Anime games aren’t always an easy sell for me. Ironic, coming from a guy who writes for Shonen Jump, right? Sure, I’ve played a bunch of Dragon Ball games, and even dabbled in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but there's definitely some titles that leave me scratching my head. But there’s always something I’ll try, no matter what’s on the cover: Dynasty Warriors/Musou. I love the Musou games. To me, they’ve always felt like the natural evolution of the classic arcade brawler, adapted to the emergence of 3D space.

Better yet, the licenses Bandai Namco have secured for their anime-based Musou titles have always been favorites of mine. Fist of the North Star and One Piece are big favorites of mine, for example. But nothing, not a single thing, will ever top Mobile Suit Gundam for me. Not ever. Boy, do I love me some Universal Century space robot melodrama. So, when the opportunity arose to check out Dynasty Warriors Gundam: Reborn, I attacked it like Bright Noa dashing forward to slap Amuro Ray across his whiny face.

Speaking of Bright Noa, you can totally set him as your partner and call White Base in for air strikes. Command air strikes in a Musou game. From White Base. I can’t deal with how awesome that is.

Fanboy enthusiasm aside, Reborn delivers what you would expect from the fourth game in a series about robots smashing each other in space. It’s a Musou title, so expect to play with combo strings and destroy hundreds of toothless enemies, then have more pressing showdowns with named units. You can also expect story modes that follow many of the classic shows, then another set of options that sort of just throws everyone together so you can toy around more. Reborn does very little differently than the three games before it, though it does its best to make noticeable additions.

There’s a bit more fanfare in Reborn: more cutscenes, more high(ish) resolution stills from the various shows. Seeing still frames from the original Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 on a 50-inch screen sure is something, let me tell you. There are also a ton of pilots and mobile suits to choose from, suspiciously excluding the recent Gundam AGE but surprisingly including Crossbone and Gunpla Builders (Bearguy is the only representative of the latter, as a 99-cent DLC). It’s a very packed game, and even more so when you consider the DLC.

The DLC is a little suspect, however. If you want it all, and a lot of it includes neat mobile suits and story scenarios, you’re going to be adding roughly another 30 dollars to the price of the game. What is ostensibly a budget-priced game turns into a full-priced game and then some if you want all of the content.

The DLC stuff is my major complaint here. Without it, it doesn’t make a good impression that the series has progressed much, despite Gundam itself having done so. The “official” story modes don’t stray far from material we’ve already seen a ton of already. Having Stardust Memory or Crossbone right off the bat would have been great selling points, but no dice. If you don’t mind shelling out, it is hard to argue against the appeal.

What’s really impressive about Reborn is how well it performs. I was concerned going in that I was playing yet another last-gen Gundam Musou title in 2014, but I was pleasantly surprised. The cell-shaded look from the previous game is gone, and there are maybe less enemies onscreen as a result, but the game hardly ever drops frames enough to stand out. This is probably the smoothest Dynasty Warriors experience you can get if you don’t have a PS4.

Beyond that, there are some training modes you don’t really need and an upgrade system that never seems to strive for anything beyond some grindy number-crunching. You tear through enemies for the most part anyway, so it isn’t very necessary. They can affect some physical attributes of your mobile suit, which is interesting, but the system as a whole doesn’t make a huge impact on the game at large.

Sometimes Dynasty Warriors Gundam: Reborn feels like the developers are stalling for time, like the team is still working towards jumping to the new consoles, but needed something to fill in for the time being. That said, Omega Force is one of the most clutch developers in the whole industry, and didn’t phone it in at all, despite some of the signs pointing in that direction. You probably won’t miss much if you don’t play it, but if you do, expect to have a blast. White Base. Air strikes. C’mon.

Hint: Make liberal use of charge shots. Trust me on this one.

by Lucas White