Namco is murdering the Gundam Versus series.
It's no secret that I
adore the Gundam Versus franchise, I've been a fan ever since Federation VS Zeon on the PS2. And while the games have
enjoyed a healthy relationship with both home and handheld consoles, Namco is hellbent on
murdering the series. Gundam Extreme VS Force on the Vita was an epic disappointment,
even in Japan, while Gundam Versus was dead on arrival thanks to the existence of both a little arcade game called Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi-Boost ON and the PS3 release, Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost.
Here's the thing, Namco has always been scared about
cannibalizing the money the series earns on Arcades, which is why the moment Extreme VS released on the PS3, Full Boost was announced for Arcades. And it took more than two years for Full Boost to make it on the PS3... at the same time Maxi Boost was announced for Arcades. And then Namco stopped, because they wanted all the money and they'd rather people keep putting coins in an Arcade cabinet as opposed to a one-time purchase, so neither Maxi Boost nor Maxi Boost ON got console
releases. But Namco wants money, and they know that people want these games on consoles, so they did what they do best:
half-assed it. Extreme Versus Force tried to justify its lacking roster and features by featuring a half-assed story mode, and with Gundam Versus they justify it by saying that the game is running on a new engine.
First problem: Character roster. Full Boost offered a whopping 98 mobile suits on release, while Versus only has 94. Yes, it's just 4 suits less, but considering Maxi Boost has over 120 different units this is very disappointing. They also
omitted a few series like G Gundam or Gundam Seed Destiny, and
trust me, I have no love for Destiny, but it had some brilliant units like the Impulse. Actually, I'm wrong, G Gundam is in the game.
As DLC. The pre-order suits are also greyed out on the character select screen, endlessly taunting you into opening your wallet.
Not gonna happen. There's about 130$ worth of DLC unit for this game, which is nuts. The roster choices are also a bit baffling, people have always wished for a few more grunt units, but this game has too many grunts and not enough heroes. Did anybody
really ask for the Nemo? While Full Boost was a bit too generous with 00 units, in this game it was mostly the UC timeline that
had too many reps. If you've never played Full Boost, this roster might be
more than satisfactory to you, but as someone who has followed the series and news about Maxi-Boost this
feels like Namco taking the piss.
Gameplay hasn't changed much,
luckily, this game feels exactly like Full Boost but with a smoother framerate. Each mobile suit has its own moveset, as you set out to duke it out on 2 vs 2 battles. Your camera is fixed on an enemy suit, and you can change which enemy you're targeting with the circle button. X is used to fly or dash, which consumes fuel that only replenishes once you touch the ground, triangle is a melee attack and square a ranged attack. Different combinations of buttons also result in a variety of different attacks which vary
depending on the mobile suit. There's one new addition to the game and one change to the mechanics. Firstly, the addition, now you can pick a support mobile suit, from a huge roster of options, so that you can
make up for your suits' weaknesses. Maybe add a Gerobi beam support to your Epyon, or maybe have the ZZ Gundam dash in and grab your enemy for a few seconds. It's a neat addition to compliment your mobile suit. As for what has changed, it's how burst works. As you receive and take damage you'll fill a gauge, once it's
at least halfway charged you can press R3 to use your burst. How it changed from before is that now it's divided into Blaze and Lightning, Blaze Burst makes you deal more damage while Lightning Burst makes you faster. It also lets you try to use your Burst Attack(By pressing R3), but you only get one attempt at it while your burst lasts.
The selection of modes is a bit of a mixed bag. First of all, the
completely axed local multiplayer modes. It's true, the PS3 struggled a bit with split-screen, but this is better, stronger hardware. They have
no excuse not to include it. The arcade mode is the same as it's ever been: Multiple routes, of varying difficulty settings, return, 10 in all and you can unlock extra alternate stages on each route as you clear them. These stages include normal 2 on 2 point-battles, battles in which you must destroy a specific enemy or boss battles against giant units. Most bosses return from Full Boost, but to be fair, there're a few new ones too. There's no mission mode, which were the highlight of these console releases, but in its place is a new Survival Mode in which you must survive various waves of enemies, and as you endure them you get to upgrade your suit(Only for this mode) so that you can better deal with the onslaught. I'll admit that I found the survival mode to be
pretty fun, but it's no substitute for Mission mode.
And, hey, they remembered about Free Battle this time!... although it doesn't give out points. There's also a 3 on 3 novelty mode, but it's exclusive to online.
Lame.
Points are
earned by playing Survival, Arcade or Online Matches and these can be spent on unlocking Emblems, Titles, Navigators(Anime cut-outs that rattle as you battle your enemies), alternate pilots for a few mobile suits and, lastly, Support units. It's alright, unlocking support units is a
decent reward, although unlockable playable suits or even alternate color schemes would've been even better.
I can't say that I didn't enjoy Gundam Versus, but that speaks mostly about how Gundam Extreme Versus
was than about this game itself. The character roster just leaves so much to be desired that this game feels more like "Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost: The Remix" than
anything else. If they were gonna go the route of marketing as a new game they should've made the returning units feel different from their Full Boost counterparts.
But they didn't, because they are lazy. Because a straight-up port from Maxi Boost ON meant not getting ALL of the money they could have gotten, but making a new Versus game was too much work. Bad form Namco, bad form. All they are managing to do is murder any chance the series has of hitting it big overseas.
The game is still pretty dope though, just try to
pretend like Full Boost and Maxi Boost don't exist.
8.0 out of 10
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