Anybody else given the new(ish) PS2 Game, Climax UC, a shot yet?
It's not the sort of thing I'd usually import for two reasons. First, I
prefer strategy games, and secondly, by and large the action-y Gundam
games have been uniformly weak. Still, when a friend of mine brought it
in, I was compelled to give it a shot.
It definitely has it's flaws, but after playing it for a few days it's
hard not to notice the number of things it does really, really well.
Certainly it's the most fun I've had with an action Gundam game.
There seems to be two main modes in it (Though there is a ??? on the main
menu, so I am assuming their is some kind of extra mode I can unlock).
The first is the "Chronicle" mode. Here, you play through story based missions
as the protagonist of all of the featured Gundam series - MSG, 08MST,
0080, 0083, Z, ZZ, CCA, F91, and the bonus Crossbone Gundam. The beauty
here, though, isn't playing as the hero, which we've all done dozens of
times in previous games. What I found really fun was getting to play from
the other side. For example, in the 08MST missions, you get to reenact the
attack on the Apsalas II, and then do the duel versus the Gouf Custom.
Both were fun, but playing as your opponents is even better. After
completing the missions as the hero, you unlock other options. In the
08MST case, you get to play as Aina in the Apsalas II and take out Shiro's
squad. You also get to play as Norris and try a 1 on 3 fight.
Absolutely brilliant, since this carries all the way through. There
usually are fewer missions from the other perspective, but most often they
are much more fun. Zeong vs Gundam, Zaku FZ vs Alex, all the way up to
fighting Seabrook as Zabine.
The other mode is the so called "Progress" mode, which is arguably the
more fun of the two. Here, you play a new ace pilot created for the game.
You then experience the entire Gundam timeline as a slight outsider. Even
cooler, you get to choose which "side" you join. For example, right off
the bat you can either join Zeon or the EFSF. In the former case, you
participate in the assault on Jaburo, in the latter, defending it. As a
Zeon in a grunt unit, when Amuro shows up you can either try and take him
out, or just try and stay alive until the clock counts down. As a Feddie,
you pilot a Gundam Ground type, and eventually Amuro comes to reinforce
you.
Every time you beat a level, your character levels up and you can assign
points, in RPG fashion, into his varying skills and abilities. You step
through the timeline, participating in all of the major battles - Jaburo,
Abaoaqu, when the Albion descends into Earth orbit for the first time
(pre-0083), Hong Kong City and the Kennedy Space port from Zeta, etc. In
some cases you are completely outclassed - like piloting a GM at Abaoaqu
when Char shows up in his Zeong. You don't stand a chance, so it's
basically a game of survival until he goes off to deal with Amuro.
From what I've seen, the different armies you can join are: Zeon/EFSF,
Titans/AEUG, Axis/AEUG, Londo Bell/Neo Zeon, Crossbone Vanguard/EFSF.
Oh yes - there are two other things of note. First, in order to explain
away the gap between CCA and F91, your character gets married, and the
story continues with you playing his son. You choose which of 3 other
characters to marry, which has a small effect on the skills of your son.
Secondly, as you unlock units, you can reuse them in some cases in earlier
eras. This can make the game easier, but the game penalizes you by giving
you fewer points to spend on upgrades. Regardless, as you unlock things it
can make some of the very difficult levels (trying to to take out a Jagd
Doga in a Jegan is tough. Doing so in the F90V is downright trivial).
The controls are very tight as well. They feel pretty natural, especially
in space. The land battles are fun, but the ones in space "feel" more
Gundam-esque. Button use is minimal - one face button for ranged, one for
melee, one for your "special" ability, and one for dash. One trigger to
change locked on targets, another to boost jump, and a third to control
your secondary weapon (or control your funnels).
Attacking works on a "charging" system. Say you're piloting the F91. If
you press fire once, you fire a single shot. Hold it down until it
charges, and you get some kind of beam spray gun. Hold it down so it
charges a third time, and the VSBR will go off, auto targetting up to 6
enemies. This works really well since it balances things. You can do an
absurd amount of damage - especially with the super powered units, if you
charge up. However, you're vulnerable. If you get hit, you lose your
charge. So while it's nice to take out big bunches of enemies at a time
(which is great fun), I've been ganged up on by Gear Doga squads that get
in close while trying to charge up.
But I digress. It's fairly easy to pick up and start playing, and manages
to seem fairly balanced. The mobile armours (GP-03, Byg Zam, etc) don't
have the lockon ability of normal MS, to compensate for their general
over-powered-ness, which is another example of that balance.
So should you import it? If you like action style games, this is about as
good as the Gundam franchise has ever had it. There's quite a bit of depth
and variety, though there aren't actually all that many missions. It is
possible to blow through the entire progress mode in one sitting (or at
least one path through it), though it does encourage replayability. Plus
there is the challenge of being able to use weaker suits later on. You of
course get bonuses if you were to take a plain vanilla GM out in 0087.
For non-Japanese speakers, it is very nice that virtually all of the menus
are in English. There are only two places where you will run into
problems. First, when you unlock things, the text is all in Japanese, and
since they don't list model numbers, it can be hard to guess what you just
unlocked. Secondly, all of the character abilities (both active and
passive) are all in Japanese. As such, I have no idea what the others do
and instead, exclusively use the ones I've figured out by trial and error.
Aside from that, this is very import friendly and quite a bit of fun. Too
bad it's not my wife's kind of game, otherwise I'd give the two-player
mode a shot :)
Nick
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