Flake has been talking up Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn for ages as one of the best Musou games, and I'd been looking for another fairly mindless de-stressing game to play now that I'd finished Starlink, so this game was too perfect to pass up when I came across it for under 800 yen. While I wouldn't say it surpasses Hyrule Warriors as the best modern Musou game, it is a damn close second place that deserves all the praise it gets. I settled in for my first ever PS3 platinum trophy with this baby. In an effort I cannot possibly recommend, I spent over 140 hours getting 100% of the in-game collectable cards (A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF WHICH was grinding the same missions over and over to just kill a certain amount of troops with every single character XP). Couldn't recommend it, but I enjoyed the game enough to slog through that, which says something in itself I suppose XD
As with the other Gundam Musou games, you can play as a myriad of pilots and even more mobile suits. The pilots themselves don't really do anything but add certain passives and skills. Think of them like the character and the mobile suits like the weapons in a normal Musou game. The characters have levels that increase base stats of fight, shot, and defense, as well as certain passive skills that skillpoints can be put into. Every character is different in this way, ultimately, as their max stats and possible skills they can learn are different for every pilot, and each pilot usually has a certain Gundam only they can pilot until you unlock it for free-play with other pilots.
The mobile suits themselves are among the other titanic Musou games for just how many there are. With the exception of one boss character who can't physically move (so there's a good reason you can't play it), every single mobile suit that appears in the game can be unlocked and played for a total count of over 120! They all have quite a bit of difference as well. The big-name Gundams have quite unique and well animated movesets, sure, but even a lot of the smaller, unimportant enemy stooge mechs have meaningful movesets that make them just that much more different to play. Sure, some characters feel quite similar, but on the whole there is a really surprising amount of depth to the differences between each mobile suit, and that is far and away the shining star of this game.
Where the game falls a bit behind Hyrule Musou for me is the stage and map design. The game has an "Official Mode," where you play stages based on the stories of 6 different Gundam series, as well as an "Ultimate Mode," where you play through over 20 "what if" crossover stories between the characters from many series beyond those represented in the Official Mode, usually revolving around some special gimmick for that scenario (like defending an allied ship, or only playing as Newtype characters). While the Official modes are fully VO'd and have some very pretty 3D-animated cutscenes as well, none of the story bits in the Ultimate Mode are voiced, so it's a bit of give and take there.
Official Mode basically has every stage on a different map, or a different take on the same map (different starting locations, restricted to a certain section of a larger map, etc), and while Ultimate Mode doesn't introduce any new stages, it does a pretty good job of not making any maps feel like they're repeating. However, I wouldn't really say this is a good thing, as the biggest reason for this is because so many of the maps are fairly empty and replaceable with one another. It's a symptom the first Gundam Musou game suffered from quite badly as well, and the 4th entry in the series does not escape from.
The combat is as excellent as it's always been, but it's really just as it's always been. The same blocking, dashing, boosting, and melee/ranged attacks that made the first Gundam Musou game a blast are still here, as rockin' as ever, but with a far-expanded cast now. Not really a plus, but certainly not a negative when the game has added like 30+ new characters compared to the 3rd game in the series: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Verdict: Highly recommended. If you're gonna play just one Gundam Musou game, let it be this one. It's easily one of the best spin-off Musou games, and was definitely one of the best Musou games, full stop, at the time of its release. It doesn't quite hit the high of Hyrule Warriors, but it was a Musou entry of a quality heralding the great quality of Hyrule Warriors, and is definitely worth checking out if you need some more Gundam or some more Musou in your life.
As with the other Gundam Musou games, you can play as a myriad of pilots and even more mobile suits. The pilots themselves don't really do anything but add certain passives and skills. Think of them like the character and the mobile suits like the weapons in a normal Musou game. The characters have levels that increase base stats of fight, shot, and defense, as well as certain passive skills that skillpoints can be put into. Every character is different in this way, ultimately, as their max stats and possible skills they can learn are different for every pilot, and each pilot usually has a certain Gundam only they can pilot until you unlock it for free-play with other pilots.
The mobile suits themselves are among the other titanic Musou games for just how many there are. With the exception of one boss character who can't physically move (so there's a good reason you can't play it), every single mobile suit that appears in the game can be unlocked and played for a total count of over 120! They all have quite a bit of difference as well. The big-name Gundams have quite unique and well animated movesets, sure, but even a lot of the smaller, unimportant enemy stooge mechs have meaningful movesets that make them just that much more different to play. Sure, some characters feel quite similar, but on the whole there is a really surprising amount of depth to the differences between each mobile suit, and that is far and away the shining star of this game.
Where the game falls a bit behind Hyrule Musou for me is the stage and map design. The game has an "Official Mode," where you play stages based on the stories of 6 different Gundam series, as well as an "Ultimate Mode," where you play through over 20 "what if" crossover stories between the characters from many series beyond those represented in the Official Mode, usually revolving around some special gimmick for that scenario (like defending an allied ship, or only playing as Newtype characters). While the Official modes are fully VO'd and have some very pretty 3D-animated cutscenes as well, none of the story bits in the Ultimate Mode are voiced, so it's a bit of give and take there.
Official Mode basically has every stage on a different map, or a different take on the same map (different starting locations, restricted to a certain section of a larger map, etc), and while Ultimate Mode doesn't introduce any new stages, it does a pretty good job of not making any maps feel like they're repeating. However, I wouldn't really say this is a good thing, as the biggest reason for this is because so many of the maps are fairly empty and replaceable with one another. It's a symptom the first Gundam Musou game suffered from quite badly as well, and the 4th entry in the series does not escape from.
The combat is as excellent as it's always been, but it's really just as it's always been. The same blocking, dashing, boosting, and melee/ranged attacks that made the first Gundam Musou game a blast are still here, as rockin' as ever, but with a far-expanded cast now. Not really a plus, but certainly not a negative when the game has added like 30+ new characters compared to the 3rd game in the series: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Verdict: Highly recommended. If you're gonna play just one Gundam Musou game, let it be this one. It's easily one of the best spin-off Musou games, and was definitely one of the best Musou games, full stop, at the time of its release. It doesn't quite hit the high of Hyrule Warriors, but it was a Musou entry of a quality heralding the great quality of Hyrule Warriors, and is definitely worth checking out if you need some more Gundam or some more Musou in your life.