The Mobile Suit Gundam anime franchise has a big long running history as it is a series that birthed and popularized not only the mech suit anime but also just mech suit genre in all of culture all over the global landscape which is still a thing throughout the industry. While mech suits were a thing in japan but the west did have a culture of wanting big giant mech suit armour vehicles especially when kids used to collect toy robot models. Gundam has always been an anime series about political war dramas between earth and space federation forces, people getting the Noa Bright slap as a means of correcting those who fall out of line, this one person who never betrayed anybody in his entire life and of course mech suits, giant mech suit robots called mobile suits just engaging in fierce ranged and melee brawling combat. It wasn't till the 2000s when Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made its debut on British Televisions on Cartoon Network's Toonami where people got to see a Gundam Anime series on TV which helped to popularize the series outside Japan and also allow more Mobile Suit Gundam series to air in the west.
Of course, we are not here to talk about anime and all that we are here to talk about video games. Well Gundam has also made it to several different video game adaptations targeting multiple genres, from strategy games, to action games and also fighting games. While a number of those games never came outside Japan but still a decent number of games made their way to the west. The most popular Mobile Suit Gundam game I can remember is one based on Mobile Suit Gundam Wing with Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Duel for the Super Famicom (the Japanese Super Nintendo) a game that combined the best of 16-bit era fighting games with superb visuals, an excellent soundtrack, a fun and engaging battle system and it is a fairly challenging fighting game that's held back by a rather small character roaster. Getting your hands on either a Rom file or a reproduction cartridge of an English Patched game is pretty much easy to get your hands on through online auction sites and websites where trusted people make reproduction carts and the game itself is worthwhile to any Gundam fan and SNES game collectors
Bandai Namco in recent years had its share of live service online games like with what they have been doing with the Dragon Ball and Tales of games and Gundam has been in the live service arena with the Battle Operation games and the latest game in the series to get that treatment is Gundam Evolution which is a free-to-play online multiplayer team based first person shooter following the successes of games like Overwatch and Paladins. It came out in September 2022 for the PC and eventually for PlayStation and Xbox Series X/S consoles in December.
In the game you get to pilot mechs called Mobile Suits of varying play-style that appeared in a Gundam anime series throughout the 40+ year history. You have the original Mobile Suit Gundam which was from the original 1979 series as well as a Guntank and also a Zaku II which is an improved variant of a Zaku model because a Zaku II 'Ain't no ordinary Zaku', you also have a Pale Rider serving as a balanced all round Mobile Suit, a Gundam Barbatos from Iron Blooded Orphans for close quarters combat, a GM Sniper II as well as transforming Methuss and Asshimar. All of the Mobile Suits in the game operate as different classes that you can pick which allows for a different play-style that you prefer. If one Mobile Suit might not work out well for you can swap out at a spawn point to choose a different Mobile Suit to use during a match which is a great way to see which one benefits the most for you, the only exception that you don't get any kind of handy messages on the selection screen reminding you that your team might need a healer or any Mobile Suit that would benefit giving your team an advantage.
As for the gameplay Gundam Evolution is a 6-on-6 team based FPS that focuses heavily on team-based objectives, two teams try to fight over an objective. You have three main game modes, Domination has teams trying to take points on the map that flip around between three on the map, Point Capture is where the attacking team has to take both target locations on the map while the defending has to prevent them from being taken, and then there is Destruction where the attacking team has to plant a Mega-Charge bomb on two target areas while the defending team has to go up and defuse any bombs planted. Every match is round based and always goes for two rounds, if one team manages to get a percentage of the mission progress above the other team in the second round than they win the match but if two teams win the attacking phases during Point Capture or Destruction both teams go into a tie breaker. Each match can last from roughly 10 minutes to about 20 minutes and the nature of the combat that comes from players engaging in mech fights against each other does make for tense matches. “Communication is key” when trying to coordinate with players to complete the mission objective and it is easy enough to get to the objective area thanks to the on-screen objective marker and floor path signs that tell you where to go, while you can use pins and give point outs to let other players know where to go often other players tend to just wonder off and not focus on team coordination. Success of a match depends on how well teams work together and clear their enemies off the objective point.
Each of the Mobile Suit mechs have different varying abilities to use in combat which are either offensive or support abilities that buff you or your allies and like other team-based shooters they are operated on a cooldown as well as having different amounts of Health. Every Mobile Suit has a G-maneuver which is their ultimate attack that charges and can be used when it is ready and while some of the G-maneuvers will take some getting used to because some aren't easy to control well a G-maneuver can turn the tide of an epic battle. Playing as one of the Mobile Suits in the game is fun though utilizing one of your abilities on top of firing away with a Mobile Suit's main weapon. I have played with the vast majority of the Mobile Suit mechs that this game has available and I enjoy using at least 3 to 4 Mobile Suits in rotation.
One thing that needs to be mentioned about this game is how the Mobile Suits function in combat and this is where the similarities to Overwatch come in. If you watched any of the Mobile Suit Gundam animes you should know a Mobile Suit can specialize in both ranged & melee brawling combat so some suits would be able to bring out a laser sword or be able to grab or throw or just outright hand to hand combat if an enemy got close. In this game however those rules don't apply here because they have been altered and designed so that they can be suited for the game being an online multiplayer FPS like Overwatch, this means no one is going to pull out a laser sword anytime for combat as a last resort and there is no dedicated melee button just like in those other hero team-based shooters. Their movement and also their movement speed kind of makes them feel more like a human FPS character than a mech including the foot-stomps they make doesn't give out a loud impact which doesn't give you the feeling of controlling one of those giant Mobile Suit mechs from the anime, compared to Armored Core on the PSOne where you hear loud foot-stomps as you move your mech which is a superb and more satisfying impact of piloting one of those giant unstoppable machines of destruction. The movement controls for the Mobile Suits are decent and handle pretty well and each Mobile Suit has different amounts of dashes they can use to either boost or to evade attacks. The only downside to the movement is with the DOM Trooper which handles rather awkwardly when trying to move around as it continues to slide around even when you let go of the Left Stick. For the most part Mobile Suits do handle fine when you take the time to get used to how they function. Some Mobile Suits do function similar to Overwatch's characters like Pale Rider functions like Solider 76 from Overwatch as it has a machine gun, grenades and also a repair pod much like Soldier 76's medikit ability.
When playing my matches, I like going in and spray firing with Guntank's guns which damages a group of enemies when locked on by its crosshairs when I'm behind the squad, launching a surprise attack in the air with Asshimar's burst fire weapon and grenades, I also enjoyed using Pale Rider by firing away while tossing out a repair pod when allies are close by and doing the fighting. I also had fun using Unicorn Gundam's buffs and healing abilities and wreaking havoc with its machine gun alongside its G-maneuver railgun to blow up whatever is standing in its way.
I do find the balance of the Mobile Suits to be mostly fine as the majority of them seem to get the job done just as long as teams are working together but some of them don't seem to do much damage as some others, then you have Barbatos who has a charge attack and also one attack which it can go into the air and then strike down from above and both those abilities can stunlock a player easily which lead to getting deaths and it becomes annoying to get hit by Barbatos' charged attack and there is nothing you can do. You just have to keep your distance from a Barbatos player and try to evade whenever possible and often times I get hit by it no matter how many times I try to get away from it. I also find that some of the magazine sizes for weapons is a little too low meaning that you'll be reloading constantly and Zaku II (Ranged) burns through its magazines insanely fast and I disliked that when they released the console version, they lowered its magazine size which was kind of stupid and pointless.
Bandai Namco is continuing to support the game by making adjustments to currently existing Mobile Suits to ensure balance as well as fixing any bugs, glitches or any other kind of technical problems that users occur. Still the game is really enjoyable though when several giant Mobile Suits from the anime series engage in combat with each other, when teammates actually work together to complete objectives it becomes so satisfying to win a match after a very tense fight.
There are about eighteen Mobile Suits available for the game to play as at launch, twelve of them are available to start with while six of them which includes Marasai (UC), Nu Gundam and the aforementioned Gundam Unicorn have to be purchased with currency to unlock them, the same goes for any new Mobile Suit that gets added in with each new season update. Keep in mind Gundam Evolution is a free-to-play game that has microtransactions where you can choose to spend real money to get the other Mobile Suits. There are currency options available for buying a new Mobile Suit, first is CAPs which are either earned either through Season Pass progression which you get only a few of them for free with each Season Pass, completing the beginner challenges or through other kind of promotional events which might throw some at you. The other currency you can use to them is EVO Coins which is what you can spend real life money on through microtransactions, each Mobile Suit costs 990 EVO coins which in real life money would cost just about £7.99 where as it costs 1980 CAPs to unlock one of them and if you want to get all six of the purchasable suits it costs roughly £48.00 in total. Seeing as CAPs as something you rarely ever get and have to be earned through playtime requirements, you'll likely will eventually unlock at least one Mobile Suit either it is one of the launch suits or one of the new suits that gets added but that takes a lot of playtime just to unlock one. This was done as a way of trying to force people to fork over some cash just to get the other Mobile Suits they might want to play as. You don't need to spend real money to get the most out of the game because the twelve Mobile Suits you start playing with as just as effective and aren't too difficult to control or take on as with any of the purchasable Mobile Suits which prevents the game from being a Pay-to-Win game. Also, you do have Daily and Weekly Challenges that you can do for experience points which help to speed up the progression.
The last currency option is Material Points which are earned through Supply Pods which is this game's version of loot crates that offer up skins & other kinds customization items. If you have Tickets than you can then spend them on Supply Pods to get more kinds of customization items that you can get for your Mobile Suits and if you get skins that you already own than they are turned into Material Points which you can use to unlock skins or any other kinds of cosmetic pieces. Cosmetics range from Unit Skins and Weapon Skins which alter the appearance of your Mobile Suits, you also have Ornaments which you can add to your Mobile Suit, alongside stamps and emotes to show off to your buddies on your team as well as MvP animations which you can either get with Material Points or by getting lucky from a Supply Drop. You can also choose what type of pilot voice you want for each Mobile Suit as well which range of different generic male and female voices which either sound British but not as British as Bright Noa's early English Dub take, someone who sounds cocky, someone sounding somewhat enthusiastic to fight to someone who sounds seriously bored. You'll get skins that range from Normal, Rare and Legendary with Normal skins being common and only cost 15 Material Points whereas Rare Skins can cost up to 300 Material Point and Legendary Skins being the most expensive and cost a whooping 600 Material Points, for a single skin. On top of that there are also customizable items for your game profile as well from player icons to portraits which also range from cheap to overly expensive for what they are worth so unless you really want icons showing characters from the series including one of possibly what you consider as your choice of anime waifu you are going to need to grind a lot of Material Points to get them.
On top of all that the game has a Premium Season Pass which you can also buy for £7.99 which grants you exclusive skins and profile customization items as well that you can't get for free as well as some EVO Coins and deploy animations. You'll also unlock Premium Challenges which you can do as well for extra experience points to get the progression going. Some of the skins can also be purchased in a shop as well which costs EVO Coins alongside any kind of promotional deals that the dev team throws in. Now are the microtransactions egregious or as bad as in Overwatch 2? Well, it's kind of isn't. Sure, it does cost a fair amount of money to get the Mobile Suits you want and it does take considerable time playtime to unlock a single one of them as well but you are not going to be worrying about skins or any other kind of customization stuff when some of them are giving to you through promotional events. It is kind of what you would expect from a Live Service Online game but again there is nothing in the game that is pay-to-win and you don't have to spend real money to get the most out of the game.
There are dozens of moments when everything clicks together and matches becoming tense and enjoyable when everyone is teaming up and actually playing the game the way, it is meant to be played, teaming up, holding the line against enemies and taking over the objective before the other team does.
However, the biggest issue with this game is the server migration and just much of a poor job the dev team is handling it, at the moment the game doesn't have a big player base but you can still get enough people to start a match at least for casual matches. Being a European gamer playing on strictly European Servers I had times I could connect to Casual Matches fine but other times it would take a while to find another match to play. Keep in mind that Bandai Namco released the game for PC and PlayStation and Xbox Consoles and while PlayStation 4 & 5 players can connect and play together this game disappointingly has no Cross-Play support which results in a limited player base that makes matches take longer to find and get started which is something you don't want in a multiplayer game in the current generation.
Getting Ranked Matches to start, however, is a serious problem, searching for Ranked Matches takes a ridiculous amount of time to start and at times no matter how long you sit for a match it just never seems to start at all. Now to be able to play Ranked Matches every player needs to be at least Level 20 but anybody who bought the Premium Season Pass can get instant access to it anytime during the course of the season. The only times I was able to get Ranked Matches to start up at all was by switching to Japanese Servers because for whatever reason the player base especially for English speaking players chooses to play on Japanese Servers and playing on those servers causes the game to lag really badly. Bandai Namco has been trying to deal with the issue by combining European and American servers together and while getting Casual Matches now has gotten better getting Ranked Matches on the now combined server has been impossible for me and I still had to rely on Japanese Servers to get them to start. What doesn't help is that the Ranked Matches use a ranking system to put players on an even rank as each other player, the way it is supposed to work is that every time you finish a match point is determined if you win or lose. If you win matches, you'll earn points and win enough matches you'll move up in Rank which go from Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and lastly Newtype. If you lose matches however you'll lose points and while the ranking system means that it shows how well you are doing in the game and whereas after a one match win you'll get about maybe around 50 points where as the match you lose afterwards you'll might end up losing 60 or so points and I just think that the system of losing points is a little too unfair because you'll end up losing a number of points than you really should be which makes earning progress all for nothing. Losing enough points will also demote your rank which can sometimes make getting into another match in Ranked Matches more time-consuming and difficult. Usually when I tried to go the Gold Ranker Trophy I would get into a good streak of wins and close to reaching Gold Rank only to then end up getting into a streak of loses where my teammates kept being idiots and getting us killed all the time and screwing up which ended up me going from Sliver 1st Class down to Bronze 1st Class which shows just how punishing and unfair the system can be. I know that if people on your team leave before the matches ends after a time it will reduce the amount the points you lose when it eventually ends but honestly it shouldn't really take too many points off the player to begin with.
You can party up with friends or groups to play matches together but however for Ranked Matches you still need to make sure that their points range is enough to get Ranked Matches to start and also as of the current update you can't have five or six people in the party to play Ranked Matches and partying becomes unavailable for Ranked Matches if anyone in a party is Diamond or above. Regardless if you are playing with either parties or playing with randoms the Ranked Matches are a pain to get started and it is even more of a pain that the ranking system is a little unfair in terms of point progression. Looking at another free-to-play FPS like Splitgate it has Ranked Matches which put into a match with players of equal rank and even if you lose a match, you don't lose a lot of points which don't discourage you for wanting to try again and get them back whereas in Gundam Evolution losing Ranked Matches just becomes brutal and frustrating.
Also, in terms of ways to play it is kind of low, you have only Casual Matches and Ranked Matches which play the same with no rule changes aside from the partying and Ranking Systems and with the Player Base that really isn't all that big can sometimes be difficult to get matches going, plus the console version lacks the Custom Match mode for whatever reason which is kind of odd to remove. There are only a few maps available and these maps range from a Missile Base, an Underground Command Centre, a Colony Trading Post, a Harbor City and Flak Fort. The maps aren't too bad and have a decent scale and size and lay out to them which are great enough to go around and flank enemies with the exception of the Point Capture Missions which for defending teams their spawn points are placed too far away which attacking teams a big advantage. There is no sadly no way to play the game with AI Bots but there is a Practice Mode where you can try out all of the available Mobile Suits against stationary targets that don't shoot back like as if shooting a bunch of Zakus standing still is going to prepare you for the ensuing chaos of the online multiplayer. Even Paladins has fantastic AI Bot support and is a great way to help players get used to the mechanics of the game especially getting used to new characters that get added in, Gundam Evolution just doesn't that kind of luxury, you just pick Casual or Ranked Matches in the correct server region and hope for the best.
The server netcode can also be a mess as well sometimes, like I said I can connect to matches on Casual Matches fine without them taking too long to get started but then other times I connect to a match only for one player to get booted out just as a match is about to start resulting in a match termination. I had this issue happen to me a couple of times where I was about to connect to a match and get started only for the server to then mess up and boot me back to the title screen. It's possible to reconnect and rejoin the match in session which is a great thing as it allows you to reconnect after something went wrong but other times it just doesn't. Leaving a match in progress results in a Timeout Penalty where you have to wait for a set timer to be able to join another match, the more times you do it the longer the time. You also lose Rank Points if you rage quit in a Ranked Match with you losing tons if you keep doing it, penalties and match terminations can happen frequently because of the servers constantly screwing up causing a disconnection and an unfair timeout penalty when it isn't their fault or rage quitting when things don't go their way. I made sure my internet was working and always checked my connection on my console and I can confirm that disconnections happen because of the server's netcode.
I had plenty of matches as well where teammates or enemy players would rage quit a match which causes teams to have an uneven match and lose just because they were getting killed so quickly. I even had a match where three out of six players on the enemy team rage quit a match in less than 56 seconds into the first round so people rage quitting is frequent and the servers are trying their hardest to punish those that constantly do it while trying also maintain stability. There is nothing more annoying than getting yourself into a match only for it to get cancelled when someone gets booted and even a match properly starts, you'll likely have someone rage quit a match about minute or so later. Having a low player base is one thing but having idiots abandon a match when a match is ongoing just ruins everybody's enjoyment and causes their team to lose badly.
While I'm one of those people that prefers the Jump Button in my FPS games to either be on the L1 or L2 Bumper and Trigger Buttons I don't get why the ability buttons are mapped by default on the Cross and Circle Buttons and L3 of all buttons to be the Interact Button on the PlayStation versions. Thankfully you can change the controls to how you like them, which is a good thing plus you can also play around with the crosshair and change its colour and style and also other controller accessibility options which are helpful.
Now like I said before that Bandai Namco is going to be constantly doing updates for the game and fixing all of the bugs, glitches and other issues people will have with the game as well as adding a Mobile Suit to play as and also in future add more maps and maybe a new game mode as well to play on. They altered Harbor City which people complained about was bad for the attacking team which I didn't find it honestly bad when I play on that map. They plan to also keep altering the Mobile Suits for balancing which might nerf some of them to upset people while buffing up others. They did add Heavyarms which was a Mobile Suit from Gundam Wing and best of all it is the model from the Gundam Wing Endless Waltz OVA as well as most recently Gundam Dynames a sniper class that also carries dual pistols. They even added a new map with its own game mode called Headquarters, the map is Buried city which takes place in a base that is located on a remote desert and the goal of Headquarters is to take control of the Control Point and once the winning team takes it, they can then enter the enemy base the attack the core. Points are rewarded for taking the Control Point and destroying the Core as well as the defending team managing to hold the attackers off by defending the core. The team that manages to get five points is declared the winner. While the updates especially the new Mobile Suits help to provide more reasons to keep playing but Bandai Namco needs to do some serious work on the game to keep players interest, they need to bring more maps and more Mobile Suits from the other Gundam animes, they need to add Custom Mode to the console versions and I also hope that it also gets AI Bot support. Most importantly they need to get the game to support Cross-Play so that it can boost the player base and help to get Ranked Matches started.
Still though when you look past the issues and with people actually playing the game and teaming up and coordinating together you can see just how fun the combat in Gundam Evolution really is. When you are helping out teammates in trouble, complimenting them for helping you as you lay waste to enemies it becomes so satisfying.
Gundam Evolution is a really good-looking game on the Unreal Engine 4 and while the PlayStation 4 version may have lower quality details and also does drop-in frame rate considerably because this is a game for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S that has to compensate for the ageing hardware of the PlayStation 4. The environments look detailed, the explosions look great, the Mobile Suits are really well modelled and it has all of the little details from each suit from the animes as well. They even sound just like the animes as well like when you see their eyes glow when they go active or when you hear the original 1979 Gundam Mobile Suit fire off its Beam Rifle. It's like they really brought the Gundam anime to life and it feels like that you are part of an episode of a Gundam anime which is what anyone would want out of a Gundam game.
In comparison to the mess that is Overwatch 2, Gundam Evolution manages to hold its own as a team-based FPS with mech Mobile Suits from the anime series and it has really fun combat and looks and sounds like the anime series. When people actually coordinate and fight together and the servers work fine it is really great fun and I like that the Mobile Suits offer different ways to play much like team-based hero shooters. It doesn't have overly egregious pay-to-win microtransactions like Overwatch 2 does if you want to get the other Mobile Suits to play as and the progression system isn't all that bad as long as you complete the Daily and Weekly Challenges. Gundam Evolution may suffer greatly from bad server migration, the lack of any cross-play support and an unfair Ranking System for Ranked Matches but for anybody that likes the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise and want to get away from the disaster that is Overwatch 2 should find Gundam Evolution a nice free-to-play distraction. Because at least Gundam Evolution doesn't require any kind of paid mobile phone numbers to be able to play it like which is what Overwatch 2 did and angered everybody.
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Game Score: 6.0/10
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Game Title: Gundam Evolution
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: Bandai Namco Online
Genre: First Person Shooter
Age Rating: PEGI: 12+
Release Date: 1st December 2022
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The Good Points:
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Mobile Suits that look and sound like the anime series
Fun and engaging 6-on-6 PVP combat
Multiple skins and customizable items that you can get for your Mobile Suits which look great
Has a decent Progression System that isn't egregious or forced pay-to-win
The Bad Points:
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Bad Server Migration with no cross-play support
Unfair Ranking System for Ranked Matches
Bad Netcode that can cause disconnections and penalties that aren't your fault
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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