If you ever thought to yourself "I want to play Journey to Jaburo but good" then here's the game for you. The secret ingredient? Being able to actually land hits on the enemy reliably.
Journey to Jaburo covered the first half of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, and Encounters in Space appropriately follows with the second half - and a fairly large assortment of side stories and alternate scenarios - which entirely takes place in space. No ground combat to be had here, your mobile suits move in a decidedly more fluid fashion, you're permitted to use the analog stick, and despite combat taking place in the void of space, it's surprisingly more easy to keep track of where everything is at than it was in the previous game.
Really, the only part of Encounters in Space I found disorienting is its targeting system, which has a tendency to lock on to the nearest enemy rather than what you're pointing the camera directly at. There were countless instances where I had a command ship in my sights but the game decided to spin me around because I had a Ball up my ass. You think I give a fuck about a Ball? Those things just like, explode on their own. They're colloquially referred to in-continuity as "spherical coffins," stop targeting them!
The main "White Base" campaign is enjoyable from start to finish, though it is very short, only taking one or two hours to complete. Gundam fans might get more out of all the side stories, which focus on different ace pilots, including deep cuts like Shin Matsunaga. It's fun being able to take different mobile suits and mobile armors for a spin, and having arcade-length runs through shows like Stardust Memories definitely adds a lot of replay value. However, these ace pilot substories also suffer from some pretty awful difficulty pacing, with the Thoroughbred episode placing its hardest mission directly at the start for some insane reason.
Still, for someone like me who has suffered immense brain damage from ingesting Tamiya Mr. Mark Setter (I like to take a hit for "inspiration") hearing Char's theme kick in when you summon him as a support unit during Gato's A Baoa Qu mission is all I need to have a good time. Gato even comments on the Zeong not having legs! Gato you dumbass, you're in space! You don't need legs in space............
uh, four of five
Journey to Jaburo covered the first half of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, and Encounters in Space appropriately follows with the second half - and a fairly large assortment of side stories and alternate scenarios - which entirely takes place in space. No ground combat to be had here, your mobile suits move in a decidedly more fluid fashion, you're permitted to use the analog stick, and despite combat taking place in the void of space, it's surprisingly more easy to keep track of where everything is at than it was in the previous game.
Really, the only part of Encounters in Space I found disorienting is its targeting system, which has a tendency to lock on to the nearest enemy rather than what you're pointing the camera directly at. There were countless instances where I had a command ship in my sights but the game decided to spin me around because I had a Ball up my ass. You think I give a fuck about a Ball? Those things just like, explode on their own. They're colloquially referred to in-continuity as "spherical coffins," stop targeting them!
The main "White Base" campaign is enjoyable from start to finish, though it is very short, only taking one or two hours to complete. Gundam fans might get more out of all the side stories, which focus on different ace pilots, including deep cuts like Shin Matsunaga. It's fun being able to take different mobile suits and mobile armors for a spin, and having arcade-length runs through shows like Stardust Memories definitely adds a lot of replay value. However, these ace pilot substories also suffer from some pretty awful difficulty pacing, with the Thoroughbred episode placing its hardest mission directly at the start for some insane reason.
Still, for someone like me who has suffered immense brain damage from ingesting Tamiya Mr. Mark Setter (I like to take a hit for "inspiration") hearing Char's theme kick in when you summon him as a support unit during Gato's A Baoa Qu mission is all I need to have a good time. Gato even comments on the Zeong not having legs! Gato you dumbass, you're in space! You don't need legs in space............
uh, four of five
3 Comments
@MeowPewterMeow You'll have to settle on Uraki getting rammed full force by the Val Walo the second the first mission starts and the game glitching such that all of his health instantly evaporates on contact, I'm afraid.
I suppose you could play the Gato scenario and pretend Monsha is in one of the GMs you fight at the end, though.
MeowPewterMeow
2 months ago