First Impressions: Gundam Versus

Gundam Versus is an example of a game that should have been great, but is held back by frustrating design decisions and missing content that turns it into just another mediocre game.

The concept of Gundam Versus is simple. A player picks their choice of mobile suit from across dozens of Gundam universes. Then, they join an arcade battle game where up to three players face off against three other players in a fight to the death with each side being granted a set number of points (usually 1500), and each death costing the team anywhere from 200 - 500 points depending on the suits being used.

Those points are how Gundam Versus, like many Gundam games before it, differentiates weak from strong suits in combat. You want to use Wing Gundam Zero? Well, when you die, it costs 500 points from your team point total, but if you choose the weaker Ground Gundam, it will only cost 300. It's a system that works and makes sense from a fairness standpoint, as the more powerful suits can easily obliterate the weaker ones, especially if they get a lucky shot in with a special weapon. Suit cost is based on the health of the suit, as well as its various special abilities and weapons (such as Wing Gundam Zero's buster rifle or Pale Rider's H.A.D.E.S. system).

The suit selection screen can be daunting. Aside from your six 'favorite' suits, it can be difficult to navigate the other 94 suits (plus more with DLC) in the game. It's none-the-less a joy to see so many options (strange omissions notwithstanding).

I write lucky because combat in Gundam Versus is a hectic affair in large part due to the wonky control scheme. There is no free look, which makes keeping track of the battlefield difficult. The camera is always locked on an enemy. The player can change which enemy it is locked on to with a button press, but the lack of ability to look around makes for odd situational awareness, and it is easy to run into a building or lose track of whatever enemy the player isn't locked onto. This issue doesn't matter in 1v1 battles, but those usually end very quickly with a one player obliterating their opponent.

Multiplayer is fun, but also filled with issues. There are three modes of multiplayer; ranked, casual, and player. In casual, the matchmaking is atrocious, and searching for any game but 1v1 regularly takes more than five minutes. More than once I let the searching screen sit for twenty minutes and gave up after no game was found. In player mode, you search for, or create, a room that fills with players and gets numerous battles in quick succession. However, finding a room is touch and go, as often no matter what the search parameters are, no rooms will be found, and as such when a player creates a room there is no guarantee anyone will join. 

If a player does manage to connect to a game, they aren't in the clear yet. If any player has lag, it can affect all the players and leads to horribly choppy matches with mecha stuttering their way across the map. The auto aim in the game, and lack of ability to hold a shot like many previous Gundam games (to allow for aiming ahead of an enemy), hurts as well, as ranged attacks nearly always miss unless timed perfectly. Melee combat is marginally better. Most melee attacks start with a boost, and if a player is in range of the enemy can lead to nice combos for good damage. However, it is difficult to determine when your suit is actually close enough to reach the enemy. Furthermore, when close to an enemy unit, you are far more likely to be knocked down by friendly fire (which doesn't do much damage, if any, but can stagger you), as most players don't bother holding back no matter the situation. Because every player has the same issues though, it balances to be a competitive and fun environment in both the team based modes.

The game screen displays your current health (bottom left), your special and boost gauges (below the unit), and your various abilities and weapons (bottom right). The top shows the time left in the battle and minimap (top right), and points left on the team, or in this case your wave and single player point (top left). 

The biggest problem with the game however is the complete lack of meaningful content. The game has four modes - online multiplayer (broken into the aforementioned casual, ranked, and player modes), vs CPU multiplayer, trial mode, and a single player survival mode. The two multiplayer modes (vs player and vs cpu) can be 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3. Trial mode has the player complete an arcade course against set enemies, and ten trials are available with increasing difficulty. Survival mode offers an easy 15 stage course, a normal 30 stage course, a hard 50 stage course, and an extra 15 stage course against nothing but bosses. The trial and survival gameplay is repetitive, as enemy AI almost always acts the same no matter the suit they are in. Furthermore, the difficulty in survival mode is not consistent, with random stages having extreme difficulty spikes, and not always the boss stage. The action can be broken up however by playing 'online', which will throw in random extra stages with other players for a single fight against a boss, sometimes controlled by the player, or a competition for the most kills against a horde of extremely weak enemies.

Assuming the player can live with the lack of game modes, there is still very little else. Each suit can be leveled up, but those levels provide little benefit. For most suits, it gives the opportunity to unlock a title or support unit. Rarely, suits might unlock an emblem or battle navigator (ie. a system voice). Aside from that however, the only other thing to progress towards is ranked multiplayer, which is done by just playing the game. However, the amount of play necessary is unknown, as there is no tracking system to let you know what to do. I've played for numerous hours and still have not unlocked the mode, and searching online reveals that no one really understands what causes it to unlock. There is no built in incentive for the player to do anything, as the entirety of what the game offers can be experienced in the first hour of play (aside from ranked play, which to my understanding is the same as casual play but with rankings on the line).

Battle navigators, who comment on your performance and give tips during the fight, are the only meaningful thing worth grinding for, but most suits don't have them available to unlock, and there are only a dozen of them available in the game.

Gundam Versus should be a great game. If, for example, the player started with ten suit options, and then had to unlock the rest of the mobile suits, it would have provided incentive to play. If there was a single player campaign, no matter how silly, to explain why all these mobile suits are in the same universe for these fights (such as Fire Emblem Warriors), it would have given another way to play and learn the game. Instead, what was delivered is a barebones fighting game with a huge number of characters and a lack of modes.

I recommend Gundam fans import Gundam Breaker 3 (reviewed here) over this, but if players just want the chance to play with a huge number of pre-set suits in a open arena fighting game format, Gundam Versus still has plenty to offer with its robust roster and competitive, though awkward, gameplay.

Gundam Versus - 5/10