When I first saw the announcement of “SD Gundam Battle Alliance” (referred to as “Battle Alliance” hereinafter), I was extremely excited myself. Although this time it is presented in the form of SD, which is different from the previous ones, from the perspective of gameplay, this is undoubtedly the “spiritual successor” of the “Gundam Survival Assault” series.
However, with the passage of time, the action mode that was once very close to the real Gundam may have become somewhat outdated. Therefore, “Battle Alliance” has removed and simplified many systems that now seem rather complex, and added elements that make the game more in line with current aesthetics, in order to attract more new players to get started. Such as the rich and diverse fighting combos of the mechs, which were almost never seen in the past.
However, as a “tentative” new work that might be based on an old IP, this game has also encountered many problems during its revision and improvement process. I cannot be as certain as I am about “Survival Assault” to tell players that this game is fun. I can only say that I have experienced joy from it myself.
A solo experience is not happy
If your hands are weak, take a detour
First of all, it’s a pity that the game difficulty of “Battle Alliance” is not as friendly as shown in the trial version and is not suitable for everyone. Although I’m not a master, I have played many action games of “Gundam” and have a certain foundation. But when I encountered the most agile MA in this game – the Zeon, I felt completely overwhelmed.
No wonder it’s three times the speed (※ Please refer to the database)
Not to mention that there are more than one Boss battle in this level. If the skills are not up to par, the “Solomon’s Nightmare (※ Please refer to the database)” might have already left the player with no ammunition or food left, and there won’t be enough repair kits to deal with the upcoming brutal battles.
The difficulty of this game has significantly increased since the mid-game when a large, highly challenging enemy, MA, has appeared. Unlike ordinary bosses, MA does not have an endurance bar. It is impossible to use secondary weapons to deplete the Boss’s bar as in the game tutorial to make it fall. This forces players to learn to avoid and defend.
However, many of MA’s moves cannot be evaded unless there is a “perfect dodge”, and many attacks are continuous. The shield’s durability will be exhausted in an instant. Even if you defend, you will still take damage. Only by using a “perfect defense” that does not consume stamina or damage health at the right time can you achieve this.
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Perfect defense
Not to mention ordinary players, even those with some experience in action games cannot guarantee perfect evasion and perfect defense. Therefore, MA battles become very unsuitable for beginners.
By the way, if you are a player who likes to use fighting machines (the machines in the game are divided into three types: fighting, all-purpose, and shooting, with different performance preferences), then you must be even more excited. Every move in MA can cost you half your life. Before fighting machine players come up with a set of skill configurations that can be used to fight head-on in the later stage, they can only strive to improve their operation skills.
Don’t think about playing MA on a fighting machine like Mitsuyuki. You don’t have the Alaya consciousness system
Some people say this game is very “Monster Hunter” because it is more difficult to play alone than in multiplayer. I also discovered a more “monster hunter” aspect, and that is drinking medicine… In “Battle Alliance”, it takes about 3 seconds to restore physical strength using the repair kit without any skill fixes. For those with poor hand skills, even 1 second seems too long, okay?
It can rival the action of the mentally challenged person taking medicine in the old “Monster Hunter”
The AI of my teammates is not low, but…
When it comes to difficulty, it is also necessary to mention the AI of this game. Based on my experience of no less than 50 hours, AI cannot be said to have particularly low intelligence, as they can evade, defend, and also perform certain combo attacks. However, it’s a pity that they don’t have their own repair kits to restore health like players do. They can only wait for rescue after death, or players can bring skills to restore health to their teammates. So if this level is quite long, there is a considerable probability that players will bring two blood skins to the Boss, and then see them killed in an instant. After that, the Boss will stare at you and fight alone, and in the end, the Game is Over.
If both I and my teammates’ HP drops to zero, it’s all over
Even if the teammate’s health is very good, the player cannot die easily. Because whether the teammate is the target of the Boss or not, they will come to rescue the player whose HP has dropped to zero, and then they will be knocked away by the Boss before they can succeed. This process repeats itself…
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Don’t have the technical capabilities to develop such AI? I don’t believe it. In the “God Eater” series of games from the same company, teammates come with their own recovery medicine, and if they are attacked by enemies during the process of rescuing the player, they will actively avoid it.
What’s even more puzzling is that in the game “Gundam Battle Universe” from over a decade ago, a relatively detailed wingman command system was already implemented, allowing players to have their teammates fight more, shoot more, dodge more, and execute ultimate moves. However, in “Battle Alliance”, only ultimate moves remain…
It is obvious that the official has an AI with a relatively high IQ but has not done so. The reason can be speculated to be to encourage players to play online.
Teaching problems
Another reason for the high difficulty of the game is the in-game tutorials. The prologue of the game teaches players various attack operations, which is a good part. However, many subsequent systems do not directly teach during the mission process but instead unlock separate teaching tasks for players to take on on their own. This has led to players who have been following the plot never completing the tutorial tasks (yes, it’s me), and they won’t learn the corresponding skills until they realize this.
These teaching tasks are very important
There are still some contents that do not even exist in the teaching tasks. Players have to actively enter the database to see them. Such design flaws also unnecessarily increase the difficulty of the game.
If I hadn’t played the “Gundam VS” series, I wouldn’t have been able to figure out this element on my own…
The joy of solo experience
It will be very enjoyable after mastering the system
The issues mentioned above did indeed affect players’ single-player experience, but this doesn’t mean that “Battle Alliance” is no longer fun. After all, this is still an action game, but it just requires players to make an effort.
Although the system content of the game is relatively small, many systems are interrelated. How to better combine and utilize them is directly related to the player’s strength.
For instance, in the middle and later stages of this game, players will encounter countless mas. Although fighting machines seem powerless in front of mas, if players can use their brains and cooperate with the system, fighting machines can no longer be of little use. First of all, the “Class Skill” system has different effects on fighting machines, all-purpose machines, and shooting machines. After using the “Class Skill” on a fighting machine, players can obtain invinciveness for a certain period of time. Combined with the skill “Bravery” that players can learn at level 42 (the effect is to reduce the damage received for a certain period of time when the class skill is activated), Players can then engage in combat to a certain extent while withstanding the Boss’s attacks.
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It’s even stronger against ordinary bosses, and when they burst out, they can perform dozens of combo moves
In the works of that year, fighting battles would probably be like this:
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For instance, some MAs are extremely abnormal and come with their own shields. Every time, players have to consume a large amount of ammunition to break through armor, and shooting machines also have a hard time. But in fact, players who pay close attention will find that this shield only defuses light beams, which means it cannot defend against live-fire weapons. So, choosing a mecha with a lot of live ammunition, such as the psycho-sensing Zaku or the Gundam Gucin reforged type, would make it easier to deal with the MA with a shield. Of course, if you are good enough at grinding, there is also a certain probability that you will spawn a chip with the “Attack Physicalization” skill. In short, many difficult problems in the game have solutions.
The organism is rich
Back in the days of “Survival Assault”, from mass-produced machines like Jim and Zaku to the popular Gundam, all appeared in the game. For a long time, players couldn’t unlock the Gundam. They were really like little soldiers on the battlefield fighting with ordinary machines. Obviously, this is very likely to deter non-fan players. As a result, “Battle Alliance” provides only Gundam or other villainous aircraft piloted by ace pilots.
Including the DLC released on September 9th and the free updated mechs, there are over 80 operable mechs in the game, which is quite rich. Unlocking these mechs and exploring their usage methods is also a nice experience. Moreover, as of now, the repetition of the mechs ‘moves is not very high. For example, the manatee Gundam that can be unlocked in the later stage has a hidden fighting move, which recreates the Last scene “Last Shooting” in the “Mobile Suit Gundam 0079” animation. It is both cool and powerful.
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And for the mobile suits in the “Mobile Suit Gundam 00” series, of course, the iconic system “Trans-Am” that left a deep impression in the original work is indispensable. After activating the ultimate move, they will enter this state. Even the fact that “performance drops significantly after the state is lifted” from the original work has been restored…
After the general is over, all the armaments will be reloaded from the very beginning
Overall, the single-player mode of “Battle Alliance” offers dozens of hours of enjoyable experience. However, despite the many changes made by the official to attract new players, in my opinion, the effect is still not good. If one can overcome the learning cost of the system in line with the official’s ideas, they will be able to experience the fun of this game.
Experiencing it with many people can bring joy
The joy of having a high IQ
As mentioned above, “Battle Alliance” encourages online play.
I believe that once you have played multiplayer games, you will fall in love with this feeling of being highly intelligent. Moreover, based on my own experience, playing online doesn’t mean demanding a lot from teammates. As long as one person is good at playing, it’s fine. Even playing with two people is better than carrying two computers.
In the middle of the game, when the Iron Flower Team faced the big MA, I happened to be paired up with teammates whose skills were a bit inferior to mine. They were not very good at defending or evading, but only knew how to send crazy bullet comments. Seeing that he was constantly in crisis, I quickly threw a ultimate move at MA, and he began to stare at my output, giving my teammates a chance to catch their breath. This went on and on, and all of us were safe. We even got an MA and fell to the ground once.
It was only then that I realized that it’s not that MA can’t fall to the ground; it’s just that the output in single-player mode is not high enough. After all, apart from not being able to take medicine to replenish health by themselves, AI teammates also cannot use “class actions” to restore all ammunition and increase their output.
In the end, the Boss was completely beaten up by us.
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A pleasant brawl
The joy of brushing, brushing, brushing
After clearing “Battle Alliance”, the Hard mode will be unlocked. As the story progresses, the “Melee” mission specifically designed for grinding machine blueprints will also be unlocked. These tasks are much more difficult than the usual ones. Besides eliminating the Boss at the end of the level, players also have to take a longer route to defeat other additional bosses, which demands extremely high technical skills from the players. After all, apart from the skills unlocked when the player’s level is LV80, there seems to be no additional way to obtain health recovery items.
Moreover, some “melee” missions are extremely abnormal. For instance, in seed-related melee missions, you will encounter both the Red and Blue heretics in the same area at the same time. They will constantly use defenseless throws, and you might be knocked down from the sky without even having a chance to come down and die.
For instance, in the level “At the Bottom of the Gravity Well”, there are as many as 8 bosses that randomly enter the “Melee”. If your skills are not solid, there won’t be any extra recovery potions to help you survive the MAs at the bottom of the level…
Seeing my teammate’s body lying beside the Boss who continued to intruded, my heart broke down
It’s just a pity…
Although multiplayer experiences are more comfortable in Gameplay than single-player ones, it’s a pity that although “SD Gundam Battle Alliance” has been released on multiple platforms, it doesn’t support cross-platform online play, which makes it not very smooth to team up with others. For instance, when I was looking for someone to play online in a Gundam group with hundreds of active members, two people bought the Switch version and two people bought the PC version. As a result, we could never form a three-person team.
For individual players like me who didn’t make an “advance reservation” before the release, in the end, I still had to obediently go to the jungle team.
Then no one could be found
Is the plot enjoyable?
The plot puzzles new players
By now, non-Gundam fans might be completely confused by a lot of what I’ve said (and even be ready to jump directly to the comment section to make fun of it?) What is MA? What is triple speed? What’s the joke about Solomon’s nightmare?
I did it on purpose – because the plot of “Battle Alliance” feels the same way. The plot of this work is based on many “Mobile Suit Gundam” animations. It is obviously unrealistic to cram so many animations that take over 50 episodes to finish in one game. So the official came up with this solution – allowing players to check the database themselves.
In the game, it often appears that the “database” has been added with XXX
But the problem is that during the progression of the plot, players cannot directly interrupt the story and go to the database. They still have to watch the entire plot and complete an entire level in a daze. When you have almost forgotten something and then check the database, the experience is far from comfortable.
Of course, for players who have read the original work, they can experience the plot very smoothly.
Conventional and always playing with memes
Compared with old works like “Survival Assault” that basically follow the original works, “Battle Alliance” has its own original plot. Moreover, for those who don’t often play “Super Robot Wars” or “SD Gundam”, this kind of work that traverses multiple worlds should be relatively fresh. Coupled with occasional funny moments, the plot is generally quite interesting.
When there is an option, you can always be a little naughty
In addition, although it requires a certain threshold, the plot always occasionally plays with jokes and makes a cold joke:
The meme comes from “Mobile Suit Z Gundam”. Camus: You who treat war as a game won’t understand this kind of power emanating from my body!
Although it’s not the first time, when seeing such persecution of someone’s trophy name, I think some fans will still laugh
Ok, I won’t stop
Conclusion
As a new game, “SD Gundam Battle Alliance” still maintains a certain level of quality. It’s been a long time since I last saw a stunning Gundam game, and this one can be considered one of the works that I can show off.
This time, Bandai Namco Entertainment might have too many things to achieve: reviving the old IP, modifying the gameplay to attract new players, multiplayer online, and writing an original story… Quite a few operations have backfired and become obstacles to the promotion of the game.
From some details, it is obvious that for this game to do well, it still needs to be updated. For instance, during the most important gameplay experience in the game – the “chip grinding” process, we can still see this situation that is both laughable and sad:
Fight +130, but Fight cannot be used
For instance, when launching the ultimate move, there is actually no pause time:
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I was beaten to death just after putting on a show
As of the date of completion of this article, “Battle Alliance” has not released any updates yet. Perhaps with the continuous feedback from players, the game will undergo various modifications and continue to be improved.
Although it may not be very friendly to single-player players, if you can find a real-life “ally”, why not travel through the worlds of various Gundam works with them in the ace mechs of different forces?
Gundam Fight, Ready… “GO!”
※ Database
MA
Mobile Armour, full name MOBILE All Range Maneuverability Offence Utility Reinforcement, all-domain general-purpose support firearm.
Triple speed
The meme originated from the anime “Mobile Suit Gundam 0079”. On the white wooden horse of the Gundam’s mothership, a crew member described the “Char’s exclusive Zaku II” that was flying at high speed as “a Zaku approaching Nakai at three times the usual speed”.
Solomon’s Nightmare
A character who once appeared in “Mobile Suit Gundam 0079” and “Mobile Suit Gundam 0083”, the ace pilot of the Zeon side. Because he had shot down countless Union aircraft and eight warships during the One Year War, he was given the title of “Solomon’s Nightmare”. The one that appears in the game is the cyan-painted special machine he piloted during the One Year War – the Warrior.
The Alaya consciousness system
The overhead system that appears in “Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans” can connect the pilot with the mecha and directly transmit signals to the pilot’s brain, allowing for more intuitive operation of the mecha’s system. To achieve this system, surgery is required to inject the connector into the spinal cord.