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Macross Ace Frontier – PSP review

Macross Ace Frontier is basically the Macross version of Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable. For those that don’t know Macross, its another Japanese anime with robots. The japanese version of the game has actually be released more than two months ago and no words for a North American release yet, as usual. The main ones are different though as they can transform into three different forms – plane, half plane half robot and full robot mode. Check out the latest series called Macross Frontier which just ended recently (25 episodes in total).



Story and game play
There are two game modes for Single player – campaign mode and free mode. Everyone should know what you can do in free mode (just incase you don’t, you can pick random levels to play). Campaign mode contains four stories from the anime series ranging from the very first series Macross, Macross Plus, Macross 7 and finally the newest Macross Frontier.

I first started with the very first series Macross and first thing I don’t like right away is how crowded the menus are and its just so hard to navigate and too much to read (see image). It will take some time to get used to.



Missions are relatively short so its really good for people looking for on-the-go kind of games. There is one type of mission that I absolutely hate and Bandai Namco keeps implementing this type of mission in all these games – stupid crate pick up game where you have to pick up supply crates from one spot back to the ship which I find it really annoying and waste of time. Other than that, I don’t have much more to complain. It plays just as well as the Gundam counterpart. Also, you now have a partner that will assist you in missions as well and it does a pretty find job at helping instead of getting into your way. Your partner loves going out there all by itself sometimes. Unless you give your partner a specific task like defend, attack, grapple and operator (I assume the operator will tell you your current object if choosing this option)

I would also like to point out that there are many large scale battles, while they are very intense and fun to play. As trade off, the game suffers frame rate problems during these battles.

I haven’t had a chance to test but multiplayer mode supports up to 4 players.



Controls are identical as well (go figure) with one button for melee, range weapon, boost/jump and even the special attacks are the same (L + melee/change target/both). Enough with similarities, there are in fact differences between Macross and Gundam. First of all, as mentioned the main Macross robots can transform into three different modes (I know some Gundams are transformable too like Z Gundam, ZZ Gundam etc but they don’t have the half plan half robot form) with your analog button. I prefer the robot mode though because the other two modes you are constantly moving since you are a plane/half plane and I find it hard to control still as in the ones in the Gundam game. And as usual, you will unlock new robots, leveling up you and your partner after completing missions as well as abilities which is something new. Abilities like higher defense and further sight etc. Upon finishing up each series you will also unlock a few missions where you will get to play as the enemy from that series.

Another major difference is weaponry, Macross robots are famous for their missiles. The game does a nice job of showing that by having two modes of missiles. The first one is your normal lock-on missiles for a single target and the second one allows you to lock-on to multiple targets (by holding the circle button and the computer will auto lock-on to the targets for you, provided you are in range) which I find pretty interesting. I also find it fun to launch missiles non-stop at targets until you run out. By the way, all weapons can be recharged and the recharge time can be reduced through upgrade. The missiles are kind of overpowered in my opinion, but then again you are deal with a lot more enemies in this game then in the Gundam ones.



There is nothing new in the upgrade section except it looks more crowded with the menu design. Your upgrades will reflect on your partner’s robot as well so you don’t have to waste your upgrade points on the same type of robot, doesn’t make sense to anyway. You can upgrade a wide range of options like having more ammo in your gun, longer boost, reduced recharge time, more HP and of course stronger weapons etc.

Completely new to this game, or this type of game is the addition of customizing your own robots with different colors. The customization has three parts, main body, secondary body and the eyes. There are also many preset colors for you if you are too lazy to bother playing and testing with the colors yourself. This feature is a big PLUS as I always think being able to personalize your items, in this case, robots makes the game ten times more enjoyable because you can really call it your own.



Finally, you can also switch between first and third person view and I find it very helpful to be in first person when you are in the plane mode. It gives me the Ace Combat feeling actually. Pretty neat feature there!

Graphics and audio
Again, graphics are similar to its Gundam counterpart. I know I’ve been saying this for the past few PSP reviews but I think its true as you can’t really go any further on a PSP than it possibly can. All I can say is that its good enough to be enjoyable. This goes to audio as well, nothing new here, just your usual robot moving sound, machine/laser gun and missiles firing. And as long as the game uses actual music from the anime series, I’m happy. I would be even happier if they actually implemented songs with people actually singing like Gundam vs Gundam instead of just plain music.

[correction] Its probably the first Macross series that doesn’t have songs, if you pick the Macross Frontier series, you will actually hear a song instead of just music on the very first level. So there are songs but not on every single level and I suspect only on a few levels.

Final verdict
Another great game that I am sure Gundam/Macross or any robot fans will enjoy. While it didn’t try to reinvent the wheel, it did add a few new features to the game. The greatest feature being the ability to customize your robots with different colors. And again, tons of unlockables like robots, missions and character abilities. If you really want this game even if you don’t know Japanese, you can find it on yesasia and ebay as well.

8/10

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Gundam vs Gundam – PSP review



Previous Gundam related games like Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable, Gundam Battle Royale and Gundam Battle Tactics were all great games, specially Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable that had, at the time, the latest mobile suits from the Gundam Seed series. Now, Gundam vs Gundam, the newest Gundam game has released for the PlayStation Portable in Japan (no date for North American release yet). Is this one worth buying at all? Read on…..

For those that haven’t played the games or even heard of Gundams before, they are basically transformers but only look 100x better. The games mentioned above basically put you in one of the mobile suits, not necessary Gundams because there are different robots in the series. You will be controlling and fighting against one of the other sides, usually two sides each with different mobile suits and mobile armor (these are not necessary robots but can be fighter planes etc). Its really a third person shooter, just replace human/monsters with robots.



If I remember correctly, this game was originally from the arcade and it was ported over to the PlayStation 2, then to the PSP. Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable was a great game that offered hours of play time and great replay value because you can upgrade many of your mobile suits’ stats such as how fast the weapon can fire, more ammo, more fire power as well as more health, jump higher and more booster power etc. This is pretty much level grinding though, which I think was necessary in order to pass some of the harder levels.

Game play
Gundam vs Gundam is really just the arcade version ported over to the PSP. At first I thought there was a story mode just like Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable. I should have figured that out from the name of the game, stupid me. The controls are basically the same or really similar to the other games though – jump, boost, shoot, melee, shoot 2, special shot, special melee and special. The three specials are hard to execute because you have to hold triangle, plus either the shoot or melee. The special move is slightly easier and its executed by pressing triangle, square and cross (might as well press your right thumb onto all four buttons)
I have yet to even execute any of them. How did I even figure out how to execute these hard to do moves? They are actually mentioned in one of the game options. I will update once I figure out how to execute them. I have never had such frustration over special moves from previous Gundam games.

[Update: I have finally managed to execute the special attack (only when your special gauge is full) by pressing.....L and R together twice]



Aside from the standards, now you can assign orders to your computer teammate, commands like attack, dodge and surprise attack. You can also call in support where an additional mobile suit for a second and throw in a few more shots at your current target, as usual, the calls for support can be recharged with time just like recharging your gun’s ammo. I find the support useful because, if I remember correctly it was able to take the hits for me as well as acting as a decoy for a short time.

Enough with the controls, the game has three game modes – “normal” mode (I call it the normal mode, was going to say story mode but its not a story) where you fight through 8 stages with the last stage as boss stage, quick play and multiplayer that supports 2 on 2 battles. I think the 2 on 2 is the selling point here, just like the arcade version, the fun is from shooting and slashing other human piloted mobile suits. Once you have selected a mobile suit from the list with 20+ of them and more can be unlocked by completing the “normal” mode. They range from the oldest 0079 series all the way to the newest ones from the Gundam 00 series. The objective of any of these game mode is the same, you and your enemies both have a life bar, you will lose if your side’s life bar reaches 0. When you and/or your teammate dies (same goes for enemies), the amount of life your team loses is based on the mobile suit you picked. The stronger the mobile suit, the higher points its worth, which means when it blows up, your team loses a bigger amount of life. So that means its not always better to pick the strongest from the list. I picked my favorite Freedom Gundam and its worth 3000GP, I lost one of the games once by dying only twice!



In “normal” mode, you will fight in random locations and you will have a random computer mobile suit to fight along side with you. There are a total of 8 stages with the last one being the boss stage. The boss is huge, relative to your mobile suit and it took me 2 tries to beat it, I was one hit away from losing the game for the second time! I guess I just need to practice more with the controls, a training mode would be a perfect game mode for this game.

Quick play is no brainer, you pick your mobile suit and pick up to 3 other computer to fight with or against you. You can modify options like how long the match lasts for, how fast your special gauge fills up or different stages/music.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to try out the multiplayer.



So as you can see, there isn’t any level grinding here. Although you can still unlock more mobile suits, intro movies, endings and images for the multimedia galleries.

Graphics and audio
Graphics are again, PSP quality, the mobile suits are nicely detailed, environments are plain but the game is so fast paced you won’t have time to appreciate or pay attention to, not that there is anything to appreciate here. Music is actually real sound tracks from the Gundam series, so based on which Gundam series’ stage you are fighting in, you will be listening to that series’ soundtrack. The soundtracks bring back a lot of memories by the way.

Final verdict
Overall I think this game is OK. I still prefer Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable because it has a story mode and level grinding although you can still unlock more mobile suits, maybe its just me. For those that are looking for fast paced arcade style game play, Gundam vs Gundam should suit your needs. Skills really matter in this game since there’s no level grinding where you can easily overpower your enemies by powering up your mobile suits and weapons. If you have lots of Gundam loving friends with PSP, I suggest convincing them to get a copy so up to 4 of you and your friends can fight each other anytime without going to the arcade.

7.0/10

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