The average critic score for this game is surprisingly accurate. Extreme VS Force is decent. It's not good, it's not bad. On the good side, the game looks great, it's vibrant and dark when it's supposed to be, the style translates really well which is a problem for some Vita games. It's likely that some of your favorite gundams are in the game and reliving moments from the series is, asThe average critic score for this game is surprisingly accurate. Extreme VS Force is decent. It's not good, it's not bad. On the good side, the game looks great, it's vibrant and dark when it's supposed to be, the style translates really well which is a problem for some Vita games. It's likely that some of your favorite gundams are in the game and reliving moments from the series is, as always, enjoyable. Offering to play your own music instead of the series classic is a nice touch as well and a very underutilized idea (I remember when the original Xbox touted playing your own music as a new feature and people loved the idea).
However, the controls are stiff, you have to stop after doing ANYTHING including firing a gun, which leaves you far more open than it should. Try playing a melee intensive game like Dark Souls, and stop pressing the attack button for about two seconds after each swing. That's how this plays. Swing, 1, 2, 3, now you can attack again, or move, or whatever. The dash and jump button being the same, only you press twice to dash, is TERRIBLE, as I never find a big reason to jump, but always need to be dashing (Frankly the game should just have dash on ALL OF THE TIME as it's a more comfortable speed for any casual gamer, only a complete newbie to two stick controls would like the sluggish pace). Don't get me wrong, I understand that they're trying to convey a sense of scale, you're controlling a monstrous robot, but ... even Armored Core isn't this slow, and Armored Core is the best Gundam game to ever be made. Aside from that, stopping after attacking during combat is tiresome and while they want you to be strategic with the fights, unless you're playing another person there's no reason to, except for the artificial difficulty inflators known as Haro Medals.
Put simply, each mission has 3 sub-objectives that earn you these medals which unlock things like letting you take more mobile suits out on a mission or more missions in general. After a few missions though, you realize there's a theme, every so many missions you can't take damage. And that becomes very hard to do when you have 4 Zaku, which are die in one hit annoyances, that will spam multiple shots at you from several angles, often after you get off your measly single beam shot. Even one hit cancels the don't get hit medals and will lead to frequent groans of irritation as you repeat the stage and its unskippable, untranslated introduction.
That's another issue, there's no subtitles during combat. Yeah. Here's Amaro protecting white base, and having a conversation, and unless you speak Japanese, or have seen the anime several times, you have no idea what's going on! I'm sure many of you have always thought, "Wow, if only I had LESS story in my games!" Battles might hold my interest more if I knew what the banter was, but without it they're just clunky messes with unskippable, unreadable intros followed by talking to two of the most annoying characters ever made. (The main story involves these two AI fairies that bicker with each other, and something about evolution.)
Finally, the lock on system is ABSOLUTE AND COMPLETE GARBAGE. Your laser fires infinitely in one direction? Cool, there's no manual aim and your lock on range is limited to about thirty feet ahead of you, even when you can physically see the enemy's mobile suit stomping down the path at you. If I can SEE them, if the enemy's model is completely on screen, I should be able to lock on to them. It's simple, and the enemy doesn't seem to have this limitation as I'm locked onto while tapping the lock on button, without tagging them.
Overall, if you're a fan of the Gundam series, it's fun at about $20, if you just want some robot fighting action try one of the Warriors Gundam games or maybe import one of the Gundam Breaker games (Monster Hunter crossed with Gundam) they're available with complete English subtitling from play Asia, which is a better subtitle job than Bamco did here. If you don't have an interest in Gundam, try Armored Core. If you're really looking at this game though, be warned about the controls, I've played NES games with more fluid movement and combat.… Expand
Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS-ForceYour Score0 out of 10User Score
