The next title in the Dynasty Warriors games has hit shelves and this
time around you do not get to reenact samurai battles, but instead mecha
battles from the Gundam anime and manga series. As a new convert to
being a fan of Dynasty Warrior games after years of avoiding them like a
dentist appointment, I could not wait to get my hands on the release
because A) I like mech battles and B) I like in depth character
customization. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 hosts a plethora of content
which we will list before we get to the review, starting with over fifty
characters and seventy Mobile Suits that are all playable and
upgradeable, along, with up to four players being able to get together
online to play through a number of cooperative missions. So it's time to
get into your Mobile Suit and engulf yourself in thirty plus years of
the Gundam history in one little disk.
To start with the good, well that is easily the fast action to keep me
coming back for more, followed by the customization options and
additional characters to make sure you don't stop playing. The graphics
of the Mobile Suits are accented with bright colors contrasting your
opposition's darker appearance looked great on a HDTV showering my eyes
with the crisp anime art style. The action…well, it is a button mashing
combo racking time using only a couple of the buttons available, but
each mission's completion results with currency, and with currency comes
more skills to master and Mobile Suits to develop and once the
character's story is completed and stats are maxed out... I immediately
started another character's story line. Online? It was a fun and faster
way to rack up the monies to upgrade your giant robot and the character
behind the wheel, all while trying to sneak in the final blow on enemies
your teammates have been working on. That and seeing what support moves
your teammates bring to the table when the going gets tough.
The bad, and here comes the big one, the camera. It controls like those
seen in other third person action title, but on speed. You nudge the
stick and almost immediately having me pulling a 180, followed by not
trying to think about my sudden case of motion sickness. Throughout the
gameplay, I did notice the repetition in the map layout and that they
felt small in comparison to previous Dynasty Warrior games. The maps are
not very open and what I mean by that is you have to find a corridor in
each section to move on to conquer and increase your stronghold or to
defend enemy encroachment, this combined with the camera and focusing on
not letting your thrusters overheat, did cause some frustration. The
smaller maps also makes the length of missions feel short, playing on
medium difficulty, and significantly shorter when playing online. The
short missions do, however, make it easier to play more missions and
level up at a steady pace, feeling more like an arcade game.
All in all, I really had a blast with my time spent on Dynasty Warriors
Gundam 3. Sure the story felt bland, mainly because I am not familiar
with the series and I think I may have spent as much time fighting the
camera as I did enemies and bosses throughout the single player and
multiplayer mode. The thing that had me coming back for more and kept my
mind off the nuances, were unlocking more Mobile Suits, upgrading them,
then taking them online to kick some serious ass. After playing through
my first character’s storyline, the formula had me immediately coming
back for more rather than setting the game on my shelf of no return.
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