Dynasty Warriors Gundam is the newest game using the familiar model of Koei’s Dynasty Warriors series but instead of taking place in ancient China this iteration is coated with a veneer of giant robots, set in the fictional future Mobile Suit Gundam universe(s). The first questions that probably come to mind when considering this title are: “Is it just like every other DW game out there?” “Does it accurately depict the Gundam universe?” and “Duz it sUc lolz?” Find out the answers to these and other “exciting” questions after the jump.



Firstly, I should mention that I’ve only ever played a Dynasty Warriors game once before, several years ago. What I do remember from the experience shows that Koei’s overall formula for the series really hasn’t changed much over time. The game play is pretty standard stuff; you have melee attacks, ranged attacks, special attacks (which are based on the suit’s signature moves from the series), thrusters (for running and charging) and the ability to jump. Of course these attacks can be chained together to create different combos, some of which are better against individual opponents or groups. The special attacks are definitely the coolest moves to pull off, offering quick flurries of melee attacks or area of effects of varying sizes that roast surrounding enemies. Each suit has three tiers of special attacks it can pull off which can only be used once the SP gauge has filled to a certain extent. This gauge is refilled by killing the various grunts that litter the maps.

And grunts there are aplenty of. Huge groups of mobile suits, and occasionally lone ones that get lost, wander the map looking for allied suits to destroy and fields to capture. Most of the time their AI comes off as rather lackluster, such as when a group that might have you completely surrounded will just stand there issuing the occasional attack until they’re defeated. Occasionally though they present themselves as more of an annoyance by interrupting your combos and leaving you momentarily vulnerable when fighting enemy aces. These aces are the more well-known pilots from the Gundam universe that fight better than the standard mobile cannon-fodder. Their difficulty varies by stage and your current level, sometime they might be finished off in a few quick seconds but others might take several minutes.



Aside from killing the enemy aces the other main objective is to capture and maintain fields, which are the important sites on the battlefield easily recognized by red, blue, or yellow outlines depending on which side controls it. These fields can change hands several times during some of the more intense (read: scripted) battles, forcing you to run around the battlefield at top speed trying to capture and maintain them faster than the enemy can. In addition to having to field watch your allied aces also have to be babysat on many occasions. Like your enemies they tend to not be very bright and depending on the mission if they get blown up you lose, instantly.

As you use certain pilots and mobile suits in battle they gain experience points which up their pilot level (1-30) and mobile suit level (1-10). These levels influence many of your in game statistics and also influence how many attacks you can string together in a combo, which tier of special attack can be accessed and how much use can be gotten out of the suit’s thruster. Both pilot and suit can also be customized with skills and equipment gained after successful battles.



All of this action is divided up into two modes: Official and Original. Official Mode follows several of the main characters from the Universal Century timeline, starting with Amaro Ray (Mobile Suit Gundam) and going up to Judau Ashta (Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ) containing six character stories in all. Original Mode is lauded as a new story containing all your favorite mobile suit pilots, which sounds cool, until you start playing it. The new “story” itself is laughable terrible “A mysterious planet has appeared! It will crash into the earth! Quick, everybody fight now!” but serves its purpose well enough I suppose. It also contains a lot more character campaigns that can be played, in addition to all the characters in Original Mode several more UC pilots can be unlocked while several non-UC characters are available, including: Domon Kasshu (Mobile Fighter G Gundam), Heero Yuy (Gundam Wing), Milliardo Peacecraft (Gubdam Wing), Master Asia (Moble Fighter G Gundam) and Loran Cehack (Turn A Gundam). All in all it adds up to another sixteen character paths with each path containing five missions. If nothing else DWG offers a lot of playtime, I’ve only gone through eleven of the total character paths which has taken about thirty-two hours.

One particular annoyance I had with these scenarios was how many maps that were recycled. Official Mode only has a few unique stages (as much as I liked watching the Grypios Conflict in Zeta Gundam playing through it four times isn’t as great) while Original Mode is comprised of the same five maps that come up in different order.



For fans of the English dubs Bandai did a good job of wrangling up most all of the original voice actors. Of sad note, to me at least, Domon Kasshu (Mark Gatha) and to a lesser extent Heero Yuy (Mark Hildreth) were replaced with two new guys that didn’t sound particularly good. Non proponents of the English dub can rest easy, the Japanese voices are also included. The game also has several galleries (character, mobile suit, battleship, voice) that provide some more back-story and help explain what’s going on to people that know next to nothing about the Gundam Universe(s).

Overall gameplay-wise Dynasty Warriors Gundam doesn’t really bring anything new or exciting to the table. Fans of the various Gundam series might be influenced to pick it up because of the subject matter but aside from a few short cinematics it really doesn’t provide many cool “ZOMG I’m flying a mobile suit lololol!” moments. I’d say it’s a totally descent button masher, worth a rent if you want to try it but only buyable if you really like that type of gameplay.