds of enemies who stumble around that might as well have “Kill me next” signs attached to them, as well as team mates that stand around doing nothing in the middle of a battle, but the new additions like the enemy control bar as I said earlier almost make this game feel rather fresh and unique and I’d even go as far as to say it’s the best Dynasty Warriors title I’ve seen for a while. The PS3 version also sold over 100,000 copies on its first day in Japan, making it the fastest selling PS3 game ever. So a Hundred Thousand Japanese people can’t be wrong, (then again, they did also do the same with Blue Dragon so I may have contradicted myself there ^_^). It’s a great game in short bursts (not because it gets boring, but because by the time a round ends you’ll be knackered from all the button bashing). I do want to proclaim it as a brainless button-masher, but it’s far from it, you need to decide flanking tactics, risking going for enemy hubs rather than picking off stragglers at the side, you’ll need to use your ol’ noggin if you want to get anywhere in this game! And finally because of its simplistic controls, it’s fun for the Hardcore and Casuals alike. So if you’ve never played a Dynasty Warriors title before, you definitely couldn’t go wrong starting with this one!
8 / 10 |
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