[PSP] Gundam Battle Universe

Given, I'm no hardcore fan of mecha games, but I'm not beyond sitting through one if it totally entertains me. Gundam Battle Universe is an expansion of Gundam Battle Chronicle, a latter incarnation of the long line of PSP Gundam games that focus mainly on the Universal Century timeline, which is favored more by fans than the alternate universes (AC, CE, Anno Domini, etc). Quite frankly, I don't really care which Gundam story the other fans love the most... personally, I found them all interesting. Now before we get off-topic, let's focus on the game.

A rather awkward square-off between two antique mobile suits: the GM (White Dingo Colors) and the Zaku 1.

Though the gameplay retains the engine of Gundam games of the PS2 era (as well as it's PSP predecessors) with just a few minor tweaks, the experience doesn't feel old in the least. In the PSP games, you now have access to all of your mech's primary weapons, and you can switch between them in battle instead of choosing just one kind prior to deployment. This allows for more strategy and in turn makes it feel true to the actual technology depicted in the series. The game boasts of over 200 mechs to unlock, but take away the latter-gen variations of older ones and you'll have... well, a little less than 200.

The EX-S Gundam: The primary mobile suit of a cheap hit-and-run player.

In Campaign Mode, you have a chance to relive several arcs of the UC era using an original character. You can choose between 3 pilots who you can assign as either a normal human or a Newtype, as well as two kinds of personalities:

• Young man, soldierly or intense.
• Young woman, soldierly or intense.
• Older man, soldierly or intense.

Though limited in variety, the battle environments are astoundingly large. The background detail is a bit subpar compared to the PS2 games, but really, you won't have the luxury of taking in the scenery. In order to survive the intense battles, you have to constantly be on the move, avoiding enemy fire while having yours hit them. The melee weapons were given little functionality as well, since doing close-quarters combat is ridiculously awkward and almost guarantees certain doom. So be prepared to do most of your fights from a distance, which gives MS/MAs with I-Fields (barriers that absorb beam weaponry) an unfair advantage.

There are times that instead of fighting, you have missions that entail procurement of items (usually crates) to take back to a specific location. While this allows you a break from all the frantic shooting, procurement missions can be rather tedious... for one, enemies suddenly show up in the middle of the job, and it doesn't help that the crates can be destroyed when hit by enemy or friendly fire. Worse, if you lose a handful of the items, it'll significantly hurt your mission ranking.

NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!! That's not how you dance the Hare Hare Yukai! Darn Psycos...

While it's also interesting that you have the chance to customize your MS with tuning points earned in missions and get to use optional equipment like MS cannons and Subflight Lifters, there are but two things in GBU that utterly disappoint me. Firstly, the dauntingly large Mobile Weapons like the Byg Zam, Psyco Gundam, Nue Ziel and Laffresia have been shrunk to half their actual size. Gone are the days where I derive utter satisfaction from beating these monsters since they aren't as domineering as they once were.

Second, the lack of vocal BGMs left me a bit high and dry. While not as significant as my first complaint, it just feels different not hearing "Char ga Kuru" when the masked dude in the red MS pops up and "Ai Senshi" during the intense wars in Jaburo.

See these cuties? There's more to them than just a pretty face; they mind the radar and alert you of enemy movements... eh, who am I kidding!? Their presence has moe written all over it. :P

While the the Gundam Battle series mainly sticks to the old standards set by the anime, Bandai also injected a bit of moe appeal in the form of selectable female operators. You can choose between 7 (Miu Takizawa and an unnamed female soldier are the recent additions to the 5 selectable ones in GBC) of them in GBU, but some are restricted to specific factions only as per Gundam Battle Chronicle's specifications. Luckily though, you can unlock them for use in the opposite faction when the right conditions are met. While their main purpose is to inform you of approaching enemy forces and alert you of mission detours, the in-game loading screens highlight their more "charming" attributes.

Don't "pick" on this flower if you don't want to get hurt. It has guns, tentacles, and is infested with bugs.

Once you finish the missions from the One Year War up to Char's Counterattack, the game's not over just yet. There are extra missions, which will yield interesting and oftentimes very powerful MS and MAs from the side stories after clearing (Like the Gundam F91, whose story isn't included here, but appears as a secret unit), as well as joke robots (SM and Saku from the shounen magazine KeroKero Ace) which look like poorly done papercraft models. Some of the missions require passwords in Japanese to unlock. I'll post them here later when I update this.

Expect to put in a lot of long hours playing this game. Even with all it's little flaws, the fact remains that GBU can get anyone hooked. I'd recommend it to any gamer, Gundam fan or not.

(*DISCLAIMER: I used a handful of screencaps from Gundam Batttle Chronicle only because the content is very much similar and there aren't enough GBU screencaps online that are worth writing captions on.)