Gundam Battle Assault 2 for PlayStation 1

The Gundam series has been the premiere big robot mecha series in Japan for the last 20 something odd years [30 th anniversary will take place in 2009!] while the gundam seires has only been here in the states since 1998 [though it wouldn't get steady and very major releases until 2000-2001 with the premiere of Gundam Wing and the original Mobile suit Gundam series]. Now though Gundam is a household name with much respect as an anime series, the many games based off the series are not very good to say the least. Sure we got Gundam 0079 for Dreamcast and the outstanding Gundam Earth Federation versus Zeon for PS2 [squeal coming in japan soon!] but besides that…..not to much more [Zeonic Front though is definally a honorable mention] One Gundam game did manage to catch my eye for the PS1 in recent past however and that was Gundam Battle Assault [1]. The game had a lot going for it, a nice 2-D fighter including a lot of the major mobile suits [big human controlled robots] from many gundam seires. The big flaw of Battle Assault was that it didn't have enough meat to keep you coming back [though it did have great graphics as well as good solid fighting engine, but very slow-paced gameplay]. Now we are here with Battle Assault II and what a delight this game turned to be! There is a grand total of 30 characters to earn in this 2-D fighter and there is a good amount [but not a ton] more to do in the game. Let me go on and explain more in detail for you…..

Gameplay- The point of this game like other fighters it to fight 1 on 1 battles with another person [in this case another mobile suit] and whoever depletes the other's health bar first by hitting him a lot wins. Also like other fighters you get to perform super moves however it is not by charging up a gauge, you actually start with the chance to do your mobile suit's special move three times anytime you want, but after that your done. Finally, you have 500 ammo for any mobile suit that has weapons [which most have but there are a few exceptions] and any move that requires ammo will deplete the ammo gauge, once it is empty, any ammo based move can't be used anymore [though there are a lot of ammo "look-alike" moves that don't deplete ammo for some reason]. Every mobile suit varies a huge amount compared to others, the big weapon shooter, Heavyarms [from Gundam Wing], for example, has mostly all ammo based moves that can cripple an enemy while the huge Devil [Dark] Gundam [from G Gundam fame] has nothing but super strong moves that can be easy to block, but can zap your health away. I love the fact that you can see a lot of differences between every one of the 30 mobile suits unlockable in this game, it really opens up multiplayer possibilities. The only real modes in the game are the story [Street] mode, survival, time attack [there are two of them], and a 2-player mode. You have to play all the modes in order to unlock all of the mobile suits [many of the modes mentioned are unlocked in the same way]. A lot of people may not like this game because of the slow pace of the engine [it tries it's best to realistically portray the natural slowness of 10 story high robots] and that I can't blame anyone for. But for some people this could either be a cool feature of the game, or really lame feature, so that is why renting this game first would be good for most.


Graphics- The graphics in this game are superb for a PS1 game and looks comparable to a few Capcom 2-D fighting games here and there. It is a real feat to see such a nice looking game on the PS1 since the system can't handle 2-D games that well [or at least perfectly, look at Street fighter alpha III and Snk versus Capcom: Pro]. Each mobile suit's limbs move individually and this really helps the animations of the game pop out. But do take note that the sprites in this game are not too different from the original, however every mobile suit from the original looks and plays just the same. However the new mobile suits that make a new premiere in this game are lot sharper looking than any of the older ones. Also the backgrounds in this game are 3-D and thus a lot more detailed than the backgrounds from the original, which were very bland. However take note that the 3-D backgrounds in this game are not the best backgrounds in the world [they don't even touch Marvel Vs Capcom 2].

Sound- The sound as well as the soundtrack are nothing to call home about. The soundtrack consist of mainly ho-hum techno songs that you will probably forget as soon as you stop playing the game. The sounds are not much better with a announcer that sounds like he desperately needs to go to the bathroom, and sound effects that are very typical of all fighting games [smacking sounds, explosions, blah blah blah].

Overall- This game is pretty underrated ant though I am indeed a fan of the gundam series I think you don't need to be in order to like this game. Also I am not giving this game much leeway even though it has the gundam name on it. To me, this is a good game, and not just another game with a good linesce and terrible everything else, make sure you at least rent this game to see if it s up your alley.