SD Gundam Battle Alliance

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With more than 40 years of history, Gundam is an iconic franchise in science fiction. The series created by Yoshiyuki Tomino is a product that has captivated millions of people around the world and is a Japanese cultural icon that has influenced popular culture everywhere.

The popularity and importance of Gundam It is so big that it has been inevitable that several studies have explored it in the world of video games. The latest to do so is ARTDINK, a development studio that, together with Bandai Namco, brings us SD Gundam Battle Alliancean action RPG that seeks to please fans of the franchise.

How is this new installment of super deformed mecha? Entertaining, but it is clear that it is not a video game for the masses.

The first thing you should know is that the letters SD at the beginning of the title are not an accident. They mean Super Deformed (or super deformed, in Spanish) and refer to a style of products Gundam where the huge mecha are replaced by something more cute and friendly: chibi versions of them. This is important for a couple of reasons: the first is that it marks the visual style of this installment, which has battles between mecha with curious proportions. The second is that it is not a game that is part of a specific story of Gundam.

In fact, the story of SD Gundam Battle Alliance it is something new and simply ambitious. The easiest thing would have been to tell a simple story set in a specific era, invent a new threat to defeat, and with that bring out the mecha with chibis proportions to fight. However, ARTDINK had other plans, and that transforms this adventure into a museum of the history of Gundam.

In SD Gundam Battle Alliance you will take control of a commander who was part of one of the longest and most disastrous conflicts in the history of Gundam. One day, this subject is taken to the G-Universe, a reality in which different time lines of Gundam, which causes several problems. Thus, you must fight in battles to bring order to the universe and ensure that everything returns to normal without historical errors that could affect some timeline forever.

With this, SD Gundam Battle Alliance It’s a deep history class. Gundam, since it presents more than 60 wicks from different eras and several of its most emblematic characters. As we mentioned, this is a truly ambitious element that is well executed because it does enough to pamper enthusiasts with fan service while still presenting an interesting story with surprises. It also helps newbies learn a lot more about this franchise without feeling overwhelmed.

SD Gundam Battle Alliance is an action RPG that shares many similarities with musou, but also has some notable differences. The first thing you should know is that it is a game structured in missions that you can replay. Each of these scenarios pits you against various enemies, but instead of focusing on pure action and unbridled button-banging, it’s a slow-moving game where you’ll need to know how to combine your skills to create devastating combos.

Before going fully into the playable section of SD Gundam Battle Alliance, it should be noted that his presentation is very well achieved. It’s not about advanced graphics that make you feel like you’re getting the most out of your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X (something you’d expect from an intergenerational project); however, the artistic section manages to capture the essence of Gundam and their superdeformed models. The scenarios are so well done, that they truly make you feel like you are in a chapter of a seventies anime, which is complemented by its excellent musical selection with classic themes from Gundam.

The element that governs the rhythm of SD Gundam Battle Alliance is the energy bar. This is the element that dictates the number of times you can attack, dodge or use thrusters to move faster. After a certain number of actions, the bar will drop to 0 and you’ll be relying on your Gundam’s feet or shield to avoid enemy attacks while it recharges. Added to this are 2 special abilities, as well as a high-ranking pistol, both of which also have a cooldown.

The result of all these ideas is a combat style that makes SD Gundam Battle Alliance in an interesting proposal. We say this because it feels like a different version of a musou, but retaining enough for you to identify it as part of the genre. Instead of having intense fights against dozens of enemies, you will face a few robots in a slightly more calculated and slow way. While many enemies can be defeated with a simple combo, on higher difficulties you’ll find regular enemies that require more than simple button clicks to fall to your mecha.

Where the combat really shines is in the boss battles. At the end of most scenarios SD Gundam Battle Alliance you will have to defeat a powerful enemy in an intense combat that is usually difficult. The thing is that here the simple combos only become a small percentage of everything you have to do. Your mission will be to learn the movements of your enemies to know how to dodge their attacks and when to attack to avoid being the victim of an intense combo. They are confrontations that are usually short, but that deliver exciting moments that really show off the combat style.

Unfortunately, other elements that SD Gundam Battle Alliance preserves of the musou are not necessarily positive. These are details that may matter little or nothing to fans of the genre, but they often make the game difficult to digest for players unfamiliar with these experiences.

What do we mean? First of all, we have to design scenarios for SD Gundam Battle Alliance it is simple and uninspired. Of course, in games of this style, only wide spaces are needed in which to have battles; the problem is that many are just tunnels that connect more open spaces where the fights take place. While there are a few that go a little further, most truly offer little more than a quest slot. They are scenarios that you will quickly forget even though you will play them over and over again.

This brings us to another problem SD Gundam Battle Alliance: It’s repetitive to no avail. In your time with this game you will go through the same scenarios several times and fight for hours with the same kind of enemies. Although the gameplay loop is good and it is exciting to participate in the fights – especially if you do it in cooperative – little by little the positive feelings are fading; unless of course, you’re truly hooked on the gameplay.

Another element of SD Gundam Battle Alliance that doesn’t fit quite well is its progression. The game has a massive amount of mechs available for you to control, each with a unique progression that allows you to level them up to make them more powerful. So far so good, the problem is that the progression requires a lot of grinding so that you can really bring all your favorite mecha to a satisfactory level. In this way, you have 2 options: the first is to dedicate all your points to a single Gundam, an effective solution, but one that forces you to forget all the possibilities offered by the rest of the mecha. The second is to repeat levels over and over again to get resources, which is just boring.

SD Gundam Battle Alliance It is an interesting and quality proposal. It is one of those games that can entertain you for several tens of hours; however, to achieve this you need to have certain niche tastes. What we are going for is that you can enjoy SD Gundam Battle Alliance without being a fan of Gundam or action RPGs; however, it seems to me that its true appeal can only be appreciated by those who are.

SD Gundam Battle Alliance is available now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. You can know more about this Gundam game if you click here.

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