Remasters and re-releases flood the market at a higher frequency than ever before, so admittedly the prospect of another one is hardly the most exciting one. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered, however, is an exception to that rule – this mecha action game based on the popular cross media franchise originally launched for the PS Vita in 2012.
“The story and storytelling in the Gundam Battle games tends to be on the lighter side to begin with, and that is especially true in this game.”
Unfortunately, that platform’s poor performance outside of Japan, as well as a fairly high volume of Gundam releases at the time, meant that this one was passed over when the time came for a western release. In other words, most people around the world never quite played this title, which alone makes it a worthy candidate for a re-release – at least this is a game that had very limited availability to begin with.
Then, too, is the fact that this game falls in the Gundam Battle series, which is fairly well liked among fans of the IP – so of course, an older entry in that subseries would have a lot of demand for a modern release. So yes, seeing this classic PS Vita game get a new lease of life on the Switch and on PC more than a decade after it first came out is heartening for Gundam fans – of which there are many, certainly enough for this release to make business sense.
And that’s just as well, because other than folks who were already fans of the property, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered is unlikely to find a whole lot of takers. There are a fair few reasons for this – for starters, the game itself doesn’t particularly make a lot of effort at onboarding new players and entrants to the wider Gundam universe.
The story and storytelling in the Gundam Battle games tends to be on the lighter side to begin with, and that is especially true in this game. There’s not a lot of storytelling here, and what little there is tends to make allusions to events, characters, terms, places, proper nouns et al, with no explanation or contextualization as to what they are and why they matter. In other words, this is not a story that makes sense to you unless you already are a Gundam fan.
“Other than folks who were already fans of the property, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered is unlikely to find a whole lot of takers.”
Even if you are a Gundam fan, however, the story here is decidedly not the main attraction. Don’t expect this game to let you play out any of the main conflicts, or the exploits of Kira and Athrun. In this game, you are playing a custom nameless character, fighting from the sidelines, your battles always vaguely threatening to brush against the fringes of the main conflict and story of the Gundam series, but never quite doing so.
It’s like watching a TV spin off series or direct to DVD sequel to a big movie franchise, in that yes, it is technically happening in the same universe and continuity as that big story you care about. But it isn’t allowed a whole lot of developments or characters of consequence to be depicted within it, or where it does, it is with as deft a touch as possible.
The narrative and storytelling chops, then, are not the reason anyone is going to play the game. What does stand out about this game, and the reason it is likely to get dozens, if not hundreds, of hours sunk into it from Gundam enthusiasts is the excellent mission based design, and its 100 plus mobile suits to unlock. It’s because of replays, both to get the best possible rank on every mission you fight in, and to play through the campaign as each of the three factions you are given a choice between. It’s to unlock new suits, new pilots, new abilities, new maps, and then mixing and matching them across the missions to get even better results than you have been so far.
The Gundam Battle games have an addictive “one more time” score attack style loop. The missions are very quick, but very tense and gruelling, and completing a battle can often be a case of finding out your grade was a B (or shamefully, sometimes even lower), and knowing that if you replayed it but made sure to go in with a more considered load out, and weren’t being as hasty, you’d do better. And then you jump back in and try again, and see your plan in action, and that better grade, which encourages you to keep trying, over and over.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered has that same quality too, so Gundam fans are likely going to find a lot of value for their money here. There are certainly some issues – battles go from being extremely easy to being extremely challenging with very little buildup, and the camera control is, at the best of times, an annoyance, but this part of the game is great enough that it punches way above its class.
“Gundam fans are likely going to find a lot of value for their money here.”
The game’s lack of appeal to newcomers to the Gundam series rankles even harder here, because the core gameplay is legitimately good enough that the game could have feasibly been an onboarding ramp into the broader Gundam mythos. It isn’t simply the storytelling that’s to blame here, there are other issues that inherently limit the game’s broader appeal in addition. For example, this is, as mentioned, the remaster of a game that is more than a decade old, and which originally released for the PS Vita.
In other words, it is not a game that you could realistically expect to be a looker. In fact, in a lot of maps, it can look extremely spartan and ugly, reminiscent of the sort of aesthetic you’d find in a lower budget PS2 game. The title, while technically remastered, still does not look good here. There are definitely places where it can look appealing, notably in the space maps, where the art style can take over and do the heavy lifting, but largely, this game looks poor enough that, again, a lot of people who could otherwise have been interested in a game about big mechs fighting, may be turned off.
And then there is the persistent issue that a lot of smaller niche Japanese releases run into with their global launches – only the Japanese voice track is offered. No English dub, nor dub in any other language, is available. Again, Gundam fans are likely to not mind this – in fact, many may even prefer the original Japanese voices – but for everyone else, this is probably yet another barrier for them to get past.
Gundam fans not concerned with these factors have nothing to worry about. There is a whole lot of content and value in this package, and enough references to the universe and story they love, that this game purchase would be a no brainer to them. But what I truly hope for is that this rerelease does well enough that the developers return with a new, higher budget entry, with a more newcomer friendly campaign and better visuals, which can greatly expand the number of people interested in the Gundam property by itself. That’ll be the game for them. This one? This one is probably best left to the existing Gundam fans. You folks, at least, are going to have a blast.
This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.
