Koei's director has been taking a hold of his safety net of grade D replay value and mechanics for too long to handle
*-----Modes:
In Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 you may participate in Official Mode, Mission Mode, Versus, or Online; you may select from close to 30 pilots and then select 1 of 40 or 50 for that pilot to occupy in a select mission. The first two of four modes allow you to fight alongside a second player on your console and possibly an online friend instead.
Official Mode is in reference to four original characters and their original storylines from their respective anime series--Char, Amuro, Judau, and Kamille. Each of the four characters have 6-7 missions--in exception to Amuro and Char who have 10-11--with intermediate encyclopedic entries on what took place between them for you to read. These missions place you in the mobile suit of the pilot's choice from their story and have you fight on one of 10 battlefields against the organization who opposes that character; each entry will take you around 10-15 minutes. There are two endings for each character--one good and bad ending per se--which are determined by the end result of a few select events--the events being easy to avoid and not complicated--in the final mission as that character.
In Mission Mode you play as a pilot of your choice and participate as that pilot in multiple sub-modes, but these sub-modes are only different in what you receive from them/who has your allegiance -- you're not actually doing anything different. Your first option is Story Mode, which allows you to select from five different missions in the order that they are completed, each having a small dialogue entry before the start of the mission between character A, B, and possibly C without any voice-acting.
Now there is one special pre-condition for relatively 60% of the missions in Mission Mode, and that is getting to a relationship level--ambivalence -> trust -> friend--with a select character for the sake of Friendship missions, missions where you have access to the license of their mobile suit--assuming they have one--and possibly--and ever so randomly--an invite from their organization so you can assist them in 2-3 spare missions. The problem with this seemingly sophisticated game element is the simple fact that you will never know when a character of your choice may appear whether as an enemy or an ally unless they are a major character/will be seen a lot/easy to become friends with. There are a few joke missions that you can use to recover trust if need be but it's just impossible to follow a directive/plan ahead when randomness decides your relations every time. The majority of the achievements also rely on this too meaning you will easily devote 100 hours alone to this mode if you adamantly care about achieving them.
The other two modes are Versus and Online; the former places you as player 1 against player 2--who has to be a human--in a timed-objective mode, sudden-death, or a cheap runaway-attack simulation while the latter does the same only with online players 2-4 instead.
*-----GameplayControls:
The mass of players will be/have been turned off by the gameplay of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 for very specific reasons, and I will admit that if the theme didn't involve gundam I would have never purchased the game knowing what would be required of me mission after mission no matter the mode I'm doing them in. In three words: simplicity with repetition.
As you select a pilot for a mobile suit the only difference will be for a few of their catchphrases and a grunt or two -- the mobile suit you pilot is the deciding factor for the gameplay. Just like in Samurai Warriors/Dynasty Warriors those mobile suits will have a maximum of 6 single-strike X hits with 6 single -> two-strike Y hits. The new mechanic, however, is a "boost" attack, which is a simple press of the A button following Y2 or above that causes your mobile suit to lunge forward a few feet. LB is for camera self-righting, RB is for thrusting in the air, A is for thrusting in the direction that you are facing, B is for your air and ground special, and the R trigger is for a delayed block.
There will be around 10 levels for you to take part in, each of which don't offer any interaction. While your objective is to defeat officers on a moderately large battlefield the majority of your time will be spent fighting brainless enemies who group together in large masses and only attack you in ratios of one to three hits every thirty seconds; the mobile suits they pilot are grunts who have X+8 with no Y, which is partially the reason.
Other than mentioning secondary playable mobile suits who only have X+4 and Y+4 for their moveset in each mission you will follow very simple objectives, but most of them happen erratically/you can't control their outcome because of systematic problems. There are six mobile armors for you to fight against, however at random intervals: Big Zam, Devil Gundam, Quin Mantha--which isn't actually a mobile armor, it just happens to be as big as one--Alpha, Psycho Gundam MK I, and Psycho Gundam MK II.
*-----Sound/Graphics:
The voice actors translate into a pretty nice sounding group of people, none of which are your typical street-found amateurs like in most games; but most of the dialogue seems to be directed towards kids because of how simpleminded/presumptive some of the characters are (i.e. "Don't you understand wars can only lead to future fighting?!"). The sound effects are quite common found as well with a few original sounds from the Gundam series.
The graphics have to be the most mediocre aspect in this game: the mobile suits/ground don't have any texture, the movements aren't very fluid, sprites are frequent in the space environments; it basically looks the same as its PS2 port.
*-----Achievements/Replay Value:
The only replay value in this game comes from Mission Mode, which is basically a time absorbing mechanism which, like I mentioned, makes you rely on a margin of randomness close to 100% -- obviously in the context of forming good relations with select characters. And this mode is where in lies the heavily time consuming achievements such as "All Friendship" for 50G or "Mission Mode: All Characters" for another 50G. Achievements are your achilles heel in this game, my suggestion would be to forget about them unless you're prepared to give up x number of hours to unlock a few of your favorite Gundam characters.
*---Conclusion:
In conclusion Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is a fair game that could have easily been made good or great if not directed by the director of Koei, and the sad part is it could have met at least a 7 without touching the mechanics if the replay value wasn't grade D and the achievements/the gist of the reward for playing weren't blisteringly tedious to the point that there isn't reason to play it for long at all. Well at least I satisfied my desire to play a Gundam title in North America after all of these years, but there's nothing to be proud of with this memo. My recommendation: rent. Final rating: 5/10