The dream of piloting a Gundam was not what I imagined.
When I first heard about Gundam Evolution, I was ecstatic at the prospect of piloting a Gundam against other Gundams game while shooting at them and living, laughing, and loving my Gundam summer forever. I am saddened to realize that believing in that idea was a fool’s errand and a child’s dream.
Gundam Evolution begins with a reasonably helpful tutorial that explains all of the features you’ll encounter in the game, allowing you to quickly comprehend how the shooting controls, movement, and landscapes function. Following that quick introduction, you’ll be able to seek out your first fight against other players in a six-versus-six team combat, where you may select to play as fan favorites like Barbatos from MSG: Iron-Blooded Orphans or the legendary RX-78-2 from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series gundam models.
However, as the first enchantment wears off, I can’t help but make the apparent parallel between this game and other examples of the same genre unicorn gundam, such as (you guessed it) Overwatch. Whereas the latter presents its appeal and general vibes through the characters featured in it, their backgrounds, and how they differ in personality, you won’t experience that here gundam wing.
Because the characters here are merely mobile suits with pilots only appearing in voice-over lines occasionally, you won’t be able to connect with them unless you’re already a fan of the various Gundam anime series. The mission maps are similarly bizarrely sized military outposts with automobiles the size of a dog and street lights as high as your knees. Still, although this can be hilarious at first gundam anime, it quickly becomes apparent how bland, colorless, and monotonous they are.
The shooting and mobility seem janky, not inaccurate or slow, but unexceptionally ordinary, and the many gadgets linked to your chosen Gundam succeed in keeping the fun going and bringing variation throughout the fight far more than the primary weaponry that you may employ.
This does not imply that all Gundams are carbon duplicates of the same character. The distinctions between Mobile Suits that can morph into airships, heal teammates, or place land mines or turrets exist to make them perform a specific function. Or at least, that’s what I’d anticipate if the game had real, defined jobs.
Look, I understand.
Bandai wants you to prioritize fashion above function; I’m all for playing for the vibes, and concentrating on playing with your favorite mecha does, in principle, sound like the proper approach. However, due to the lack of classification among the many playable characters, you can’t make the appropriate selection while attempting to assemble an influential party in the game’s current state gundam games.
There are several moments where the lack of balance in the squad is too much, and you have to return to the base or risk being killed so you can quickly switch to a better-suited unit, which is both slow and frustrating.
Finally, Gundam Evolution delivers on the promise of allowing you to imitate one of the various Mobile Suits featured throughout the years. Fans of the popular series will have the fun of their life, at least for a while. However, it simply presents another effort to mimic the Overwatch model that falls short mobile suit gundam.
