It’s been a while since the turn based SD Gundam G Generation Portable hit the PSP and now, more Gundam goodness comes to the handheld console in the form of the action game, Gundam Battle Royale. Set between the early days of Gundam history between the One Year War and the Gryps Conflict when human factions are fighting against one another due to a conflict of interests. Piloting giant mechanical “Mobile Suits” that resemble robots, you join in the cause.

It all starts off with you picking a side to fight for, either the Earth Federation who is trying to keep their people together or the Zeon, a colony trying to break free and become independent from the Earth Federation. From there, you get a brief summary of the campaign you’re about to embark on before you can start picking missions to participate in. Most of the time, you’re presented with a mission that requires you to destroy all enemies before the time is up or, protect a certain object but, there are a few odd objectives to help vary things such as transporting cargo.


What rank can you get in the missions?
At first, only a few Mobile Suits are available to pick from but as you complete missions successfully, you gain access to new models. Every model has their own arsenal of weapons, special attack and maximum stats. By completing missions, you gain a number of points to help increase the base stats such as long range attack power, marksmanship, thrusters and the balancer. Unlike in RPGs, these points can be re-distributed whenever you wish which means you don’t have to worry about misusing them so you can tweak to your heart’s desire.

However, points you earn can only be used on the MS you won a mission with so if you ever decide to fight with a new model, you’ll have to start saving points from scratch which can be a little bothersome when their stats are lower than what you’ve already upgraded your current model to. This makes it harder to beat later missions where the enemy force is much stronger but fortunately, you can replay earlier missions as many times as you want.


Tweak your MS’ stats with the points you earn.
Once you’re happy with your MS, you’re ready to sortie onto the battle field. As enemies appear, your assistant notifies you and red arrows appear on your radar to point you in the right direction. After getting in range, you can lock onto the targets so that the camera follows them around to help focusing on your targets easier. Switching targets is also fairly easy using the analogue pad but when there are a large number of enemies on screen at once and they’re attacking you, it can become a little hectic as your thumb moves between the controls. So far, I’ve never had a problem with anything obtruding my view unless I just happened to move myself in front of a wall or some other object. No bad camera work here.