Well... I picked it up last night, and spent a few hours playing it.
Xenogears this isn't. The intro opens with a massive explosion (evidently starting somewhere north of the Great Lakes - those darn Canucks have done it this time!) spreading to cover the entire Earth. Evidently, there was this thing called the G-System that could create literally anything, and was used to provide for the entire world (there wasn't just one G-System - there were small terminals that can create things as large as MS components, and big terminals that can create full-sized mobile suits; and there's a hint of an even bigger terminal though supposedly none survived the fall. I'm guessing one's going to be used to create a mobile armor at some point.). Unfortunately, it was abused in some fashion, and ended up causing massive destruction, an event known as the Great Fall. This all takes place roughly 60 years before the game begins. At one point, someone mentions that the time period before the Great Fall was known as the Universal Century. And all of the mobile suits to date have been from MS Gundam (though the manual mentions one other). The plot so far is the same one that we've seen a million times before. Boy swears revenge against bad guy for some transgression, and is accompanied by his best friend (read: sidekick). Boy finds mysterious girl with an unknown past who accompanies him on his adventures. Boy, sidekick, and girl, wander around righting wrongs and overcoming great odds despite the fact that they're probably all around 13-14 years old, probably aren't New Types, and are facing trained pilots. /yawn In this case, the details are - The main character is Tristan (default name - you can change this; fortunately, I resisted the urge to call him Amuro). His best friend is Fritz. They've sworn revenge against the pilot of a "black" mobile suit (that, oddly enough, looked very much like a *red* Zaku II when I saw the flashback) that destroyed the orphanage that they lived in (yes, these two would be heroes are out to avenge the senseless destruction of an orphanage out in the middle of nowhere; you'd think bad guys would have learned by now that committing actions like that is a swift ticket to an early grave...). A girl (she looks like a Goth maid wearing sunglasses, and Fritz refers to her as Ms. Fossil, though she claims to be not that old; for some reason she gives me an android vibe) named Marie directed them to a nearby G-System facility large enough to create a mobile suit, and Tristan and Fritz come away from it with a GM and a Zaku I. SD GM and Zaku I, that is. All of the mobile suits in this game are SD (which is quickly obvious once the game starts, though it's not so obvious if you look at the front cover of the game case). Wondering if the game writers ever bother to explain why the bad guy would blow up an orphanage located in the middle of a forest is actually turning out to be one of the bigger draws of the story... Marie also connects the two with an organization called 'Unicorn' (which presumeably explains the unicorn in the game logo) that's supposed to help them in their quest. And the first lead Unicorn provides leads them to a downed spaceship called the Moon Ark (no, there were no Flats on board...), where they find an amnesiac girl named Aeon. A little later, they also meet the head of the Eisengrad military (apparently a nearby friendly city-state). He wears a mask. If you watch the OP movie carefully (blink and you miss it) he's shown with a red mobile-suit. Hmm... Though so far I've only seen him piloting a green gelgoog. The boys provide him with the name of the bad guy (Vladi Zarth, iirc - that's ZARTH, not DARTH!), and the masked military leader points them in the direction of the notorious Dark Alliance! /cue three descending notes The dialogue is generally worse than the plot. The combat system actually isn't that bad. Hit points are based on the mobile suit that you pilot, and can be upgraded in towns (to an extent). As your characters level up, their combat skills improve and they also gain TP (what most games refer to as magic points). You can equip your mobile suits with a variety of ranged weapons, and one melee weapon. When combat starts, you've got an Energy (EN) indicator shown under your character. Firing a weapon costs EN based on the weapon type (basic guns and melee weapons cost 1; bigger guns, like the Magella Top Cannon, cost more). Each turn you earn 2 EN, and you can earn an additional EN point by 'Charging'. Certain powerful 'Boost' moves also become available when you have enough EN. For instance, Tristan has a powerful sword/axe attack that costs 4 EN to use. You can also use 'Techniques' (read 'Magic') to cause a variety of effects. And you can defend to reduce damage by 1/2 (while also building up your EN). Complicating things is the difference between ranged and melee attacks. Melee weapons cost 1EN to use, but generally do more damage than their ranged weapon counterparts. But using a melee weapon opens you up to a counterattack by your opponent's melee weapon - unless their performing certain moves (or unless you destroy the enemy MS with your melee attack). Fortunately, you don't need to guess whether or not you'll get counterattacked, as there's a display in the upper right hand corner of your screen that shows you what each of your opponents has planned before you even pick your own moves. And counterattacks only apply to enemies equipped with melee weapons. Tanks (which you fight a lot right at the start) don't get to counterattack. Since your mobile suits don't level up, you need another way to improve them. This is handled in towns. You can upgrade basic stats on the suit, and you can also replace parts on the suit with items that you've purchased or that you've found while wandering around the countryside (including drops from enemies). You can't replace the head or torso on your mobile suit, but you can add or replace internal components (which either guard against status effects, or provide some other advantage), and swap out right and left shoulders, right and left arms, and the legs. If you beat a Gouf and it drops it's right shoulder, you can go into town and swap the right shoulder off of one of your MS and replace it with the one from the Gouf. This will modify the stats (typically armor and speed, though possibly also base ranged and melee values) of your suit in some way. Sometimes it affects what you can carry. For instance, if I swap out the right arm on a suit and replace it with a Z'Gok's right arm, that suit can't carry hand-held weapons because the Z'Gok's right arm can't use them (though it comes with it's own built-in weapons). And, of course, this changes the appearence of the mobile suit being modified. Currently, Aeon is emulating Aina in the first episode of 08th MS Team, as I've swapped the legs off of her Zaku II and replaced them with the legs from a Dom. The look isn't perfect (Aeon has a shoulder cannon on her Zaku, and it's represented on the avatar), nor is the color (though I can change this if I want), but you get the basic idea. You can also build brand new mobile suits. Unfortunately, the information in the manual regarding this is WRONG. The manual says you need 50 energy units and a large G-System (it also seems to suggest that the various large G-Systems can each only build one kind of mobile suit, which is incorrect). What is actually needed are 50 data (an item dropped on rare occasions by many MS enemies, as well as sold in at least one store so far) and a large energy unit. The manual also mentions 6 different mobile suits that can be built by these G-Systems (which conflicts with the fact that the manual seems to suggest that each of the 5 systems can only produce one type of suit each). Off the top of my head, these are Gouf, Gundam, Master Gundam, Green Gelgoog, and Red Gelgoog. And one more that I can't recall at the moment. In actuality, as mentioned, any large G-System can build any mobile suit provided you have enough data and the large Energy unit. So far, I've seen data for the GM, Zaku I, Zaku II, Zaku Special Purpose (or something like that), and Gouf. Overall... Plot - Lousy Dialogue - Poor Combat - Decent The mobile suit customization can be fun, but it'll probably be take a while for players to get much of an array of parts to play with. junior -- _______________________________________________ Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number. -Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
