Gundam Extreme VS. Review

機動戦士ガンダム エクストリームバーサス

Title: Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS.

Platform: Playstation 3
Developer: Namco Bandai

Genre: Fighting

CERO: A

Gundam is a wonderful blast from the past, with a continuing universe that's been expanding since the 80's! How appropriate that we get a cross-universe fighting game that features every different Gundam universe. This is one of my personal favourites so lets have some fun!

Gameplay

Gundam is, at its core, a brawler. You have your basic attacks, blocks, ranged attacks mapped on the signature triangle, circle, cross, square. as you battle you build-up your EX bare for a super move, which increase your mech's power. unique to this game is your HP bar. you have a certain amount of HP per life, this is the big number at the bottom-left, and then you have your Team's HP bar up top-left. Every Gundam is worth a certain amount of you team's HP, and when you die that number is subtracted from your Team. This mechanic breath's a bit of life into the brawler genre, and gives a new perspective on team play.

And this game has a myriad of ways to present this battle system to you. you have an arcade mode, which feels like it sounds, you have multiplayer, vs COM, online, etc.Then you have the "story mode" type mode that's set up on a a couple grids. each grid has key battles as well as normal battles, all with different kinds of enemies, objectives, and requirements. some fights you will have to have a certain team mate, others you have to play as a certain gundam, you might have to keep someone alive, you might have to maintain a certain amount of HP, kill a certain amount of enemies. point being that the game forces you to play on it's terms, which really keeps a could-be-repetitive game nice and interesting.

In these grids you'll run into battles to earn badges, these are especially specific conditions that are much more difficult to get, and it will feel very rewarding to earn them. earning these badges is also a large part of the games PSN trophies. This part of the game is what I spend the most time on.

That all being said this game is really easy to get stuck in, and you will find yourself going back to older battle to grind required characters that you never use. And every character's playstyles are vastly different, so doing some battle will be grueling if your not comfortable changing like that on the fly.

overall the game is smooth, fun, challenging, and is loaded with content that will keep you coming back for hours!

Score: 8.5/10

Presentation

VS. is one of the prettiest ex-arcade titles to date. The characters and backgrounds are smoothly cell-shaded, which goes really well with it's anime roots. the effects are flashy, colourful, and energetic. the menus are very aesthetically pleasing, and generally easy to navigate. Not to mention the tons of nostalgic gundams and wonderful character portraits from the ages. Really nice Lincoln Park cameo at the home screen, a surprisingly fitting opening song. And, of course, you have the wonderful TV quality voice acting for all the characters from the different series! It's really well put together, but the soundtrack is rather forgettable , almost reminds you of the Dynasty Warriors notoriously average soundtracks. 

Score: 8/10

Story

As with most arcade games, VS. really doesn't focus on story. the Trial Mission Mode (that grid thing I talked about) is about the closest thing to a story this game has. And as with most crossover games, the story that is there is patchy and scattered. The few scenes of story you get are really cool and well put together. But story is clearly not the focus here, and its very steeped in fan-service. If your not into Gundam, its easy to skip past.

You do have, on the other hand, a wonderful collaboration of different Gundam universes and a large pantheon of playable characters. Which is hugely important, especially in the Fighting Game genre, having a dick load of characters!

Score: 7/10

Import Friendliness

By default, being on the Playstation 3 system, this game is region-free. Buy it anywhere, play it anywhere! So that much gives you the accessibility. for collectors, buying it black-label can get fairly prices (last I checked near 80 dollars), but you can get it cheap from Hong Kong for like 30 USD, so its easy to obtain just to play. 

Now, the ugly part, if you don't know Japanese you will have a very hard time getting into it. The menus are extremely Kanji heavy, and for the "guess-and-press"ers, they are organized strangely, so you will have to do research to figure out what you are doing. The game is not entirely un-playable, it will just take a heavy study of online guides and walkthroughs to figure out what certain objectives are and what everything does...

especially in a game with such a wide array of objectives. In short, it's text heavy.

Although, once you do figure out where everything is, you can still enjoy the basics without knowing much. I mean, in the actual meat of the game, you don't have to know Japanese to know how to actually fight.

Score: 6/10

Final Thoughts and Score

This game is clearly sweet, and is still one of my favourite PS3 games. If you can take the time to learn the set-up or the language, you will be in for an incredible fighting game.

Final Score: 7.37/10