SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays

released on Nov 27, 2019

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the SD Gundam SRPG series, SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is the second title in the series built on the new 3D engine that debuted with the previous title, SD Gundam G Generation Genesis. Like prior games in the series, Cross Rays focuses on crossing over multiple shows from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise; focusing on the Wing, Seed, 00 and Iron-Blooded Orphans universes for this installment. SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays releases in Japan and Asia in 2019 for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.


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Most, if not all Gundam episodes run at a length of 24 minutes long. More often than not, there will be a big battle that lasts from 8-11 minutes and features an array of enemy mobile suits that the heroes must slice and shoot through. It's an opportunity for character-building and spectacle, and sometimes even the best part of the show (e.g. Victory and Stardust Memory).

The SD Gundam G Generation series translates this structure into video game format, providing a multitude of stages and no end to the enemies you can fight. The primary issue is that the numbers in each stage are too accurate. The game throws enemies at the player almost too readily (yes that's 83 enemy units on one map), leading to battles lasting up to 1 or even 2 hours long. At first, it's engaging when you're playing on EXTRA difficulty and juggling with health and percentages, but the more you play, the more tired you will inevitably get. High-level Cross Rays games are like 80-minute sessions of whack-a-mole, repetitive and tiresome to the end. I am loath to say this, but there is simply too much "game" here, and the mechanics are not complex enough to back it up. While the quality of life changes are more than appreciated (the move-all function is excellent), some have been removed like the powerful multi-target attacks from previous titles. Not only that but many of the stronger attacks from the same titles have been nerfed or locked behind killstreaks, which only serves to pad out the already long maps. On the subject of maps, the objectives are much simpler than Overworld, an entry that was released 7 years earlier. The gameplay can best be described as one step forward, two steps back.

The saving grace of Cross Rays is its fanatical devotion to presentation: specifically, making every mobile suit included look damn good. There is a visual appeal to even the most flawed of Gundam's many series, and that's the mechanical design. Cross Rays shrinks down the mobile suits to SD proportions without making them look ridiculous, and pairs them with excellent battle animations to boot. Don't believe me? Check out the animations of the Tornado Gundam, one of the weak early-game units. In terms of content, there's a ton. Unlockable characters, music, the works. If you like Gundam shows outside of the Universal Century, then this is an easy sell. Just try not to get drowned in the content like I did.

Meu primeiro jogo de gundam e honestamente, me fez rir e me divertir bastante. Meio repetitivo mas é o mal que afeta esse gênero de jogo, a customização entretanto deixa o jogo mais leve e muito mais gratificante

Pretty much formulaic for the G Generation series at this point.

Pick a ship, your pilots, their mobile suits and battle in turn-based combat throughout the different Gundam timelines.

Cross Rays only includes the AU Gundam series, namely Wing, SEED, 00, Iron-Blooded Orphans and their spin offs.

I only recommend this game as it's the first of the series to be released on PC.
Only play this one if you want to support the future of Gundam games on PC or if you're a huge fan of Iron-Blooded Orphans.

If neither of these apply, pick up Genesis for the PS4 or if you don't have a PS4, Get PPSSPP and play Overworld.

Though, there is a mod for this that lets you replace the custom pilots with the cast of Love Live School Idol Project, which is pretty hilarious.

It's like if you took the Super Robot Wars series, focused it entirely on Gundam series, included a massive selection of characters and mobile suits to pilot where anyone could pilot anything, and then made it worse in every other way.

The story of the game is retelling different series, films, and manga covering the Wing, Seed, 00, and Iron Blooded Orphan timelines for a total of 13 different series of missions. Three for Gundam, five for Seed, three for 00, and two for Iron Blooded Orphans. The problem with that is if you know the story you are getting a very dull retelling and if you don't know the story you are missing massive amounts of context and characterization (and sometimes entire characters). It also means that the battles you fight would be limited to units from the scenario, except that you can take a group attached to a warship (9 units and the base) and a raid unit (8 units) that you select the pilots and mechs for over the course of the entire game. The actual maps aren't done very well either, as many of the represented battles didn't actually even have many units in the plot, leading to maps just throwing random generic enemy units in all corners just to give you something to do.

This, of course, means that there is absolutely no balance to this game and you will easily destroy everything even when selecting the harder difficulty and even without making use of funds and obtained skills to make your pilots and mechs even stronger (upgrading pilots being the normal way to completely break SRW series games). Adding to the lack of balance is the raid attacks both groups are capable of that could easily take out 2-9 units just from one action. You can switch to pilots and mechs that are of lower level but then you are probably just using things that you don't want to use.

The actual combat just isn't as good as the SRW series with the much more limited focus on skills, lack of secrets, not having you switch your lineup, and with inferior combat animations. The strangest combat animations comes from the first shot or shots always visually missing before later shots hit even when certain attack should only have fired once, always looking terrible and not even making sense in some situations. The Wing Gundam missing the first twin beam rifle shot or a sniper unit missing a massive capital ship after their character says a line about taking one shot only to then fire two more shots that hit the target. A lot of units basically end up with similar weapons or moving in a similar way giving you little reason to want to bother with anything but the more unique and strongest units that are available.

The stories are rarely told well in even the combat scenarios with limited plot cutscenes or combat animations and character deaths often left out, sometimes being available only if you intentionally get them killed. Iron Blooded Orphans is even missing a major battle, antagonist, and important story moment for some reason. Though that series was often handled the best with some more unique scenarios and better story focus.

There is an almost mobile game style feature to gain money and items where you send one or two of your available built groups out to complete missions from a large list. After the assigned time (possibly a couple hours to close to a full day) the group will be available again with some extra XP and you will get your item rewards. Each of these missions has a short description but you don't even get any kind of information about how they completed the task. Each could easily have been made into a side mission (especially when the game doesn't care at all about balance which is the only real difficult part of making missions in a game like this) but instead they serve only to go along with the game's odd need to continue to obtain money in order to not only build mobile suits but to buy the pilots you have unlocked that you want to use.

If you are a big Gundam fan using all the characters and suits can be fun and it's nice to see scenarios for a lot of the side stories but it's just never very fun to play and does nothing interesting with the material.

If you are a big fan of Gundam and SRPGs this game is definitely up your alley. Developing mobile suits from 30+ different series, creating teams with all your favorite characters, coming up with creative combinations of pilot + MS and so on. The world is your oyster.

The game offers you a condensed version of several different stories across 00, SEED, Wing and Iron Blooded Orphans from manga spinoffs to the movies.

Late game grinding is a massive chore, however, due to the GET gauge and the annoying requirements for some quests so when this is the only thing left to do you'll be met with a lot of tedium

Asemu Asuno is my boy and Super Pilot is a ridiculously broken ability

A nice strategy game, containing only AU Gundam series, and its clearly only for hardcore fans. The game has has heavy grinding if you want to complete it, but in the mainstory i never had to grind, actually in the normal difficulty, you can beat all stages without any grind.

The game has some downsides, like a lack of free quests to play with your MS, and sometimes it can be too slow, but overall i loved every minute of it. It also presents the Iron Blooded Orphans spin off: Gekko, which has never seen a western release, and its our first glance on the plot.

*Note: on PCs with no dedicated Vcard the game can run well, but it has random crashes that completely can ruin your experience and bandai never fixed it. Take this into consideration.