SD Gundam Battle Alliance feels like throwing all your Gundam action figures together while making explosion sounds with your mouth.
Except it’s a video game with an absolutely ridiculous story, one that mirrors Kingdom Hearts in pure cosmic complexity.
Gundam has a long and storied history in video games, but most of the franchise’s recent entries feel nothing more than mediocre, while older titles like Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn still stand out as great titles. SD Gundam Battle Alliance finally brings that series to an end with an experience that feels like a massive Gundam history lesson wrapped around a surprisingly fun action RPG that packs a ton of variety into its massive roster.
Welcome to the G-Universe
The basic configuration of SD Gundam Battle Alliance casts you as an unnamed commander from the One Year War, who is unceremoniously plucked from their timeline and taken to somewhere called G-Universe. In this strange space, several Gundam timelines intersect, creating ‘Break Missions’. Your goal is to play through these Break missions and essentially put the different Gundam timelines back together, searching different maps to find the right mobile colors and historical inaccuracies.
It almost goes without saying that there’s always a ton of information thrown at you, and you’ll definitely have a better time if you have even a cursory knowledge of the Gundam franchise. Still, it’s not absolutely necessary, as the game offers enough basic explanations to make sense of things. However, what’s most surprising about the story is how surprisingly meta the whole thing is about Gundam as a whole.
While it’s nothing groundbreaking, there are some wild twists and turns throughout the plot, and a lot of comments poking fun at tropes that the Gundam franchise uses consistently, such as a character saying “Never trust people in masks,” or a another pointing to a villain’s overwhelming “edgelordiness.” It’s not too serious, but the fun story helps connect the strongest aspect of the game, the combat.
Straightforward action with strong vibes
SD Gundam Battle Alliance is an action RPG that resembles something like Kingdom Hearts. You have light attacks, heavy attacks, ranged attacks and two special abilities assigned to the triggers. Your ranged and special attacks will cool down, and a special attack meter will also recharge as you deal and take damage. Gone are the many other complexities to combat such as guarding, your boost meter, continued fractions and more.
I won’t delve too far into things, but it all combines into a combat system that feels both fast and responsive, perfectly capturing the anime’s blazing fast mobile suit combat.
In the same way, Battle Alliance‘s visuals and soundtracks do a phenomenal job of capturing the aesthetics of Gundam. The SD versions of suits are absolutely adorable, even if the models show a surprising amount of detail, such as dirt and grime smeared into the metal. Missions consistently feature classical music from across the franchise, and nothing beats defending White Base to the punchy tunes of the classic 1970s anime.
Too much mecha and too little time
Like any good Gundam game, Battle Alliance has a wealth of playable mobile colors, with over 60 to choose from that can be unlocked by completing various missions and earning blueprints. All mobile suites are divided into three categories; All-rounder, the long-range sniper and the melee-focused Infighter. Even with such a huge selection, each mobile suit manages to feel unique and vibrant, and it’s great to try out new suits to find your favorites. The catch here is that you have to raise each suit individually, which is where the only real downside is: Battle Alliance comes in.
There’s quite a bit of grinding to do as you progress through the game’s story, as each new map has a pretty big bump in its suggested level and difficulty. At first, missions can be played in Normal and Easy mode, but later you unlock the Hard difficulty. Each mobile suite must be upgraded with Capital, a resource you collect during missions, and by completing them.
The problem is, there just isn’t enough capital to get by, and you’ll have a hard time keeping even one suit level, let alone fully leveling up a brand new color you’ve unlocked. This results in the need to grind past levels to earn capital, which ultimately slows your progress through the main story and unlocks new events and costumes.
While most missions come down to defeating waves of enemies, Battle Alliance does well to shake things up with climactic battles, defense missions, or seek and destroy targets. While AI companions can accompany you on any mission, the entire game is also playable in co-op, which is generally recommended as the allied AI can often be a bit useless.
After years of arena fighters and lame sequels, like New Gundam Breaker, Battle Alliance feels like the breath of fresh air the franchise needs in video games. It’s a love letter to one of the most prolific anime franchises out there, but even if you’re not a Gundam fan, there’s a great action RPG underneath, with a surprising amount of variety. Between its deceptively fun original story and dynamic combat, it is definitely a standout in the crowded anime games market.
8/10
SD Gundam Battle Alliance is currently available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
INVERSE VIDEO GAME REVIEW ETHOS: Each Inverse video game review answers two questions: is this game worth your time? Do you get what you pay for? We have no tolerance for endless fetch missions, clunky mechanics or bugs that water down the experience. We care deeply about game design, world building, character arcs and storytelling that come together. Inverse will never make a fist, but we are not afraid to make a fist. We love magic and science fiction in equal measure, and as much as we love experiencing rich stories and worlds through games, we won’t ignore the real-world context in which these games were created.
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