Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo

"The first Gundam comes home to the PS2"

Bandai just released Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo, the first ever Gundam game on the PS2 system. How does the game hold up?

Story

Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo focuses on the first Gundam TV series, currently playing on Cartoon Network. For those who do not know, Mobile Suit Gundam is a mecha 'Anime' series from Japan. Or in other words, a cartoon about big robots.

Now here's a brief summery of the story:

It starts off in the year 0079 of the Universal Century. It's a half-century since Earth began to move out his burgeoning population into large space colonies called 'Sides'. Nine months ago, the cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth, called Side Three, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon and launched a war of independence from the Earth Federation.

The initial fighting only lasted over a month and both sides lost over half of their respective populations. Eight months had passed since the rebellion began. They were at a stalemate...

You play as Amuro Ray, a orphaned boy who is forced in a position to pilot a experimental weapon called Gundam against the Zeon forces to try to save the Federation against this uprising.

As you can tell from the text above, it's a rather interesting story.

Gameplay

In addition to playing along the main story line, you can revisit past battles, challenging your high scores. After winning the game, you can unlock the Tactics Mode and play a limited amount of missions on either the side of the Federation/Zeon conflict.

Now the game controls are rather typical. You guide the Gundam around using the D-pad and can adjust your view with the right and left analog stick (your regular view is 'quarterback'). While pressing any of the direction controls twice, you can 'boost' towards that direction with the use of it's rockets. You can also the rockets to jump in the air but the system tends to overheat when used constantly (in both accounts). When in battle, you have your typical regular attack, which you can choose the majority of the time before the mission, and two other secondary weapons. You also have a specialty attack which is power but has it's limited uses. Unlike Zone of Enders, where it's lock is automatic, you have to use the L2 button to lock on your enemies.

I have a few issues with the gameplay. The first is the inability to attack while 'boosting' towards your opponent. You always see this in the series and I was hoping to do this in the game as well. The second is the use of the D-Pad as a directional control while nowadays the typical PS2 game uses the analog sticks to guide each of it's main character or characters. While Armored Core 2 has this same problem, it doesn't hurt the game. Hopefully, they'll fix this problem in the sequel.

The third problem is the shortness of the game. If you were barely trying, I would expect you to complete the game in less then a game. It took me 2 days on the first try but it's only because I had a air conditioner broken. When it was repaired, I was able to go through it in less then 8 hours, playing on and off. I expect a person playing it completely without stopping to have it done in 4 hours.

The final problem with the game is it's difficulty. To be blunt, the majority of the game is easy. Although you'll might have a problem or two with a mission, it's nothing that'll keep you stuck, working on it for weeks.

Audio/Visual

The audio portion of the game is a pure retro flashback. The soundtrack is pure orchestrated with one or two Japanese 'pop' songs around the end. This was the thing to do back in the 70's when the Gundam series began. Now this can be either good or bad, depending on the player. If you love classic anime music, then you'll enjoy the songs. If you, say, like the horrible music that's played on the dubbed version of Dragon Ball Z which replaced the original music, then you might not enjoy it's soundtrack.

The visual portion was rather fine. The in-game visuals were vibrate and colorful. It didn't push the PS2 to the limits but it didn't look horrible either. The mecha designs are also retro but more pleasing to the eyes, in my opinion, then other PS2 mecha games.

As expected in the majority of games nowadays, the game features cut scenes which are made up of in-game 3-D and cel. Did the movies work in the context of the game and respectful towards the series? In my opinion, yes on both accounts.

Replayability

As an added bonus, you can examine each individual mobile suit (which is viewed in 3-D which can be rotated), listen to the in-game music, and watch the exciting movies in the Gallery section. Although I mentioned the Tactics Mode above, when you start playing the missions and beat them with different mobile suits, you can gain access to even more suits to use exclusively in the Tactics Mode. You can also view them in the section of the gallery devoted to each mobile suit.

Buy or Rent?

I'd recommend buying this game. It's a fun game with plenty of action and epic fights with big robots with some good bonus material.

Overall Score

I give it a 8. It's a good game but it's just too short.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/01, Updated 08/15/01