Mobile Suit Gundam RPG

Summary:

Although an unpolished demo, Mobile Suit Gundam RPG can be enjoyed especially by fans of the anime series and mechs due to its interesting mix of shooting and traditional first-person RPG battles.

Overall Score: 3.1/5


Background to Review:

Finding out that sbester had released a demo about some anime series did not pique my interest because I have actually seen any of its episodes, but rather because I have played a few other RPGs where you use a mech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mech) to fight in the game:

- Epsilon-Alpha Pt. 1 (http://rpgmaker.net/games/1686/)
- Starseed: Blood Machine Demo (http://rpgmaker.net/games/1946/)

Also, I reminded me a lot of some of the anime series I used to watch when I was just a child:

- Tranzor or Mazinger Z (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazinger_Z)
- Battle of the Planets or G-Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Planets)

With all these previously related experiences, what impressions did I get from playing the demo?


Story/Plot/Dialogue:

In his gamepage, sbester’s states his intention is to retell in his game the complete series in an episodic format, but not every single detail. That works both ways for him given that the storyline is already set, but can pick and choose what parts of it to actually implement in his game or as he puts it he “tweaked the story a little for faster paced storytelling”.

To check how well he stuck to the series storyline, I found this episode list with corresponding summary of each (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_episodes). I found, that, for the most part, in this demo, where you can play roughly until episode 13 of 43, he had included many of the details that are mentioned in those summaries, although seemed to have been skipped altogether as part of his story tweaking. It would have been nice and useful to accomplish his idea of having an episodic format perhaps if he somehow within the game had a message with the episode number and name at the beginning of the corresponding part of the game.

About the dialogue, sbester stated cheerfully that he wanted to include “dialogue directly pulled from the show!” and “sound clips of Amuro’s (the mech’s pilot) voice for the first person battles.”

Regarding the first dialogue idea, whether any of the current dialogue included in the demo is actually from the show, is hard to tell without the seeing at the actual episodes. In the demo, the dialogue is, for the most part, of direct and to the point as expected in an anime based game. Two exceptions were Kai Shiden’s (the guncannon’s pilot) cynical remarks and the Hitleresque speech given Gihren Zabi (virtual leader of the enemy) during his brother’s funeral.

About the idea of having voice-overs during battles, I haven’t been a big fan of them, but might fit well for an anime genre game.

Score: 3/5


Gameplay:

Gameplay, as expected, is centered on missions that occur within the storyline require battles. According to sbester’s description, the battle system relies mostly on a shooter interface, with some traditional up close RPG battles, mostly involving the mobile suit, sometimes with the guncannon and/or guntank. Also, he mentions that there’s a simulator, which allows you to replay past battles for needed money and experience for upgrades for the units you control.

The shooter interface uses a movable bull’s-eye that you can use to target the enemies whether on space or sky. Thankfully they don’t shoot back. Space shootouts involve the mobile suit targeting the enemies, which is hard due two factors: the “free falling panoramic environment” that can easily disorient you and enemies that are very good in trying to evade you. After hitting an enemy 2 to 3 times, you either destroy them or engage in the traditional first-person turn-based RPG battle which can involve several enemy mechs resulting in extra money and experience. Sky shootouts are similar to space shootouts except the background is fixed, your bulls’ eye can’t wrap around the screen and most of the time 1 hit is enough to destroy the enemy. I found these shootouts actually harder than the space ones even though the enemies are not moving as much because, first, the bull’s eye movement tends to be more sluggish than in space, and, second, due to some quirks of the targeting system in RPG maker 2000: you get a hit an enemy if when you fire one of the edges is touching the bulls’ eye and you are more likely to hit them when they are turned sideways, probably because they are moving slower. There are a couple of exceptions to battles starting with shootouts which start instead with a turn-based battle.

One thing pending is the implementation of side quests, which hopefully will help with upgrading the combat units.

Score: 3.5/5


Graphics

According to sbester he feels that “graphics are very random and it feels very unrefined”. While I would agree this is true in most cases, I found some unexpected details. Cartoonish isometric graphics can be found in houses that look like barns in Side Seven and in both of Amuro’s rooms and his neighboor’s room in White Base. Also, I found that the most of the facesets and sprites of the crew of White Base (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gundam0079C1.gif) and the enemies of Zeon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gundam0079C2.gif) are actually pretty good. Some of the mech units as well as the enemies units can be improved upon. A couple of examples of this come from opposing units: one looked like a light blue comet making me think it was a background embellishment rather an enemy, and a large Magella Tank that has a light green background looks out of place. Also, I would like to see for traditional battles, a change in the animation when hitting the enemy equipping different types of weapon.

Score: 2.5/5


Sound:

According to sbester, he included music taken from the series, “so fans shouldn’t worry about watching Bright Noa chilling to Final Fantasy music” which I can’t verify except by saying that it did not recognize any of it. Sound effects appear to be of standard RPG stock.

Score: 4/5


Characters:

As expected, sbester pretty much has included everybody in White Base and has introduced us to many of the Zeon’s minions in his cut-scenes. As expected from animes, character development takes a back seat to the battles, except for the two cases mentioned in the Story/Plot/Dialogue section. Even an event as important as Amuro being unwilling to pilot the Gundam any longer, I felt got glossed over.

Score: 3.5/5


Other:

I did find some minor grammar, spelling mistakes or typos, but few compared to most RMN games. Thankfully, I didn’t find any game-breaking bugs. One that made the final battle of the demo harder than necessary was even though the store to buy upgrades showed that you could buy something for the guncannon, you can’t equip it. An inconvenience is that outside of battle, the only place to upgrade your units is when entering the simulator. An annoyance is that if you enter the simulator and do the guncannon fight available just before the end of the game, once you come out of it there will be a guncannon shot each time you press ENTER wherever Amuro is standing. A very minor bug is that you can walk into some of the walls of the hallway outside Amuro’s room in White Base. Finally, when engaging Zakus I and II in a traditional battle, the message appearing mislabels them as II and III.

Score: 2/5