Friend, what a nice little corner Gundam Breaker 4 is leaving us. In recent days, my Twitter timeline is filled with people sharing images of their dioramas, their mechas, and the pieces they wish would be added through future patches—not that this has blown up on Steam or anything, but social media works with personalized algorithms, you know—and I certainly see all of this as a great launch move.
If you were not familiar with the topic, Gundam Breaker 4 is the latest installment of a series of spin-offs from the eponymous franchise that brings together Mobile Suits from countless series and movies in the form of gunpla, customizable model kits that are quite popular in Japan (and are also gaining popularity in the West). The game has a strong community component and both its story and gameplay modes are set against the backdrop of multiplayer lobbies. So far, so good.
The direction that GB4 is heading in is good, and the impact it is having among fans is also positive. Additionally, all of this takes us a bit by surprise because the previous installment, titled New Gundam Breaker, was disappointing and this time we were counting on the same developer as that one: Crafts & Meister. Quite a redemption arc, as you can see.
Plenty of ideas, average execution
As you can imagine, Gundam Breaker 4 is pleasing to me, but with the same sincerity, it is a kind of guilty pleasure: in reality, it shouldn’t appeal to me as much as it does because if I were asked to analyze it in one word, the word I would choose is outdated. Not so much because of the graphics, but more so because of how rough the controls feel—especially when compared to other RPGs with enemy locking, or with the aiming of Armored Core—or the design and structure of the menus and the meeting room.
The game is made in a very “old school” way in terms of Japanese multiplayer games, which is not necessarily bad because many of those we like a lot; but when you add up how cluttered and vertical the interface can become, how tedious the dialogues are, and how superficial the combat and level development feel, one cannot help but sigh and think that we will never have the Gundam game. The definitive one.
I’m not asking this for a triple-A prism, nor do I think it should have one: it’s Gundam, of course, its main audience is in Japan, and it’s logical that it is launched according to the tastes and needs of that sector. What we have is not insignificant, as I mentioned, and the overall balance is quite positive. But I also clearly see that this is not going to go much further than the hardcore fans who are content with taking screenshots of digital dioramas, and that it lacks a lot to become the cooperative RPG with almost infinite replayability that it seems to want to be.
Gundam Breaker 4 is good, and I’m glad that Bandai Namco at least shows that they understand what fans of mechas like: building custom Mobile Suits, taking photos of them, and fighting with friends. If someday we manage to make this feel more comfortable, intuitive, and fun, we will have hit the jackpot. In the meantime, you can create a kind of avatar of infinite destruction by stacking an absurd amount of weapons on top, which also has its charm.
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