While I have been a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors series, I never really watched any of the Gundam anime, so I just haven’t had time to pick up the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam series yet. This means that I have an excellent new series to learn in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn but I was a bit lost when it came to the story, or rather, stories. There are several different stories that it covers.

I was taken back in time a bit when I started up the stories. You can tell from watching the cutscenes that the Gundam series is an older show, but that’s not a bad thing. The animations are simple and clean. During the gameplay, your gundams look quite a bit more modern. The enemies look a bit generic, as they’re all copies of a few basic gundams, but the major enemies are quite easy to pick out from the crowd. I like that the battle lines are easy to see as well. You have a big red line to mark off the areas, so it’s easy to see.

One thing that I don’t like is that there is no English dub. This makes it so that you have to read text while you are trying to fight. I find that on the Dynasty Warrior games where have no dub, I tend to miss a lot more of the story and when there’s a complex story, you really need to pay attention or you’ll get lost quickly. Otherwise, I have no complaint with the music or sounds. The background music and effects fit the game just right.

There are two different modes that you can play in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn. Each one gives you a different way to look at the game and its objectives. From the Main Menu, you can choose between Official Mode and Ultimate Mode for different ways to play. In Official Mode, you choose which Gundam story you want to play through. You can choose between: Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, and Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny. Each one of these has its own storyline and plot. You do not have to play them in order, but I would recommend that you start with Mobile Suit Gundam if you’ve never played before, simply because it gives you instructions on how to play and the others don’t. As I mentioned, I haven’t seen the anime, so I was a bit lost on the storylines, but luckily I had a friend over who is a huge fan of the series so he kept me informed as to what was going on. The first player in Official Mode always plays as the character that the game chooses for you. Sometimes it will even change your character in the middle of a battle, to fit the story. The second player can choose their character and Gundam Suit.

The beauty of having someone else over is that you can play two players locally. It splits the screen side by side with the first player on the left rather than top and bottom like Dynasty Warriors. This took some getting used to at first, but since you will be flying your Gundam up and down at times, it makes a lot more sense to split the screen down the middle. On a large wide-screen TV, you’ve got plenty of room to see what you’re doing on your side.

Ultimate Mode is the other place that you can choose to play. Inside Ultimate Mode, you are given shorter scenarios with specific goals rather than a half hour or more mission like some of the Official Mode levels. You can choose any of the characters you have unlocked to play as and any of the suits that they can pilot. You can get a bronze, silver, or gold on each scenario, if you accomplish goals that they want. You’ll only have one "operation" unlocked when you first start (plus three DLC ones if you have purchased those), but once you beat that first one, you’ll unlock more to play.

You can also choose Database from the Main Menu. Database isn’t a mode of play, but it is a collection where you can see everything that you have unlocked during your play time. For each level that you beat you will unlock new Gundam Suits, characters, suit plans, and more. It’s quite nice to have it all in one place so you can keep track of what you’ve gotten from each story.

Since I haven’t played the previous Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, I can only compare Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn to the other Dynasty Warriors series and honestly, it feels a bit easy to me. On Normal, we didn’t have a challenge. Hard was barely a challenge, but if you take a low enough level character into a harder board, you will die if you’re not careful. I am used to a bit more difficult game, but it was still fun.

In between battles, you might want to make your Gundam stronger with the plans and materials that you collected in battle. You can do this in the Mobile Suit Lab. You will need to merge plans together to create stronger ones. Once you collect plans rated C or above, it’ll be a lot easier. The materials are used for specific upgrades. You can also go into the Lounge and upgrade your pilot’s skills with the Team Points that you have earned, which I highly recommend doing! Don’t forget to equip the skills after you upgrade them. If you need more pilot or team points, you can go play in the Training Area. You don’t actually have to do anything to train there. It just raises your stats. You’ll unlock better training as you go further in the story.

The controls are pretty easy to get the hang of in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn. Basically they work like the rest of the Dynasty Warriors games, more or less. One addition that I really like is the fact that you can lock on to the major enemies with (R3). This can be quite helpful, but if you’re trying to run away to heal or something, don’t forget to unlock yourself. (R2) is also quite handy. It activates "Burst" when your burst gauge is full. While in burst, you can press (O) to really do damage with your partner’s assistance. Your battlefield has many areas called Fields. These are like bases in Dynasty Warriors. When you beat enough enemies, you will conquer the field. Fields can be important, so watch out for them. I was actually surprised at how smoothly the suits transition from walking on land to flying in space. It’s quite seamless.

It was a bit difficult for me to get used to Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn and I’m still going to have to play the stories through another time to really understand what is going on, but there’s so much to do that I have a lot to keep me occupied and interested. If you’re looking for a hack n’ slash that also has a lot of story, then you might just enjoy Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn. Just make sure to check out the DLC as well because there are some awesome Gundams and more in there!