Dynasty Warriors: Gundam
Genre: Action Adventure
ESRB Rating: Rated T
Developer: Namco Bandai / Koei
Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Price: $59.99; Released: August 28, 2007

It’s unfortunate that many video games based on anime that reach the U.S. are generally crap. It seems that everywhere around the world licensed games are decent at best. Fortunately, here comes a game that has the best combo of two products since peanut butter got in my chocolate, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.

If you’ve ever played a Dynasty Warriors game before, this isn’t much different. You fight wave after wave of generic enemies whose job it is to stand around and get killed while occasionally shooting at you. Then, about two or three times a level you’ll fight a boss who actually fights you and usually beats the crap out of you if you don’t have help from other NPC’s. To call it repetitive is a bit of an understatement, but if you just want to play for a few hours and button mash, it makes for a good time.

There are three different play modes, Official mode, Original mode, and Versus mode. In Official mode, you play through some of the major battles from the Original Gundam, Zeta, and Double Zeta series, playing as the respective heroes from each show and using their distinctive mecha, you can also unlock three additional characters. Original mode lets you start as either Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing, Domon Kasshu from G-Gundam, and Loran Cehack from Turn-A Gundam, along with 8 unlockable characters in a new story that has a mish-mash of characters across many Gundam series. Both modes play basically the same, and there are only a few missions for each character, but there’s lots of replay to be had by increasing the stats of each characters, gaining new skills, and getting better parts for each suit.

What really enhances this package, at least for a Gundam fan like myself, is the off-the-scale production values. Toei/Bandai have gone out of their way to get most of the original voice actors, on both the English and Japanese dubs, to reprise their roles. Music is also reused from the original shows. The models for each Mobile Suit are spot on and look great in 3D. Even with all the characters that are on screen at the same time, I never encountered any slow down. I had a blast playing through major battles of the Gundam series, as well as going up against the big villains of the series. Original mode is also fun, just to see the characters from different series interact with each other. Overall, the look and feel of the game makes for a great package, and should please any long time Gundam nut like myself.

The controls are pretty easy to get used to. One button controls the sword attack, another controls the gun attack, and a third controls a special attack that you can use once you fill up a gauge, along with controls for blocking and jumping. You can pull off combos with different combinations of the gun and sword attack, but you’ll mostly rely on the sword attack, as it can hit multiple enemies when they’re close together, which they generally are.

My biggest problems with the game lies in the general repetitiveness of the game play, along with a pretty steep difficulty. There are only a few missions for each character and the later missions feature some horribly difficult bosses, which means you have to play the first few levels multiple times in order to level up so you can beat those later missions. Some of the levels can take a bit of time to play, and when you’re mostly just hitting a few buttons, it can drag pretty quickly.

As a pick up and play game though, it’s fun. Anyone can jump in and start slashing robots to their heart’s desire. If you’re a Gundam fan looking for a nice weekend time waster, give this one a try, and if you’re a Dynasty Warriors fan, this will give you another game to blow through. If you’re a casual fan, maybe give this one a rental first and see if it’s for you. It’s fun, but it’s got a few issues to keep me from whole heartedly recommending it.