For what is a pretty unabashed Overwatch clone to the point where it literally just slaps Soldier 76s kit onto a cool mecha, Gundam Evolution sure has some mid-7th gen "we bolted on a multiplayer mode" energy. It's got like 4 maps, balance that is so clearly busted in a way that hasnt been a thing in a mainstream multiplayer shooter since year 1 of Rainbow Six Siege, and a user experience and progression system that damn near kills the game completely.
It is fun, mind. Despite being 90% identical it's a far better game than Overwatch 2. Even if you put aside overwatch's inherant issues of having terrible character design and world compared to gundam, and that it's a Blizzard game so playing it, even for free, makes me a bit of a shithead - Evolution is just the better core experience. The lack of role stuff, and to an extent support units in general, combined with a game that is far more focused on close combat and aggression makes for a more exciting, frantic experience. Most units do horrible damage at long range, all have dashes and the general design really encourages in there. Zaku II [Ranged], easily the most fun to play unit in the game, has a gameplay consisting of getting like 5 feet away from the enemy with dashes then throwing grenades and dumping your machine gun's mag in half a second, and praying.
And you know what, I quite like it's stupid balance. Objectively it's not good but Overwatch's balance is about as bad whilst being nowhere near as fun about it. The broken characters really bring out that chaotic energy that modern shooters kinda lack - shutting down a madly powerful gundam swinging a giant stick around in your objective is great shit, and going off on a ridiculous streak with the ridiculous GM Sniper is a buzz you'l struggle to get without becoming really good at an actually skillful game. And in the game's greatest, probably accidental design choice, unless you do get hit by that big stick guy it's actually fairly hard to identify exactly what kills you in big teamfights (the killfeed is tiny and difficult to read), so it's hard to get frustrated at some of the bullshit when you think it's actually the Guntank littering the boulevard with missiles that got you.
Dear lord though, everything else is a bit of a disaster. The user experience and progression is bafflingly poor for a game so simple and frankly pretty high budget, and the monetisation is horrible, with locked units behind a paywall of unreasonable amounts, and then lootboxes which can give you items for units you dont have, and then a battlepass. And the things you actually get are supremely shit. Putting aside the "im going to give my legendary robot an RGB gun" element of things, the best options for literally everyone is the base design, and all the skins are shite. There's no model swaps or anything and seemingly very little reference to the source material in variants. Obviously this stuff shouldn't matter that much but when you've made the treadmill so integral to your game, it does sap a lot from it when its so awful. It's odd, i probably wouldnt have minded paying $20 for like, just the basegame with no skins at all but you wouldnt catch me dead putting a cent into it's actual economy.
I also think the themeing is a bit of a dropped ball. Im n ot overly familiar with gundam (Ive only seen char's counterattack and the 7th MS Team), but the mishmash of different eras of gundam feels a bit odd here in the first place, but there's also complete failure to integrate gundam's vibes outside of the cool mechs themselves - Arenas don't play into the vast scale of gundam, being decidely built around the mecha to the point where you feel just human size and there's occasionally some tiny toy cars around. It's all very abstracted from the source material - and i particularly feel not having unique voice actors representing the characters for each gundam is a missed oppurtunity. When a mecha says "piloted by Char Aznable", why isnt he actually in it spouting off about amuro being a bitch or something idk i havent seen much gundam.
It's a fun time overall, but also really hard to see a reason why anyone would make this their "main game", which is maybe evidenced with its rather extreme queue times. Better than overwatch 2 by a landslide but in this day and age that's not enough to make people come back. But for a fun 10 hour lark of just going "ooh" at cool mechs for a bit and revelling in the moden equievelent of Akimbo 1886s on Terminal, it's a fun little lark.
Also, there's really just a Gundam called "Gundam", huh. Respect that, honestly.
It is fun, mind. Despite being 90% identical it's a far better game than Overwatch 2. Even if you put aside overwatch's inherant issues of having terrible character design and world compared to gundam, and that it's a Blizzard game so playing it, even for free, makes me a bit of a shithead - Evolution is just the better core experience. The lack of role stuff, and to an extent support units in general, combined with a game that is far more focused on close combat and aggression makes for a more exciting, frantic experience. Most units do horrible damage at long range, all have dashes and the general design really encourages in there. Zaku II [Ranged], easily the most fun to play unit in the game, has a gameplay consisting of getting like 5 feet away from the enemy with dashes then throwing grenades and dumping your machine gun's mag in half a second, and praying.
And you know what, I quite like it's stupid balance. Objectively it's not good but Overwatch's balance is about as bad whilst being nowhere near as fun about it. The broken characters really bring out that chaotic energy that modern shooters kinda lack - shutting down a madly powerful gundam swinging a giant stick around in your objective is great shit, and going off on a ridiculous streak with the ridiculous GM Sniper is a buzz you'l struggle to get without becoming really good at an actually skillful game. And in the game's greatest, probably accidental design choice, unless you do get hit by that big stick guy it's actually fairly hard to identify exactly what kills you in big teamfights (the killfeed is tiny and difficult to read), so it's hard to get frustrated at some of the bullshit when you think it's actually the Guntank littering the boulevard with missiles that got you.
Dear lord though, everything else is a bit of a disaster. The user experience and progression is bafflingly poor for a game so simple and frankly pretty high budget, and the monetisation is horrible, with locked units behind a paywall of unreasonable amounts, and then lootboxes which can give you items for units you dont have, and then a battlepass. And the things you actually get are supremely shit. Putting aside the "im going to give my legendary robot an RGB gun" element of things, the best options for literally everyone is the base design, and all the skins are shite. There's no model swaps or anything and seemingly very little reference to the source material in variants. Obviously this stuff shouldn't matter that much but when you've made the treadmill so integral to your game, it does sap a lot from it when its so awful. It's odd, i probably wouldnt have minded paying $20 for like, just the basegame with no skins at all but you wouldnt catch me dead putting a cent into it's actual economy.
I also think the themeing is a bit of a dropped ball. Im n ot overly familiar with gundam (Ive only seen char's counterattack and the 7th MS Team), but the mishmash of different eras of gundam feels a bit odd here in the first place, but there's also complete failure to integrate gundam's vibes outside of the cool mechs themselves - Arenas don't play into the vast scale of gundam, being decidely built around the mecha to the point where you feel just human size and there's occasionally some tiny toy cars around. It's all very abstracted from the source material - and i particularly feel not having unique voice actors representing the characters for each gundam is a missed oppurtunity. When a mecha says "piloted by Char Aznable", why isnt he actually in it spouting off about amuro being a bitch or something idk i havent seen much gundam.
It's a fun time overall, but also really hard to see a reason why anyone would make this their "main game", which is maybe evidenced with its rather extreme queue times. Better than overwatch 2 by a landslide but in this day and age that's not enough to make people come back. But for a fun 10 hour lark of just going "ooh" at cool mechs for a bit and revelling in the moden equievelent of Akimbo 1886s on Terminal, it's a fun little lark.
Also, there's really just a Gundam called "Gundam", huh. Respect that, honestly.