Affectionate Diary

The one thing that stands magnificently apparent in Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 is Koei’s merciless persistence in fucking around with perfectly fine features in every iteration of its Musou template. In this case, it’s befuddling removals of brilliant sound tests (such as EVERY LINE OF IN-BATTLE DIALOGUE) or slightly under-implemented 3D object viewer. However - and in the Musou tradition - this odd iterative process also involves the introduction of spectacularly good new features. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2’s masterstroke in this regard is its Mission Mode. This mashes the levelling-up of Samurai Warriors 2 and Warriors Orochi with its own, cleverly veiled RPG mechanic wherein the player is pilot and they essentially amass various Mecha through blisteringly efficient slaughtering of thousands of robots.

It’s a superb abstraction, divorcing Gundam strands from their shackles and allowing a sweet IP clusterfuck, though the real beauty of it lies in the evident care for what will seriously fuck a balls-deep player off. Even though you have to play as individual pilots with their own level-ups and skill-gain demands, you get to select your chosen Gundam mecha from one pool. Seeing as the whole entourage (which covers a decent range of sick-ass motherfuckers as well as glorious cannon fodder) are constantly upgraded via parts obtained as rewards for blisteringly effcient slaughter, you have a nice little system that lets you forge onward with your bestest character whilst making work a lot easier for the weak bitches you also like. Worryingly, you don’t get to select cute women in Mission Mode until you’ve done a fair amount of unlocking. Instead you get a range of weird men, disturbingly androgynous teen studs or prodigious young boys.

Mission Mode, taken to its logical conclusion, represents a monumental timesink in much the same manner as Warriors Orochi 2. Added complexity comes in the form of character relationships, where endlessly rescuing or hammering people lucky enough to have dialogue reflects in a relationship ladder, with a whole subset of missions dedicated to managing them - therein allowing the player to unlock licences to pilot the really kickass suits. Don’t worry, though. You’ll soon pick up bits with your first character to pilot a fleet of generics totally up to the job although if you have any sense, your first run-through will be on easy and anyone who constantly fails to make progress with that is a fucking dick.

Much has been made of the boss enemies and the dash chaining though in reality, only one is wicked and both still feel somewhat under-developed. The boss dudes rule, although one of them is beyond ludicrous. The basic plan here is that you get locked into a sector with one of a small family of boss motherfuckers, who have to be taken apart with special tactics. The camera also fixes its rotation on the boss, you get some fucking sweet side-on angles as you tear into baying crowds to replenish musou. Killing the bosses involves knocking them over and then battering them for a bit before they get up. Getting the cunt on the floor involves a nice combo mechanic of charging your first melee move, jetting into the air and then smacking the boss on the head. This opens up a weak period to blam them with your musou special, thereby getting them on the floor to fuck them up. The weak spots also appear during move recoveries and their ilk for the boss, but only a fucking dick would wait for them. There’s also the magnificent of getting the killer blow with a charged melee, which makes for some of the most awesome slow-mo KO sequences you’ll ever see. The dash chaining however, is a slim addition to a Musou game that still doesn’t have a shoulder button special. The dashing works great but you’re locked into one canned string afterwards. You can repeat this with dashing until your bar runs out, but really there’s plenty of room to use the right shoulder button to expand this - either with alernate endings or as a way of tragging on the standard melee string endings. Work out a nominal musou cost to exectute and surely you’re sorted for vastly more varied player expression and greater scope for refinement in the extermination ritual. I guess that’ll come in Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3: Gundam Vs Super Robot Wars vs Macross vs GaoGaiGar.

Holy fuck I just like totally came so hard bits of my uretha were hanging out.

21