Customize a robo.
Gundam Breaker 4, technically the fifth Gundam Breaker game, is the first title in the series to come to a Nintendo system. In fact it’s only the second title to not be exclusive to Playstation platforms, and to release in the west. So it’s safe to say that for many, this will be their first introduction to this series. Gundam Breaker is a bit different from other Gundam games as it is built around the concept of Gundam model kits otherwise known as Gunpla. It is a game about collecting parts and kitbashing them together to make new mobile suits and then engage in arena combat. At a glance it isn’t far off from Nintendo’s own seemingly retired Custom Robo series. It is certainly closer to something like that than it is to other more traditional Gundam video games.
The entirety of Gundam Breaker 4 takes place within a somewhat fake MMORPG. I say “somewhat” because it can indeed be played online, allowing you to engage with other players, but the core storyline feels focused as a single player experience. Unlike previous entries there is no segment of the game that takes place in the “real” world. Your Gunpla are your avatars and which can result in occasionally comical moments of your conceptually giant robots acting out heartfelt scenes between two characters.
The story plays out as a linear series of missions, bookended by cutscenes between yourself and the other characters you meet within this virtual world. Most of the actual story takes place in the lobby that you’ll be sent to between missions. As a result the story scenes will get extremely repetitive, with most of them taking place in the exact same spot with voice acting playing over canned animations for your Gunpla. I found it difficult to connect with the story despite the voice cast doing a perfectly fine job.
The actual missions play out in wave-based arena combat. You and your party members will drop into an arena and take on several waves of enemies before moving to the next arena and doing it again. At the end of the waves you’ll generally fight some slightly more powerful enemies or a large boss. Now and then you’ll have a slightly different objective such as defending a certain unit but ultimately most missions wind up feeling very similar. You’ll fight a huge variety of enemies, but as they ultimately all have the same underlying moveset, no one encounter feels particularly different from any other. The exception to this is the large boss fights. These all have unique attacks and phases that have to be learned, and they’re the one instance in which I actually ever died. Getting hit by one of these bosses can occasionally just one shot you, especially if you’re running with a lower level build than you should. These encounters require you to more carefully watch your opponent rather than simply button mash, and find openings to attack weak points when they present themselves. I ultimately enjoyed the boss fights far more than any of the standard encounters which almost never presented any challenge or interesting gameplay.
By far the highlight of Gundam Breaker 4 is the actual mech customization. As you play through missions, enemies will drop parts that you’ll collect at the end of the stage. You can then freely swap these out on your Gunpla. Pieces are split into head, torso, left and right arms, legs, backpack, and both ranged and melee weapons for each hand. Each of these can then be scaled, moved, and rotated. You can individually adjust the paint color and type on various parts of each piece as well as applying custom decals pretty much wherever you want. I even realized you can give these decals emissive properties allowing them to function as lights. Finally you can also adjust various options for wear and tear to make your mech look brand new or like it’s been fighting the Zeon since U.C. 0079. The amount of freedom you have is truly impressive. Want to make Samus from Metroid or one of the mechs from Metroid Prime: Federation Force? You absolutely can. Or maybe you want to recreate the exact look of the RGM-79 seen in 1999’s Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise from the Ashes for the Sega Dreamcast. Yup, you can do that too. You can also save and upload any of your custom builds and pose them in dioramas for a nice photo shoot. I can only imagine the crazy builds that will be available once the public servers come online.
The only real downside to the customization, is that at the end of the day, all of your designs will essentially handle the same way, and the base controls are a little clumsy. Most of this comes down to the way a couple key actions are implemented. First off, your block and dodge are on the same button. Block is triggered by holding the button while dodge is triggered with a quick press. But because of this setup, both actions will be limited by a small delay as the game waits to see if you’re going to keep holding down the button or not. Your jump and dash functions also share a button, but in this instance the action is dependent on whether you’re moving or not. You can only jump while standing still, while a dash will trigger if you’re in motion. Both of these make getting into position and dealing with enemy attacks awkward, and at times laggy. As a result I generally felt I was having more fun building than I was actually playing.
When it comes to playing specifically on Switch, this has proven to be a very solid port. The game looks sharp docked and only becomes noticeably soft occasionally in handheld mode. Oddly I found this was more common when in the lobby rather than in an actual mission, and usually only during cutscenes. I did see the frame rate drop now and then if combat got particularly intense but never for an extended period of time. I will note that loading screens can be just a hair lengthy, which can make moving from one arena to the next during missions a little less fluid than it should be. Still, overall this is clearly a game designed with the Switch’s hardware in mind, and the end result is a fairly attractive game in both docked and handheld modes.
I have very different opinions on Gundam Breaker 4 depending on what area of the game you ask me about. The story is bland but generally inoffensive. The standard combat is repetitive and unmemorable but the boss fights can be much more interesting. However the controls do leave something to be desired. The customization is fantastic and generally the highlight of the experience. And the Switch port itself is very well handled. At the end of the day I found Gundam Breaker 4 is at its best when you’re either building a unique Gunpla, or engaged in the more curated and intentionally designed one on one boss fights. I found myself having fun in these moments but wishing that they were more the focus of gameplay, and that the story was willing to commit to a bit more than stiff cutscenes that all take place in the same gray room. I couldn’t help but think of a game like Custom Robo and wish that Gundam Breaker was willing to commit to a more adventurous, almost Pokemon-like experience. A game where you actually explore a world, engaging in Gunpla battles as an RPG encounter mechanic, rather than selecting them from a list. Gundam Breaker 4 is good, but it feels like there is an obvious path to be something more.