The original Gundam Battle Assault shows promise, but isn't quite there yet.
Yes, this is the premise of the first Gundam Battle Assault. This was originally the sequel to the original, Japan-only "Gundam The Battle Master" - it was similar to this game, and had the exact same mobile suits (except for one...more on that a little later....), but completely original characters. The original Japanese version was the same in that.
But in bringing it to NA, Bandai cleverly changed those original characters back to the original Gundam Universal Century characters (Yes, Amuro, Char, and others are in this game.) However, to captialize on the popularity of Gundam Wing (the megapopular, and only Gundam series in NA at the time), two Wing characters were included. Heero and his Wing Gundam, and Trieze, who ended up as the final boss. (Zechs, however, was given a mention, which kinda made the Zechs fans, like myself, happy.)
The story mode is simple. The main character Heero (yes, Heero is the main character.) wants to stop war from happening again, and he must go through all of the Universal Century characters in his way to get to the mastermind of the war, Trieze. Heero can choose from his selection of mobile suits, ranging from his Wing Gundam, to a multitude of Universal Century mobile suits, including those from Char's Counterattack.
There are a few tough bosses in story mode, mainly because they're cheap as hell *cough*PsychoGundam*cough* .......but you can run through the mode in about 1-2 hours, tops. Running through storymode with different suits to unlock hidden suits gives storymode a little more life, but not too much.
The graphics are solid, through and through. Just like it's successor, Gundam Battle Assault 2, the backgrounds are very well done, and interesting to see. The Mecha Fighters themselves look good, especially being 2-D representations of themselves. The human pilots of the suits look like they were taken out of their respective animes (with a graphical updates for a few of the earlier pilots, of course.), so this is a very strong category for the game.
The controls are easy. You should have no problem with them, since they are very simple to learn. Combos are a little tougher, but they usually are in the first place. With some effort, you should be able to get the hang of the combo system in no time.
The game can be found for less than 10 dollars, used. (I found my copy at 6 dollars, actually), so if you're a Gundam fan, and can't find your copy of Gundam Battle Assault 2, go for it. If you're not really a Gundam fan, you won't get much out of this game.
Final Rating : 6.7 - fair.