"Just like the show, but more repetitive."

Based on a popular anime series, this game gives you the opportunity to play as four of the main characters of show, across missions based on the ones from the actual show. Such simple phrase could sum up what you can expect from this game, but suddenly things start going down, and you soon find yourself immersed in a far-from-perfect gameplay experience.

When you first start playing, everything will look shiny, there's an amazing main menu and a great introduction sequence, which fans will probably enjoy. Next, as soon as you press the “New Game” button, you'll find yourself in a simple interface where your only target is completely annihilating the three opposing nations found in this game - Advanced European Union, Human Reform League and the World Economic Union. Oddly, such action is accomplished by completing missions, which contain enemies from one (or three) of the nations. Depending on the score achieved at the end of each mission, the bars related to those nations will go slightly down, which would be a lot easier to do if you were actually told about the scoring criteria.

Since most missions have no clear objective, more often than not you'll find yourself roaming a certain area, while destroying everything that crosses your path, which is fairly easy, due to the enemy's overall lack of skill. You can actually re-enact amazing battles, like the ones seen in the actual show, but since your Gundam only have two offensive techniques, a short range one and an unique beam weapon, you're more likely to mash a certain key until the enemy is down, a clear no-brainer that works with any of the four basic units available in the game. Sure, you can hold those keys to perform a slightly more powerful attack, but the usual fast-paced environment of the game makes it harder to effectively pull those techniques, as they require a certain timing to be as damaging as you'd like.

Eventually, you're bound to find more specific missions, where you're asked to destroy missiles or protect a certain area, but those missions are fairly rare and harder than they sound, actually requiring you to switch the targeted unit, and this is where you'll spot this game's first flaw - although you can freely roam around the scenario, doing so makes it harder for you to hit anything at all, and you're more likely to use this game's auto-aim, a feature that leads to tons of awful camera spins. Whenever an enemy unit approaches your own, the camera will try to focus on the action, usually making it easier for you to be hit on your back or, if you're aiming at someone in a Mobile Armor mode, leading to some awful camera twists. Be aware that using the free roam just isn't an option here, since doing so makes it painfully hard to hit anything at all, while your unit ends up being a sitting duck.

Unfortunately, the offensive controls aren't the only thing that is far from perfect. Shielding yourself from enemy's attacks requires a combination of two keys, making it harder to pull in the heat of battle. You can also move in the Z-axis, apart from the left/right, forward and backwards, but those actions end up being generally unimportant. Truth be told, there are only two or three missions that actually require you to do so, and you can easily manage your way across the game without ever even noticing that such feature was available. A special attack mode becomes available as you cause damage during missions, but its duration is very limited, and no matter the time at which you use it you'll find it very hard to pull more than two combos.

Despite these general problems, the presence of support characters are an interesting inclusion in this game. Before starting each mission, you'll be able to pick a certain number of supporters, which give you a wide variety of effects. Some make it easier to decrease the strength of a certain nation, others improve some of your unit's stats, among some surprises. Just like picking your unit correctly sometimes makes the difference between a stoic victory and a harsh defeat, using support characters at the right time is also very useful, even more when you realise that they take a specific time to recharge. Units don't suffer from this problem, but if they get damaged during missions it will take a while for them to recover their HP, which makes the game slightly more strategical - there's no point in using Exia in a AEU mission if his HP is below 30%, as you may easily understand - and since each of the four basic units (Dynames, Exia, Kyrios and Virtue) have specific stats, strengths and weaknesses, you'll have to be very careful on who you pick for each mission.

Now, you just have 50 days to play your missions, and taking one of them (no matter the final result) advances one day in the story. Even if you manage to successfully complete 50 missions in a row, it is possible that you haven't reduced enough of the nations' bars to get an amusing ending, and that's one of this game's clear flaws. Usually, a game featuring multiple endings is rather enjoyable, making players feel like the should play it for a certain number of times in order to see all the endings. However, this game makes you play the very same set of missions each time you want to see a different ending, which is obviously boring. Once in a while, you're asked to take an option, but doing so changes absolutely nothing in terms of the missions you'll have to face, instead giving you the opportunity to attain a different ending, and nothing else. A very restricted group of players may enjoy replaying the very same missions over and over, but that's something that random players usually dislike, and severely hurts the replay value of this game. No matter how you try to view it, you can complete the game several times in a single day, which also says a lot about its play time.

If you're expecting to find something else in this game, the main menu also presents you a “GUNPLA Navi” mode, which give you interesting hints on how to customize your Gundam 00 models, apart from working as a small catalogue. Unless you're an hardcore fan of the show, this isn't exactly the kind of thing you're looking forward to, and even if it is interesting to see those models once or twice, it ends up being the sort of thing that most players will simply disregard.

Graphically, all the units available in this game are completing faithful with what you could see in the show, and the same goes for the special effects. Regrettably, the camera angles are sometimes problematic, and the presence of a physical red wall around the scenario tends to disturb the battle environment. Menus feel like they have been taken from the series, which is certainly great, and fans will love the high quality images of the Gundam models here available.

Concerning music and sound effects, they heavily resemble the ones heard in the series, and that's a good thing, as you'll feel more immersed in the gameplay experience. Besides, during missions most characters have their own voices, possibly done by the same guys who voiced them in the show, and that's something that everyone is bound to enjoy, no matter if they're fans or not. In fact, sound is possibly this game's strongest point, and you'll have an hard time trying to disagree.

Overall, and even if no knowledge of the Japanese language is required to enjoy this game, this ends up being the kind of product that only “Gundam 00” hardcore fans will enjoy. Other players may find it interesting for five or six hours, but replaying the game for countless times is certainly boring if you're trying to do it “just cause”.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/08

Game Release: Kidou Senshi Gundam 00 (JP, 03/27/08)