This game takes you through the story of Mobile Suit Gundam in 9 missions.
On their way to earth they are intercepted by more of the same bad guys that attacked the space colony and doomed it to destruction. Their name is the Republic of Zeon and they are hell-bent on independence from the earth even if that means conquering it. The Zeon forces try to stop White Base at every turn but thanks to Amuro and the Gundam as well as the Guntank, Guncannon and the rest of the crew of White Base are forced to retreat. The fight follows them to earth and just keeps getting tougher and tougher.
The story is filled with drama, action, excitement, suspense, sadness and more. The story is almost entirely told through long anime sequences that are basically the parts of the story without big battles summed up in five minute cut-scenes.
Sadly, it’s not the whole story of Mobile Suit Gundam, it ends in Jaburo as the Title of the game suggests but it’s told excellently.
The gameplay is great looking but takes getting used to as the controls are a bit clunky and somewhat less functional then one would hope. The story missions are pretty cool, you pick one of 3 weapons then launch. You usually have allies fighting with you but they aren’t very effective or efficient. You can jump, fly, shoot beams or bazookas, slash with a beam saber, slam enemies with the Gundam Hammer and even step on smaller enemies like tanks and turrets. As you progress though story mode you earn “new type” rankings. The purpose of these is to beat your score in free mission and if you get high scores in all of them, you unlock bonuses. These bonuses consist of bonus FMVs that include cameos of characters from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam: the 8th MS team, Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: The Blue Destiny, Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From The Ashes and more as well as trailers for upcoming games and the in-game cut scenes. The extra missions you can unlock let you use EFA and Zeon mobile suits from Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam: the 8th MS team, Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: The Blue Destiny and Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From The Ashes to do enjoyable side missions. The side missions don’t allow equipment change but have the same controls and same style of play.
The graphics are pretty darn good. The environments are huge 3D landscapes but do have boundaries. Everything in the environment is destroyable and usually breaks after 1-3 shots or if you stand on a building it’ll be 1-5 seconds before it collapses. The mobile suits, ships, planes and tanks look great and are rendered in 3D just like the environment. Each weapon has its own look and feel and reacts well with the environment. For example; if a Zaku II explodes next to a building, the building burns up.
The cut-scenes are in DVD quality Anime. They tell the story while looking fantastic.
Unlinke most Gundam games, the sound in the game isn’t how it should be. The music overpowers everything else. If someone comes up on screen talking mid-battle, you won’t hear it unless you pause. The voice acting is very weak in-battle, even the sound effects over-power it. The in-game music and voice-overs are strait rips from the “Mobile Suit Gundam” anime with nothing fancy added other then the bonus stuff which are all new recordings.
The over-all sound quality is pretty good but it just doesn’t mix together well.
As for replay value; after the surprisingly short story mode the bonus stuff should keep you interested at least until you have tried all the mobile suits. After that however; it’s unlikely to keep your interest unless you are a die-hard Gundam fan.
If you want to know weather or not to buy this, the simple answer is this; the game is short, a 7 day rental is long enough to beat the story mode and try out all the bonus stuff. The game is definitely worth a rent if you are a mech junky or MSG fan. Sadly, unless you are a collector or hardcore MSG fan it’s just not worth a buy.