‘SD Gundam Battle Alliance’ Switch Review: Beneath The Cute Veneer Lies A Proper ‘Gundam’ Game

Games ‘SD Gundam Battle Alliance’ Switch Review: Beneath The Cute Veneer Lies A Proper ‘Gundam’ Game Ollie Barder Contributor Forbes Games Reviews Contributor Group Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Aug 25, 2022, 04:59am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin ‘SD Gundam Battle Alliance’ is a solid mecha game. Bandai Namco Back in the days of the PlayStation Portable, the Japanese game developer Artdink made a name for themselves with the very solid Gundam Battle games.

It’s in this tradition that SD Gundam Battle Alliance follows and the results are similarly great. The interesting thing here is that the “ super deformed ”, or SD, moniker reminded me of the SD Gundam Gashapon Wars and SD Gundam Scad Hammers games on the Gamecube. While elements of those games are present here, it makes morde sense to look at this new game through the lens of the Gundam Battle games.

In that, the Gundam Battle games had you undertake missions in a third person combat framework and then use the points earned to upgrade your chosen mobile suit further. This backend flow is very much present in SD Gundam Battle Alliance and despite the cute veneer, there’s a decent Gundam here. The narrative premise has a mobile suit pilot from the One Year War plucked out of his timeline and reinserted into something called “G:Universe”.

It seems that Gundam history is being over written and major battles are having their famous mobile suits replaced by those that really shouldn’t be there. ‘SD Gundam Battle Alliance’ covers great swathes of the ‘Gundam’ mythos in terms of its playable . .

. [+] mobile suit roster. Bandai Namco MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry If this sounds at all familiar, this is because Bandai Namco used pretty much the same setup in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse series.

Much like the Time Patrol in those games, you have to “correct” each breach in the timeline and restore Gundam’s history to its former pristine glory. This means that along the way you unlock all manner of mobile suits, which can then be individually upgraded. You can also install extra parts, which increase boost power or offer things like an auto guard.

There are also other abilities that improve your pilot, so you have a fair bit to sort out before each mission. In game though things are very smooth and refreshingly modern. To be fair to Artdink on their PlayStation Portable games, the control limitations of that handheld didn’t help things much.

On the Switch though, everything works more logically. Like any contemporary third person action game, left stick handles movement and the right stick allows you to look around. Face buttons cover movement and melee and the right trigger deals with your ranged attacks.

You also have other sub-weapons you can use, mapped to the shoulder pads, and a nice special attack to unleash on the many bosses. The backend allows you to upgrade each mobile suit as well as install extra parts. Bandai Namco Melee uses your boost gauge and the other weapons all have cooldowns.

Managing all of that is very straightforward and the fluid movement controls make the whole package flow very nicely. The only real gripe is that Artdink’s old-school approach to game balancing is still present. This mainly manifests itself with the numerous end of mission bosses, with each of them often possessing inordinate amounts of health.

Admittedly, you can bring along wingmen and even play with friends to share in the carnage, but most of the bosses tend to be on the bullet sponge end of the gameplay spectrum. Visually the game holds up well on the Switch and runs at a smooth framerate. The art style while cute also has a lot going on in terms of the combat, so it’s impressive how well it runs all things considered.

Thankfully, SD Gundam Battle Alliance retains the original Japanese voice actors and music. However, the English localization is patchy in places and it’s clear that those that handled it aren’t really up to speed on the Gundam mythos. Overall, SD Gundam Battle Alliance is a solid mecha game and one that shows how far Artdink has come since their PlayStation Portable days.

It’s also a very accessible game in terms of its controls and combat, which the cute approach only helps to accentuate. SD Gundam Battle Alliance Platform: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC Developer: Artdink Publisher: Bandai Namco Released: 25th August 2022 Price: $59. 99 Score: 8/10 Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this game for the purposes of this review.

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