This is such a weird game. So many missing series, so many grunt units. It seems rock solid and I'm happy with it, but dunno it's weird!
One of my favorite parts of Gundam Versus/FB/MB is playing through arcade mode facing gundams from all the series to vocal songs from all the series in a nostalgia-filled Virtua-On game. I also like the weird medal challenges single player modes in the home versions. Went for the Premium G Edition here because wanted to replicate that experience as much as possible.
Playing a little before work this morning these were my initial impressions:
-Feels pretty close to MB and the movelists are pretty similar. I'm happy about this because like the Vita game lost like 50% of everyone's moves which felt dumbed down in combat.
-Striker system is fun, can see it being broken with OP strikers depending on how well balanced it is.
-Not many stages, I remember a lot more stages back in FB/MB. There's only like 7-8 stages here on first glance wtf. Stages should be like the easiest thing to make but w/e, it's not that important.
-Online seemed good, smooth and got into matches fast. 1v1 is not for me because I'm a casual player and get wrecked. 2v2 is good old-school and 3v3 is less crazy in the matches I tried than I thought it would be since most people tend to focus 1 person to 1 person most of the match. Only shame is it boots you back to the main menu after every match and for some reason ranked match is greyed out for me atm.
-Graphics are fine, different style (I really liked the cell-shaded look of FB) but looks fine. UI is pretty different, gets the job done.
-Survival mode is pretty fun. Seems like a good little SP mode.
-Arcade trial routes are weird in the early ones. Instead of dumb easy CPU, it's like dumb easy CPU that dies in 2 hits so you don't get the satisfaction of even a full length match and then boss fights. Hoping the more normal difficulty ones are closer to standard FB arcade mode runs. I want longer length matches to listen to the music more.
-SP content seems a bit light if that's all you get. Doesn't seem like there's any lengthy 30-50 hour plus mode like the old mission modes. Feels closer to an arcade game with an expanded arcade mode + online.
-Music selection without the premium G edition is pretty solid, I was concerned the non-G edition wouldn't have any vocal songs like SRW V, but it still has most of the main vocal songs. G edition does add some good ones though. Still kinda weird on two fronts, one being with so few series, there's less variety in music than FB/MB, and then the other thing are some weird exclusions like why does 00 Gundam, even with G edition only have Daybreak Bell for the vocal track? Why not Ash like Snow or either of the first two EDs? Also Z Gundam has almost no music which is WEIRD considering how many units from Z there are. Doesn't have a single vocal song. Gotta wonder if this is a licensing thing with the international version. Also setting up music is a slow pain in the ass to add all the G edition songs in with all the units. Will save that for another day. I'm guessing with the 3 BGM slots that you assign up to 3 tracks to a unit and it will pick one at random? Also how does it pick the BGM for the stage? I always thought in SP it was the enemy boss track and MP just a random pick of the units playing. Dunno if that's still right. I seem to get original Gundam tracks a lot against CPU in survival.
Anyhow, seemed fun, looking forward to trying all these weird grunts that they added and see if any are fun to play as. You can definitely tell this is a total reboot of the franchise and they can probably spend 2 or 3 more entries filling out the rest of the roster. I'm kinda surprised Barbatos Lupus Rex isn't in since it's the newest Gundam at this time. I miss my QUAN[T] but I'm fine going back to Freedom Gundam since I prefer the design over Strike Freedom.