Dynasty Warriors: GUNDAM is the fusion of the Dynasty Warriors series, which first began life on the PlayStation and found its fame on the PlayStation 2 console, and the Gundam anime series; the longest running anime series based on mechs and robots.
The Dynasty Warriors series is a beat-’em up action genre which involves the player taking the role of an important figure from the “Warring States” period of ancient China and doing battle with the different factions of the time. The series is based on historical figures and events, but the gameplay is most certainly not. Players will find themselves utilizing power ups that increase their strength, defense, and speed and collecting items from fallen enemies that can be equipped and used in future or previous battles.
Gundam is a very well-known anime series that has spawned an entire franchise. To be frank, there’s a lot that could be said for Gundam, so I’ll keep it brief.
There is only one mode available in the demo called “Official” mode which is based on the Gundam timeline. There is also only one stage available, as well as one Gundam (Wing Gundam or Zero).
The game plays much like Dynasty Warriors with some notable exceptions. The controls are similar to the DW series, however the Gundam itself moves like a Gundam would. It’s not sluggish, but it does feel “heavy” when it walks and fights. To counter this, however, the Gundam does have a booster and the ability to fly across the stage for a short amount of time before the engines overheat, which does not take much time to cool off for another use. This makes traveling across large stages a simpler task. The Gundam has two main weapons: its beam sword which is used with the Square button and guns it fires with the Triangle button. Various combo’s can be executed by pressing the Square and Triangle buttons in a certain order. For example, pressing the Square button four times and then the Triangle button once will, after dealing some heavy beam sword damage to any enemies in Heero’s way, cause him to take out both his blasters and blast enemies at either side of Heero’s Gundam in a straight line, and then step 90 degrees and fire again, effectively knocking down or destroying enemies in a cross-hair formation that is excellent for wiping out a good deal of enemies. Pretty cool.
This particular map takes place on ground surrounded by active volcanoes. This results in events that change the level and how you interact with it, like in the original Dynasty Warriors series. In this specific level, a small portion of the ground is filled with lava that makes it impassable on foot. The ground is very rocky, with lava surrounding the area. The air in this stage is filled with flying embers and a general red misty look to it that adds to its hot and foreboding setting and does it very well.
The “Boss” battles in this game are just like the ones in Dynasty Warriors: there is no actual “boss battle” so to speak, but rather a notable adversary from the Gundam series who is amongst the vast numbers of plebe fighters who have their own name, health bar, and distinctive Gundam design. Fighting these characters is much tougher than taking on just one regular Zaku. When you do manage to defeat these more powerful characters, the camera zooms in on the action and the game is slowed down to show what the death blow you’ve just dealt looks like. It’s a pretty neat feature and it’s something I don’t mind gloating about every time when I’ve defeated a tough enemy.
Dynasty Warriors: GUNDAM will be bringing all the interactive fun of Dynasty Warriors and combining it with all of the visual fun of the Gundam series and it’s looking to be a very good combination so far. I’m eagerly looking forward to this game’s release.
Dynasty Warriors: GUNDAM was released in Japan on March 1st, 2007. However, the North American version will be hitting stores August 28th, 2007.