SD Gundam Battle Alliance

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1-3 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

Note: This review has been directly sponsored by a kind donation from Jamie and His Cats. Thanks again for your generous contribution!

SD Gundam Battle Alliance is an Action-RPG released in 2022 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game, set within a computerized simulation encompassing the entire history of the Gundam franchise, has players taking the role of a fighter seemingly pulled out of time to assist in correcting the “breaks” in the simulation, which could lead to changes in the actual timeline somehow.

Look, it doesn’t have to make sense, this is basically a fanfic in videogame form, okay? The point is that this was an excuse for the game to mix-and-match different Gundam characters, mechs, and scenes, even if these characters would have no reason or means to meet within the actual franchise. This also gives players the prospect of gradually building a collection of Gundam mechs from throughout the franchise as well.

While character portraits and art appears to represent these characters fairly faithfully, the mechs themselves are depicted in the “SD” style, meaning they look squashed and cutesy. This is far from the first Gundam product to use SD (SD Gundam has been around since the 1980s), but despite this I can’t help but think that players probably would have preferred that things stick to the way they actually look in the mainline franchise. However, I suppose this could be looked at as a way to distance this from the franchise continuity and underline the fact that the events of this game don’t take place in the actual “reality” of the franchise.

What this actually looks like in terms of gameplay is that the mechs depicted in the game’s 3D visuals all look somewhat simplified and generally unimpressive, and so do the areas they fight in. Terrain generally makes use of simple 3D that looks anything but impressive, and some objects like trees noticeably fade from simple 2D to 3D objects as you get close. The one element that does look kinda’ nice are cities, which are fairly large and stuffed with tons of buildings of various heights, all of it destructible. As for the rest, you have Japanese voice work for all the characters, and a fast-paced, anime-style soundtrack (sorry, I can’t say if either is directly from any of the anime or other products).

I should note that all of this voice acting comes at a hefty price – the game’s file size clocks in at a hefty 18.286GB, with this number inflated further if you purchase DLC or one of the expanded editions of the game. So if you’re looking to save space on your MicroSD card, this is one game you may want to get as a physical release.

When it comes to the gameplay, SD Gundam Battle Alliance presents a combat-focused Action-RPG, where players fight through numerous enemies in mostly-linear levels inspired by scenes from throughout the Gundam franchise. Players have a light and heavy melee attack as well as melee combos, and a few special melee attacks. There’s also projectile attacks, the ability to use shields, a jump and air dash, a ground-based dash, and a super-powered special attack. It’s not a truly fantastic combat system by any stretch, but it’s sufficient.

Once done with a mission, players can unlock new mechs, and spend in-game currency to improve the stats of their mechs, and later there are some very limited upgrade options as well. Let me be clear – this game has nowhere near the sort of customization options many fans of mech games have come to be used to in these sorts of games.

Honestly, just about everything about SD Gundam Battle Alliance strikes me as “sufficient, but unspectacular”. I don’t think anything here is particularly bad, but there’s also absolutely nothing here to really get excited about. The combat is fine but nothing truly compelling, there’s tons of mechs to collect but customization is barely a consideration, and fans of Gundam will find tons of references to the entire series here, but… well, the mechs are all SD-sized and the story absolutely screams “this is just an excuse to mash together all the Gundam stuff into one game”. If your expectations aren’t high for this game, I expect they’ll be met, but I very much doubt they’ll be exceeded.

tl;dr – SD Gundam Battle Alliance is an Action-RPG with a plot that acts as a bare-bones excuse to bring together content from throughout the Gundam franchise into one game. The combat and RPG elements here are fine, but nothing particularly noteworthy. If you’re looking for a truly great Gundam game, this ain’t it. But if you just want some enjoyable mech action, this will probably suffice.

Grade: C

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