Gundam: the Battle Master melds two popular Japanese concepts: fighting games and big, goofy robots. The result: Battle Master is an interesting game and it looks nice, but it really lacks any long-term value.
Gundam is a popular anime series that revolves around gigantic robots and the pilots that fly them. These robots run around the galaxy, blowing each other up. And now it's a fighting game - and not a very interesting one, at that. The mobile suits aren't very agile, and most of them have nearly identical moves: a punch, a kick, a laser blast, a sword attack, and a booster that allows them to fly around the arena at will. There are also a few special moves, but most of those are mirrored between bots as well. The only real differences, besides appearance, are the speed and range of the various mechs. So the strategies are fairly simple: Pick one of the faster suits, do a jumping kick to the opponent's head, then strike with the sword as many times as possible. Repeating this process will ensure that the time it takes to beat the game is minimal. Two-player mode isn't quite as easy, but the game just isn't exciting enough to warrant multiple plays.
The graphics and animation in Battle Master are quite good for a 2-D fighting game. The characters are very large, and some of the bosses take up more than one full screen. And even though they are large, they still animate very well. The backgrounds are also nice-looking. The speech and music are good as well, and the sound effects (clanging metal, explosions, etc.) are very good.
All in all, Gundam is mostly a failure. Sure, the graphics and sound are good, but the gameplay just drags it down to the realm of boring games. If you're a Gundam freak, well, you probably already own this and are halfway through your e-mail to me that details why Battle Master is better than Street Fighter Alpha 2. For the rest of you out there, don't bother with Gundam. If you've absolutely got to have an import fighting game, get Tobal 2. Or something.
