Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn (PS3) Review

Giants robots or not, it’s still a Dynasty Warriors game.

My exposure to the Gundam series is a bit limited (Wing/08th team), but I’ve enjoyed what little I’ve seen of the series.

However, in the case of the Dynasty Warriors, I’ve actively tried to avoid the series in general, as I’ve found most of what I’ve played to be monotonous and not worth my time.

When I started up with Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn, I hoped that the Gundam side of the formula would warm me up the series. While I’m still not totally convinced, there’s a fun distraction of a game here for fans of the genre.

I’m surrounded by a hundred enemies? I like those odds!

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: PS3
Multiplayer: Two player Co-Op – offline split screen and online.
Demo Availability: N/A
Voice Acting Selection: JPN only with ENG subtitles.
Length: About 10 hours for main campaigns and a lot more for Ultimate Mode.

For those unfamiliar with what the Dynasty Warriors games are all about, it’s more or less a hack and slash set in a wide open battle field, where the players must slaughter thousands of enemies to progress.

The combat is often as simple as they come, with very little depth to spare. Mashing the light and heavy attack buttons will cut down the dozens of enemies that fill the screen like a lightsaber through jello, and it never really gets too difficult.

DW:GR is more of the same in this regard, but luckily controlling giant robots with a variety of weapons I can only classify as “anime” prove to be more interesting than playing as people.

In fact, the sheer variety of Gundams and Pilots to be unlocked is well over a hundred, and with most of them having a unique move set of their own, it was fun to try out a new Gundam when the repetition was starting to get to me.

The story mode also serves to showcase six arcs in the Gundam universe, and while they’re obviously no substitute to watching the anime series that they’re based on, they did a good enough job to give me the cliff notes of what was going on.

The story arcs were also often punctuated by flashy CG cut scenes for the more dramatic moments, which added to the overall experience.

Lastly, there is the Ultimate Mode, where various scenarios are unlocked in which multiple universes collide for something along the lines of glorified fan fiction. Even though these weren’t quite as interesting to play through as the story mode, there were a few interesting “what if” scenarios which kept my interest for a time.

CG cut scenes punctuate many of the more dramatic moments in the story mode.

While the Co-Op mode works well offline with split-screen, the online Co-Op was overly difficult to use with many needless limitations. I could only invite my friend to missions he’d already completed, and then he would get kicked out after completing that one map for no reason at all.

A party system where I could invite my friend where we could choose any Gundam/Pilot combinations and let loose in any map would have been a great addition, but that’s nowhere to be found here.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn is not a bad game. The combat, while repetitive, is serviceable, and the amount of fan service here for Gundam fans is staggering. However, at the end of the day, it’s still yet another Dynasty Warriors game with very little to distinguish it from the others.

Fun Tidbit – I checked my stats after completing all the story arcs and a few of the ultimate mode scenarios and my kill count was well over 40,000. That’s a lot of broken robots!

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Staggering amount of Gundams and Pilots
  • Five story modes that do a decent job of retelling the classic tales
Bad
  • Poor implementation of online for Co-Op
  • Repetitive game play that never really changes throughout the experience
6
Decent
Written by
Jae has been a gamer ever since he got a Nintendo when he was just a child. He has a passion for games and enjoys writing. While he worries about the direction gaming as a medium might be headed, he's too busy playing games to do anything about it.