However, this year Koei teamed up with Bandai and added a twist to that name. Dynasty Warriors and Gundam collided in a spectacular display of power. Koei used their fighting system from the Dynasty Warriors games while Bandai took mobile suits and a story line from the Gundam series and put them together to form Dynasty Warriors: Gundam. The game was released in Japan on the PS3 in March and on its first day sold over 100,000 copies in Japan. The game's release date in the United States was of course much later than March coming on August 28 of this year.
The game follows the timeline of Mobile Suit Gundam from the beginning in Universal Century 0079 with Amuro Ray and the Gundam being ones most likely first choice with which to start. The “Official Mode” allows one to play the official battles of the Gundam series with Amuro Ray, Char Aznable, Kamille Bidan, and more. Gundam fans will love this mode of the game due to its accuracy towards the series and the Dynasty Warriors combat system which lets a Gundam fan fight as he never has fought before. The game developers also included a mode unique to the game which takes place on a strange planet that is heading for Earth and will crash into our blue planet if it is not stopped.
This mode pulls characters and suits from all across the different universes and timelines of Gundam and either teams them up together or pits them against one another in fierce combat. Pilots such as Heero Yuy from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Master Asia from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and Jerid Messa from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam are all placed on a team together cooperating to accomplish their own goals. Of course, the pilots only sometimes seem to retain their personality from their series. Heero Yuy doesn't particularly care for working on a team with Master Asia and Jerid Messa which is indicative of his personality in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
However, some characters do seem to stray from their personalities in the “Original Mode.” Jerid Messa, for instance, very readily leaves his titles and commendations from being a Titan behind in order to “train” under Master Asia to be stronger, but his manner of doing so seems to be slightly out of character. Overall, the game seems to be able to attract both Gundam fans and those who don't particularly care for the Gundam series and draw them deep into the gameplay so much that they may find that ten minutes of playing was really two hours. This is the second Gundam game released on the next-gen consoles and it has made its impact. Hopefully all of the future Gundam games will be just as good.
