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Gundam 00: Gundam Meisters(Ps2)
Ok so this game recently came out on the PS2 in Japan since I played it and am bored I decided to write a brief review.
Graphics and sound are both fine and I don't really have a problem with any; I don't feel like going into too many details about this either.
Controls: the game can be controlled by the D-Pad or the left joystick. There is only one attack button which attacks based on your distance, so you get a long range or short range attack. You can combine the attack with the dash button to get a charged attack that works the same way.
Gameplay: Ok this is the big thing where most of the main points will be covered. Mission mode is the main mode of the game where you choose which of the 4 Meisters you want to play as and you go through 10 levels of the anime's storyline, there are a few made up levels too. Playing you unlock 3 people for other modes. The missions open in the standard fashion talking of what's going on by the people; some levels allow you to pick another Meister for support as well. Your mission objectives are generally to kill everything till the Celestial Being logo is all white, there are some variations such as destroy X number of certain units, or protect someone or X amount of time. But really there isn't any differences there at all as it’s just kill everyone in the same fashion. There was one single level that was different it was one of Lockon's final level where you had to shoot some transport ships outside the map. Ok back to the levels since you have to kill everyone it basically works as this you keep hitting X, sometimes moving towards some or blocking till your O-Gauge is full at which point you'll want to enter O Mode. Ok this works in the following way a bunch of arrows appear on the screen and you want to hit the direction of a bright colored arrow, you hit a direction with no arrow and it ends, you hit a direction with a dark colored arrow and it doesn't count to your chain. So basically you want to keep hitting the arrows to get a higher Chain (kills), eventually the arrows will drop and you'll eventually lose or reach 99 which is the limit or so I've heard. At this point in time you get a movie depending on how high your chain was, but first you'll either have to button mash, time a button hit, or input a button combo, if you are perfect your Meister will help you where you have to do one of the same mash, time or combo to add to your combo. About the movie you have to watch it and you will see the same movies over and over and over again, there is no way to skip them. You might be amazed the first few times but as time goes on you'll desperately smash buttons to hope to skip the movie to no avail. Then back to normal gameplay where you kill till your O-Gauge is full then repeat. Some levels are broken into a few phases, but the idea is the same.
There are also Boss Battles where you have to deplete the boss gauge on the top of the screen. These have many problems. Some boss battles are you vs. a boss or two or three but then there are some with random enemies as well. First let's mention the camera this is very problem filled as it's different for boss battles then normal mode. It has a tendency to zoom close if you are close to a boss or further away if you aren't or whoever you are locked onto really. This produces some really bad results. Once I was stuck watching a rock in a space screen instead of my Gundam, other times your suit will just seemingly jump from the right side of the screen to the left side and vice versa. Next problem of Boss Battles is the lockon if there are random enemies on the screen too. It is just really hard to actually lockon the boss and not some random enemy, if you lockon to a random enemy you either want to shift your lockon if you can see the boss or cancel try again and probably still shift all the while the boss is beating you down and probably the random enemies too. Bosses also can do a special boss attack where you want to be better then the boss in a combo or mash. This will give the boss an attack video and display a damage all I've seen is 0, 75 and 150 damage. Three problems here... first you have to watch that attack video many times. Second the numbers are totally meaningless as the numbers mean nothing as your health isn't displayed with numbers. And third you lose your lockon after this which means the boss will continue to attack you, as there is a slight delay with lockon. After the boss battle you can unlock a movie if you get the mash, time or combos right. Which concludes the level with the standard talking outro. Trans-AM appears in the last levels of story mode which is sort of timed when you lose all your health where you can't get hurt and are really fast. The GN Arms are also useable in the last few of Setsuna and Lockon's levels but are flying bricks and totally trash.
The other options in the main menu are Gallery (view stuff you've collected), Training (worthless), Options, Versus (fight one vs. one battles against a human in one of 10 levels), and Meister mode.
Meister mode I will actually go into there are 4 options here, two were locked which I never unlocked. But the other two are Score Attack and Score Attack Ranking, so probably one of the other two is the Ranking for it. Regardless Score Attack you play as anyone you've unlocked. If you've beaten the game with everyone then you've unlocked everyone. It's basically the same as the rest of the game there is the CB logo and a level number, beat more guys fill up your Gauge repeat. The more you kill the higher it rises. Eventually you have a boss battle and it ends with a ranking and you get some health back. The enemies get harder as it goes on and if you get high enough you unlock gallery stuff. I figured I'd need to do that with everyone to get the last mode but no way am I doing that.
Closing Thoughts: Overall this game is mediocre at best and gets thrown in the same pile with quite a few other Gundam games. Gameplay is overall shallow with the same patter being repeated over and over again. X, X, X, X, move, X, X, X, X, X, O! Left, right, left, right, left, down, down right, up, left, right, up right, down, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O. Or at least something like that. There is little variation to this aside from the problem filled boss battles but that won't keep you coming back either. If you can sit through the Mission mode you can unlock everyone (including 00 Gundam and the Ahead piloted by the masked men). But all that's left is the same gameplay as the mission mode with no story. I suppose if you wanna waste something like 40 minutes per person you can fill up your gallery and unlock the last mode. But really if you've finished the mission mode you probably won't care enough to play on for too much longer. Try a few of the guys out in Survival then quit after a few times. Unless you really really love Gundam 00 and really want to play as everyone in the same Survival levels over and over again there isn't much to go back to.
