First Impressions: Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2

I must say, I loved the first Dynasty Warriors Gundam game. It was great to find a game of a good franchise with an anime series I really enjoy. I spent a long time playing it, but I couldn't help thinking that it seemed somewhat unfinished; the graphics weren't great; the gameplay was sometimes monotonous; and the Official Mode left out big parts of the plot. Keep in mind that I still found this a good game.

After getting this game today and playing it for a long time, they really did improve the game in the ways I wished it to. The gameplay's been improved significantly. The addition of giant mobile suits and armours really does vary the gameplay. The thrusters were tiresome in the last game as it took ages to get anywhere. Now it seems the maps have been scaled down a little bit and on top of that the thrusters are much faster, matching the fast paced action of the anime series.

Being a fan of retro gaming, graphics aren't really a big deal to me, but the graphics have been improved so much. There's now more reflectiveness to the metal of the mobile suits and detail which makes such a big difference. The same goes for the enviroments. They are no longer as uniform looking as they were before.

Of course there's many more mobile suits in the game. You can even play as the grunt enemies. The game really does have so much gameplay value. Instead of Original Mode, there's Mission Mode, where there's tonnes of missions for each character. Here you can build friendships and enemies with other characters and this will determine what happens in other missions.

The parts system has been masively overhauled. There are now parts for each separate part of the mobile suit, and you are also able to collect weaker and stronger parts. The mobile suit levels have been done away with because of this. Super moves are also improved with separate land, air and combo techniques again adding more variety.

What they've done here is build on the foundations of the last game. I forgot to add, online play is now in there too, this looks quite basic though and isn't really what I had in mind. They really have worked hard on this game, improving as many things as possible. DWG1 was a great game, but this is going to be even better.