Review: Dragon Ball: That time I got reincarnated as Yamcha

It's been a long time since I reviewed anything Dragon Ball related. In fact I think the last thing I reviewed was the first episode of Dragon Ball Super a few years ago, since then the series has gone on to have a renaissance of sorts through the Video Games, Manga and the recent movie. Much of this was thanks to the creation of 'The Dragon Ball Room' by rights holder Shueisha which was formed in order to support and expand the franchise.

With this room being formed in June of 2016 almost a year after the airing of the first episode of Dragon ball Super I was really excited to see what they could come up with, but I can honestly say I had no idea they would facilitate a Manga like 'That time I got reincarnated as Yamcha'.

I originally heard about this Manga online when the first chapter was released in English by Viz for free. However I never found the time to get around to reading it other than catching some scans of the odd page here and there when people would talk about it online. It was due to discussions about this Manga on Twitter that I would come to see images posted that initially I believed were from this Manga with one well known example in the fan community being Yamcha fighting Golden Frieza.

When I saw these kind of images I would laugh out loud at how ridiculous the scenarios were and decided to look a little closer into why this Manga existed in the first place, it was then that I came across the Mangaka Dragongarow LEE. LEE is responsible for the art used within this Manga as well as the general story and is well known within the Dragon Ball community due to his Doujinshi (Fan Manga/Art), so it is easy to see how he would come to be scouted to work on a one-shot like this.

According to an interview with an Editor at Shueisha it was not LEE that came up with the concept of the story initially. However due to his previous work in which Vegeta came to Earth as a child rather than Goku, being so popular amongst other staff members it was decided that LEE could also be trusted to come up with his own ideas for the story and create something that the fans would love to see.

The thing about Yamcha is, he's just a little bit useless. When he was introduced he seemed to be a pretty cool character and really fit into the adventure setting of the original series. Yet as time progressed he was shown to be a bit lazy and neglect his training until he has no other choice. It was not long after Dragon Ball Z began that Yamcha would become a joke. This was due to his loss against the Saibamen via one of them self destructing.

At the time this technique wiping an established character out instantly really showed the level of power the enemy had, even if it was just a small minion of the main threat, but in retrospect the horrible way he died just became a little funny and has become somewhat of a meme within the community. It's no secret that Shueisha would know this and perhaps it's a reason why they chose LEE who is passionate about smaller characters like Yamcha, to take the reigns.

So what is the plot? Well as the title suggests it's about being turned into Yamcha after your own death and having to deal with the world that he resides in. In other words the overall story is a case of a what if scenario where Yamcha has full knowledge of everything that was going to happen in Dragon Ball and what he would do with that information.

I'd rather not give too much away about the story because it would ruin some of the comedy involved but I will say the comedic timing and style of LEE is not dissimilar to that of original Dragon Ball author Akira Toriyama. Perhaps that is because we are reliving certain scenes where the comedy is already in place for the most part, yet LEE puts his own little spin on it and adds that extra layer that really feels welcome in the Dragon Ball world.

The art style is another big plus for me and perhaps I'm not the best authority on the matter but I really wouldn't have been able to tell that this was not drawn by Toriyama if I did not already know it was LEE. LEE's emulation of the traditional Toriyama style is absolutely fantastic and I would argue it is much better than the majority of the work on the Dragon Ball Super Manga which is headed by Toyotaro, another member of the Dragon ball community who also began as a Doujinshi Mangaka.

That is not to say that Toyotaro is bad and he has certainly improved but it has been a gradual journey that the fans have seen with each Manga chapter. Yes, LEE likely had way more time to work with and was only working on a single volume rather than an ongoing series but the differences in their emulation of Toriyamas art is hard to ignore.

I think one of the funniest aspects of the whole Manga is that the character inhabiting Yamcha just wants to get together with Bulma initially. After he realizes he's likely stuck as Yamcha forever he thinks about how he's going to survive as arguably one of the weakest character in the franchise. Thankfully he actually gets serious about making Yamcha stronger and uses his knowledge of the Manga to push himself to the highest level he can.

What's interesting is that while he does his best with his training, he is still limited in how far he can push Yamcha. He quickly discovers that he will still be no match for enemies like Frieza or Cell and due to this the Manga actually keeps itself 'realistic' within the world that it is set in. That is not to say that the story abruptly ends because of these points but it's interesting to see that Yamcha can only be pushed so far until there is no way he can continue to keep up with characters like Goku and the power of Super Saiyan.

I think that delves a little deeper into a common problem many may find with the series, in that the power levels are just astronomical at this point and you never get to see a lot of the side characters like Yamcha or Piccolo during the latter parts of Z. This has been slightly rectified in recent years with Revival of F movie and the Tournament of Power Arc in the Anime but it is still very much the 'Saiyan show' overall.

Skipping ahead, the last chapter honestly took a turn that I did not expect and even involved the Mobile game Dokkan Battle which I'm embarrassed to admit took up too much of my time in the past. I wasn't sure how I felt about the sudden change in story and tone at first but now I have had time to sit on it, and after reading the Manga a number of times since then, I felt it was a satisfying end to the story rather than having Yamcha just 'Retire' it gave one last hurrah to the character in some form.

There are some Bonus chapters that answer questions such like, 'if he knew everything why didn't he use fusion on some tougher enemies' which has a hilarious result and even uses the characters knowledge of games like Dragon Ball Fusions to their advantage. The Manga generally ties into so many different aspects of the franchise and the whole reason the main character even got reincarnated as Yamcha is etched into characters I thought would be totally absent from this story.

It's fair to say this is a Manga by a fan for the fans, much like the Doujinshi worked on in the past by LEE. It's reasons like this that make me so proud to be a part of this global community that never ceases to amaze me.

The Manga is relatively short, so much so that you will likely finish it in under 30 minutes. I wouldn't say this is a complaint as such because the quality of everything involved is fantastic but I wish I could have seen a little more about Yamcha during the Namek Arc or prior to the arrival of Vegeta and Nappa as the story skips around quite a lot. We do get some slight looks at Yamcha fighting Burter or Tambourine and although the outcome is predictable due to the nature of the story I wish I could have seen some of that action.

Overall I really enjoyed this Manga because it did something different while remaining linked to the core of Dragon ball, a nice fun adventure. In no way do I want to see the market flooded with titles like this and I feel like you need to have a franchise like Dragon Ball to be able to do something like this effectively. Nevertheless I would love to see some more crazy stories set in the Dragon Ball world whether they are canon or not.

I hope the Dragon Ball Room continues to expand and give new artists and writers a chance to shine, especially those with proven track records from within the community like Toyotaro and LEE. I will say that I believe they have to be particularly selective in who they allow to take the wheel of such an important franchise.

I think if you're a fan of the series and want a short but great read then you absolutely have to pick this Manga up when you can, you won't be disappointed!

Ultraman Season 1 (Netflix)

Ultraman is a new anime adaptation released on Netflix in April of 2019 and production as a co-production by Production I.G and Sola Digital Arts. It is based on the long running Ultraman series in Japan and acts as a direct sequel to the original live action show from 1966. The shows tend to revolve around an alien threat effecting Earth and Ultraman in one way or another being Earths defender.

Ultraman started as a Tokusatsu (Special effects) series in Japan in 1966 and was actually a semi-sequel to another show called Ultra Q which also aired in 1966 and did not include the Ultraman character. The series has since spun off into it's own entity and has enjoyed a long running success in Japan.

Now for me I've never watched a show in the Ultraman series but I am aware of it and the general story of the original show. I have however grown up with series similar to it such as Power Rangers which is the American version of Japans Super Sentai Tokusatsu series and Kamen Rider which America got as Masker Rider back in the 90's.

As a child I always had a huge affinity for Power Rangers until I was around 9 or 10 years old but then it was seen as a bit too childish so I stopped watching it through fear of ridicule. When I was around 15 and getting back into Anime again I discovered that a lot of the series I used to watch such as Power Rangers were actually Japanese in origin, I started to look into this further and found that they were allegedly much more 'adult and violent' than the versions we had in the UK.

I was interested so began to watch Kamen Rider which like Ultraman and Power Rangers had been running on and off for a large number of years. Now personally I don't find it that different to what we got in the UK in terms of violence etc so I think that was just people trying to justify watching a show that was aimed more at kids.  However I did enjoy the series I watched (Kamen Rider Decade, W, Kabuto, Fourze and 000s) because they were goofy, had some decent choreography and plot points and really they took me back to the nostalgia of watching the shows as a kid.

Really they are not that different to watching Marvel or DC movies now just on a much smaller budget so I don't see any shame in it, it's just as cheesy as any MCU movie can be. I haven't watched a series in quite a while though unless the Power Rangers movie from a few years ago counts, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

I believe Netflix have been doing pretty good with Anime that they have had some hand in releasing, Devilman Crybaby remains one of my favorite anime released in the last few years and Aggretsuko has been a lovely short series to watch. I know there is a meme about their adaptations side of things like the live action Death Note movie (Which I actually enjoyed) being received poorly but I think they've been slowly releasing some gems recently, so how does Ultraman fare?

I found the characters to be generally well written, I really enjoyed the main character Shinjiro just being expected to become Ultraman because he has had the power passed down to him, whether he wanted to or not. It was great to see him be a complete novice to being a Superhero and how he would mess up quite a bit but always take something away from each battle or event and ensure that he did his best not to make the same mistakes again.

It was important for him to see that if he doesn't act or does not improve then people will and do get harmed. I also liked that his superior Moroboshi was much more accustomed to being Ultraman and was happy to not hold back in telling Shinjiro that if he can't or won't do something then he doesn't deserve to be Ultraman. I felt that was a huge catalyst in Shinjiro deciding to use the power he has rather than expect others who don't have the exact power set as him to do it and potentially suffer.

Moroboshi was your typical arrogant counter-character to Shinjiro. Shinjiro was the novice and heroic type whereas Moroboshi is the darker and more serious type. He has no issue with killing an enemy if it means the threat is neutralized and has no time for being nice to Shinjiro. Now at first Moroboshi to me was just the typical dick Anime character who hates the main character because they don't believe they had earnt the right to do X Y Z on their own.

As time progresses though, while we haven't yet seen his background story you can tell he is committed to protecting the Earth from any threat whatever the cost is, even if that means putting himself at risk. He seems to warm up more to Shinjiro over time as Shinjiro begins to get much more serious and I actually feel like they make a great team, Moroboshi actually shows some subtle respect to him which is great.

Hokuto is the third Ultraman in the show who we are introduced to during the seasons twilight episodes. I found him quite annoying and disliked him at first because he follows the typical archetype of an annoying character that would follow the main character around all the time and bother them. However as the show got to it's last few episodes and we saw exactly what his motives were he really grew on me, quickly becoming my favorite character so far.

Now there are other characters I enjoyed a lot but I can't really comment on them much without spoiling some really key plot points. I would like to mention though that this season has not had any interesting female characters... In fact I think there is only one who could be considered part of the main cast and she is not particularly well written. Perhaps that changes later on but it is a bit of a negative point so far.

I really enjoy when Superhero Media deals with the negatives that can come with being a hero. Much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Comics with Civil War there are issues surrounding those that get caught in the crossfire of Superhero battles. Yes they are necessary fights but the argument is, could more not be done to prevent causalities or destruction? Now this is not the only issue of course but it's touched upon in the show a few times.

One characters hatred for Ultraman comes from the original live action series where the hero and monsters used to grow to a giant size and cause so much destruction during their fights and because of that a family member got killed by falling debris.

It's interesting that many members of the public accuse the new Ultramen of just being Cosplayers and not true heroes, the public act in a way that suggests they really don't want the Ultramen around. It's interesting to see the perspectives rather than everyone just cheering them on all the time. I hope that this is explored further with the coming seasons.

I enjoyed the way the story progressed throughout the season but I do have a few issues with the show. I really do not like this new trend of Anime having this 3D animation style. I'm not saying it cannot be done right because examples like the recent Dragonball Movies have proven that it can but I feel that's because they are only really used during certain action scenes.

The problem with Ultraman is that this style is used throughout the entire show, it makes the characters look totally static and like a poor Video game cutscene. It makes a lot of the characters look expressionless and wooden,  personally it does not work for me.

A lot of the monsters they come across look like they are made of rubber or ironically have someone inside the suit operating them but I guess you could argue that is intentional because that's how it would be if it were a live action Tokusatsu.

While I dislike this style generally I will say it works for the actions scenes and the Ultraman suit designs,it actually helps the suits look more like some futuristic armor. Interestingly most of the fights are actually done via motion capture which is not something I really expected to happen for an Anime series, perhaps this is one of the reasons the action scenes look so good, or is that down to both this and the choice in animation style? Perhaps the animation will grow on me in time but If you look at the way the Manga is drawn it feels like a bit of a disservice.

So without talking too much more about the show what do I think about it overall?
I think it's a step in the right direction. It's got me hooked on a decent story in the Tokusatsu genre (Kind of) and has made me want to pick up the Manga. I do wish the animation style was perhaps more traditional but I don't think this is going to change. I would say if you're new to this kind of series this would be a good place to start but feel you could also just start with an actual live action series.

I feel happy that these Japanese heroes are becoming more accessible to viewers in the west and would LOVE Netflix to do a Kamen Rider series in this style if they could refrain from making it all 3D animation. I'm very excited to see what other Anime titles Netflix puts out in the future and hope you are too.

Tetris 99 (Nintendo Switch)

I have been utterly obsessed with this game since its release. Its so strange to me though as I've never actually played a Tetris game in my life. I was as surprised as everyone else when Nintendo announced this during its Nintendo Direct video on February 13th this year and have been playing it almost everyday since.

The game is 'free' if you have a Nintendo online subscription (along with the ability to play old NES games) which I think was a wise decision by Nintendo. I do not believe I'd pay the full price of a Switch title in the UK for this game or even the price of a budget title because I've never been into the series. I'm really happy they released it this way though because I've put so much time into it and gained a new love for puzzle based and competitive titles.

The aim of the game is to last as long as possible at a game of Tetris but the catch is you're against 98 other people. Every player has the ability to target others in order to eliminate them quicker, this is done by selecting what type of player you'd like to target such as players who are targeting you or players who have the most K.O's. It really is quite a simplistic game but I feel Tetris has always been that way, easy to grasp potentially hard to master and this puts a nice new spin on it.

I really don't care much for Battle Royale shooter games, admittedly I've not taken the time to play more than a handful of matches in something like Fortnite but it just does not do it for me. It's probably because I'm shit at non team based Video Games since playing the Lone Wolves game type on Halo 3 back in the day.

I never really thought about this being in the Battle Royale genre until I saw the memes online about it being the 'Fortnite killer'. In any case it's nice to see that Battle Royale doesn't have to just be FPS games right now, its kind of refreshing to be honest.

Now like I mentioned, I've been obsessed with this game every time I have a spare few minutes which more often than not turns into at least an hour or so. I'm currently living in Australia for a while and only took my Switch as any form console. That in itself is quite refreshing and has allowed me to take a step from always having too much to play back home and just focus on smaller titles when I feel like it.

This game and others like it are perfect if you're traveling but that kind of begs the question would I play this as much as I am if I was back in the UK with my Xbox One X and PS4? I certainly have many games that released during this period I'm itching the play and I can't help think that perhaps I would not have even given this game the time of day in that scenario.

I mentioned briefly that this game has given me a new love for puzzle based titles. I meant that as in it makes me want to focus more on them in the future if I can, but it's not my first rodeo with these its just been a while. I used to get obsessed with the Xbox 360 title Hexic HD which most people had pre-installed on their console.

Hexic and Hexic HD interestingly enough were actually designed by Tetris' creator Alexey Pajitnov so perhaps that explains my love for Tetris 99 in some way. I remember the countless hours I'd spend late at night playing Hexic HD on the 360 while listening to music. To this day I'm one of the only people I know with certain Achievements in that title.

I think the first time I played a game like this though was back on the Sega Megadrive (Genesis for USA), It was a sort of competitor to Tetris named Columns and was essentially an earlier version of Bejeweled (which I also enjoy, especially on long haul flights). I was terrible at it but with the Megadrive Collection on Switch perhaps I should go back to it some time soon.

There is not much more I can say about this game other than if you have a switch and pay for the Online functionality of it then give it a go, you might be pleasantly surprised with it. Full disclosure though I still haven't come first place but I'm determined!

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

 

It’s been a really long time since I posted here but I wanted to talk about a series I rewatched recently called Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam from 1985 which was the first in a series of sequels to the original Mobile Suit Gundam. I’ve been collecting the Blu Rays of the Gundam series recently as they have slowly started to come to the UK thanks to the fine folks at AlltheAnime and Zeta was one of my favourites when I first watched it almost 10 years ago.

Now I’ve seen pretty much everything Gundam related that’s been released but Zeta had always had that status for me that it was one of the highest points the franchise could hope to reach and from what I’ve seen online from the fan base this seems to be the general opinion.  I remember I really enjoyed it when I originally saw it but I feel almost 10 years is enough time to warrant a rewatch of the series and re-evaluate if I still hold it in high regard. So allow me just to pick a few things I liked as disliked about the show this time around.

I think right off the bat I need to mention how in love I am with the Mecha designs in Zeta. They are absolutely some of the best in the Universal Century and in the Gundam franchise itself. I have to say they know how to take simplistic designs and add to them such as the Gundam Mk II which is pretty much the original Gundam with only small ‘upgrades’. While this keeps the Mobile Suit looking new and perhaps sleeker it doesn’t hesitate to preserve some elements that made the original suit so iconic. 

To counter this point they are also not afraid to take what we are already familiar with and totally change it. For example the Zeta Gundam itself was different from anything we had seen up until that point. The famous Gundam head design was refined and the transformation gimmick gave a real sense of changing times for the series both in the show itself and to its fans. 

I am happy they kept with the general theme of the ‘bad guys’ having single 'mono-eyed' Mobile Suits even more so in this series because the Titans who are this shows antagonists used to be considered the ‘good guys’ in the previous series but have become their own entity not governed by the Earth Federation. By having them go back to using Mobile Suits typically associated with ‘evil’ and even having an in-show reason for this such as Zeon technology being more advanced I felt it really helped to emphasise that the Titans were to a corrupt version of the Earth Federation.

One of the best aspects of the show is Char now being a protagonist under the name of Quattro. Char was the primary rival in the original series whose motivations were never exactly clear until partway through that show. It was questionable whether he was evil or just saw things from another perspective. I find that is the case for many factions and characters within the Universal Century and feel this only boosts Chars appeal to fans.

In this show we see a new side of him where he has become a true leader and Father figure or Teacher to many of the younger cast members, specifically Kamille who I feel at times could either be the next Amuro or the next Char. I feel that Char can see this too and attempts to mould him in that direction. I would not say he is doing this for any ulterior motive I truly believe he sees it as his own way of paving the road for the next generation and Newtypes in general.

 

I find that the protagonist of the show Kamille shows real growth and development throughout the series. He is annoying at first and very childish but as the show progresses he really grows into an adult and a capable pilot. I think his progression raises interesting questions such as how a teenager would react in a literal war zone when they are the pilot of arguably the most important machine in the war. This of course is answered in the original series too but this time around Kamille is surrounded by people who have done this before and are in many cases Veterans.

Now while he does show he is a capable person over time he does have a number of missteps where he lets his emotions run wild. With examples such as when a friend is killed or when the love of his life is actually under the control of the enemy and has their memories tampered with. It takes Kamille a long time to start using his emotions as a weapon in order to benefit his faction but once he does he becomes a force to be reckoned with. 

Kamille most of the time as mentioned above shows that he could go either the way of Char or the way of  previous series protagonist Amuro. This is shown quite early on in the series when he loses Four Murasame in a situation quite close to that of what Amuro and Char went through when Lalah was killed in Mobile Suit Gundam. What is important and allows Kamille to stand out though is that he doesn’t specifically follow either characters advice and allows himself to pave his own way. By being able to do this he is not just a mirror image of his seniors he is his own person and a much more interesting character because of it. I feel this point is the main reason he matures throughout the show.

I also have to say I found Jerid likeable at times. Jerid was this aggressive rival to Kamille right off the bat purely because he thought Kamille was a girl’s name… While this starts off extremely petty each one of them continues to antagonise the other with Jerid always rushing into battle the moment he knows Kamille is on the battlefield. This has consequences for both characters though as each one of them end up killing those close to the other party.

Naturally this only intensifies their hate for one another but in a roundabout way it showed that Jerid actually was a good pilot and could continue to improve. At times it would even show he had leadership skills and those that would follow him. Personally, I feel he had the edge at times as he was continuously getting new mobile suits to pilot yet he really could have become a Newtype to rival Kamille if he had lived longer.

As much as I enjoy much of the characterisations in the show I do feel that some characters seem to have ridiculous motivations for what they do. The worst offender for this is Reccoa who was with the AEUG from the start of the show and was a valued member of the team, she was capable and another of those the younger team would look up to. The issue is she goes on reconnaissance and meets the antagonist Scirroco and immediately begins to almost love him.

Because of this she abandons the AEUG and joins the Titans, a group of people she has fought against for some time, a group she has seen commit countless atrocities. There are times early on when she joins the Titans that she is seen to disagree with their methods but eventually she becomes just as bad as they are, all because she wishes to be closer to Scirroco.

I find this utterly ridiculous and some could argue it is because Char does not return her affection early on. Regardless we have Emma who was originally on the side of the Titans but once she begins to see how they operate she joins the AEUG because she does not agree with what the Titans has become, this is a much more reasonable explanation for someone to join another faction!

I found the pacing of the series to be quite good as I never believed there to be an episode that was not warranted like I do with a lot of Anime nowadays. Everything that happened seemed to happen for a reason and if there were ever deaths they felt like they served a real purpose to the rest of the cast. 

The last two episodes are where I feel the pacing seemed ever so slightly rushed in terms of character deaths, in the space of only a few minutes you could have two or three major players bite the dust! I think you could counter this by saying this is to show you how terrible war can be and that no particular person is actually safe just because they are one of the main cast. Zeta Gundam does do this well to be fair the show ends with both sides pretty much obliterated. The Titans have pretty much all their major players killed and are disbanded, The AEUG is crippled with only one pilot being left and our protagonist is in a comatose state. I don’t know of many other series that leave the protagonists in a state such as this! It’s aspects like this that can make me see why a lot of the fan base consider this series to be depressing. 

Personally I feel it’s not that bad as it leads into an immediate sequel ZZ Gundam albeit with a new cast joining and being much more light-hearted. But I certainly agree that the ending to this series as a whole is depressing if you are to take ZZ out of the equation. I wonder if it is jarring to people who only watch these shows in English as ZZ was not dubbed yet the follow-up movie CCA was!

Now I should mention as a side note there are three compilation movies for Zeta that were released between 2005 and 2006, I have watched them and I don’t remember enjoying them as much as the series itself as they would primarily reuse old animation and just condense the story however they would randomly add newly animated scenes which at times totally changed what happened in the original version, for example certain people who died may now have lived. 

My issue with the compilations was that it was so jarring to go from 1985 animation to mid-2000’s animation, there was nothing wrong with how either worked and I really believe they should have just reanimated the entire thing as it would help flow of the scenes and their transitions. Failing that why not just do these compilations with the original animation back in the 80s…

So overall do I still feel like Zeta is still one of my favourite series in all of Gundam? I would say no, it’s still worth a watch and I don’t regret rewatching it because it allowed me to appreciate certain elements I missed previously but I feel like its status for me has changed dramatically. As I’ve said there are plenty of elements I love about this show but I find the motivations of certain characters to be utterly ridiculous, so much so that it really makes me question what the writers were thinking at the time.

I feel there is a lot of fluff in the series that otherwise could be trimmed down and the ending is severely lacking but I’d recommend it to anyone interested specifically in Universal Century Gundam series, it is a small piece of a much larger saga and it certainly has earnt its place as it has  monumental moments for the characters such as Char, Amuro and Kamille.

Zeta you’ve got a lot of flaws, but you’ve also got some of the best Mech designs in the entire franchise, you showed us how to continue the story of the original cast while bringing in the next generation along with them and ultimately you set up a lot of major elements for the rest of Universal Century, you’re worth the watch!

Gundam Breaker 3 (PS4/Vita)

This week I wanted to talk about something Anime-related again however there is a bit of a twist this time around, I’ve been playing a PS4 game called Gundam Breaker 3 a lot at the moment and I dare say it might be one of my favourite Gundam related games to date. I’m a huge fan of Gundam and love making Gunpla models when I find the time, my room is littered with them.

Recently Bandai and Sunrise have been pushing the Gunpla aspect of the franchise a lot more as they have had three separate animated series relating to it in which the characters are normal everyday people who just participate in tournaments in which their custom models battle it out. With the popularity of such, sales naturally went up but a lot of people yearned to be able to make custom units in the same way they do in the series, now there are many talented people who can do this in real life but for someone like me it’s quite difficult to go beyond just snap building.

That’s why I love that they made this game, the game pretty much follows the idea of those Anime I mentioned above in that you place your Gunpla in a virtual environment and pilot it in battles against other users or the CPU, but with this game you can totally customise your unit with any existing parts placed in the game. So for example you could make the original Gundam but give it the tank tread legs of the Guntank, or you could give your standard Zaku II a huge ass Gunblade, the possibilities are somewhat endless and I find myself spending more and more time just making units and uploading pictures of them to social media rather than progressing in the game itself.

The reason I got this game so early rather than waiting until it was much cheaper was because it was actually translated into English fully (with the voices still being in Japanese), this has become the case with a few titles on the PS4 recently and is such a great idea, I mean the PS4 is region free so why not? I used to import a lot of titles on the Vita and PS3 but they were all in Japanese text and therefore pretty difficult to get my head around in some cases, I would generally shy away from any game like this title which relied heavily on text to explain the mechanics of the game (Like an RPG for example) but by having this option available I’m more willing to import.

I think it’s funny that they didn’t do this sooner to be honest, Bandai knows that many fans buy Gunpla online from Japan and import their games so why not offer this option to them and get the most out of their sales, so far I’m about halfway into the game and have not noticed any spelling or grammatical errors so I would say they have done a good job translation wise for the text, I have had absolutely no trouble in figuring out what I am meant to do objective wise or what the effects of certain equip parts are.

This gives me faith as there are about three more Gundam or Mecha related games coming out in the next year that are going to offer the same English language option, it’s going to destroy my wallet but I’m so happy Western fans are being taken into consideration, it is important to remember however this is the Asian release of the game (Singapore,Taiwan etc) and not the Japanese release, it has full Japanese Voice acting but the text can be in languages such as Taiwanese or any other Asian Language for that region.

When I played the original game I felt the focus was absolutely on the online play as the difficulty in going in to levels alone would ramp way up or they would last so long due to being all on your own that you wouldn’t really want to play more than one match at a time. This time around I do still play alone but you always get at least one or two CPU controlled units with you to alleviate some of that difficulty spike.

It’s clear they still want you to play online (and I do when I can!) but at least there is that option to go solo with CPU backup, I will say I do generally get people joining me online but they are usually those that are so overpowered and over-levelled compared to me that any mission they do is a cakewalk and no real fun, they are also super impatient when I’m looking through the items we got during the mission and deciding if I want to equip them or not.

This game shines for me due to the amount of customisation on your unit, I had only played the original game but on the Vita and it was all in Japanese (so pretty impossible to understand what I was doing), had an awful frame rate at times and was generally not as fun due to the lack of things to do. I did not play the second title so cannot comment on how much they improved from the original but in terms of this title I think they blew the original out of the water. I’m playing it on PS4 so there is that natural step up graphically as this is the first of the series on the console but the amount of options I have to design my unit is fantastic.

You have the standard leg,arm and head parts as you would in the other titles but this game allows for much more finer detailed options such as the ability to add emblems and decals to your unit, being able to change the material you unit is made out of such as plastic, High gloss injection or metal composite and one of my favourite appearance details has the be the option to make your unit battle damaged, I love this it really make the unit stand out more than just a big plastic blob on the screen, you can even add weathering effects to the unit which give off a really worn or dirty look.

The gameplay is relatively simplistic as it is generally a multi-level based mission in which you and your team will face hordes of other Gunpla enemies, with a mid and main boss’ usually appearing throughout  the level, once you have defeated X amount of enemies you are then able to move on to the next stage of the mission until you face the strongest unit and end the mission. Now there are variations in this in which it can be you versus a giant mobile armour as a kind of one on one boss battle and there are also some more objective based gametypes in which you must defend a command post while defeating enemies.

The combat is generally a simplistic fare as you have your three main attacks, light, heavy and projectile based attacks and when you gain enough power you can execute a special move that does huge damage, now obviously there are a wide range of customisable weapons, so for example with your melee attacks you can use Beam sabres, whips, knives or even martial arts fists as if you were in G Gundam, now if you have the latter that will affect your entire fighting style as well as your special move which can be anything from a combo to a Kamehameha type move.

Now those are the standard equipable weapon types however as you progress you may gain certain parts that allow you to use even more weapons, for example if you equip the 00 Raiser Seven Sword backpack which has buster blades on each shoulder then hell yeah you can use those. Have a back plate with two throwable daggers on it? Hell yeah you can use them. It does not even stop there an addition in this game from the first was ‘Builder Parts’ now these are small items that are either cosmetic or weapon based, an example being if you added a grenade anywhere on the body you can use it, I personally use the ZZ head beam cannon and put it on my units chest to have a decent long range attack.

The good thing about these extra weapons are that they do not replace you existing melee and projectile weapons, these will always be your Square, Triangle and R2 weapons no matter what, these extra weapons are controlled by the D-Pad for selection and used by pressing the circle button. You actually have enough room to use 8 extra weapons so two for each direction, I think this is wonderful even if it does make you slower and you mech look massive.

Now while the combat can get a bit more intricate if you throw all this into the mix it does not really go beyond an almost horde mode sort of thing where you’re just smashing through waves of enemies so in that respect it is not a touch on the arcade fighter series Gundam Vs, however I feel in time it could become a lot more than it is now if the developers will allow it, it is certainly a huge step up from the first game.

I think I would recommend this if you’re a Gundam fan or even a mecha fan, there are so many options and the in game story is nothing you really need to pay attention to or need to have watched the series in order to understand, it’s just sort of in the background so this is a pretty decent place to start for anyone. Of course I’m a huge Gundam fan so there is a bias somewhat in that I’ll pretty much play anything Gundam related I can get my hands on,

I would have to say that I would class this game as my favourite of the bunch I have played, I think the reason for this is just from the satisfaction of making your own unit, I love this aspect of the game so much and feel it can only be improved in much more detail in further instalments, this game is most definitely worth your time if you’re a fan or the series!

If you ever pick up the game and want to play add me on Psn: ScatmanBegins

I just want to take a short moment to thank Royce for always sharing my Blogs, I mostly write for myself but thanks to him my blogs have reached a lot of people I would never expect them to reach, he does a lot of work for a lot of people but I really appreciate it and will miss him in California this year!