Holy Fucking Shit.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters In Space…oh how I love you. How I adore your endless selection of Mobile Suits from the One Year War to Operation Stardust and beyond. How I envy your combat prowess and your wonderful campaign missions through the White Base, the Ace Pilots and the original Thoroughbred storyline. How I fall head over heels for your combat and how immersed I felt as I created characters to fight through the one year war. I love thee so…even if Gamespot declared that you were only a seven out of ten. But they don’t understand the love we share; they don’t understand what one year war junkies enjoy about you. Sure, you may be missing some of the more underground ace pilots, and while your selection covers pretty much every character and mobile suit from the anime/s, you still win me over time and time again. But how do you do it so well, you cultist game not intended for all audiences? It was as if you were simply built to function for the purposes of pleasing the fans. (Which by the way isn’t a bad thing. That is the whole purpose of a licensed game, no?) Even still, a licensed game should fail; with the exception of Riddick and the Twin Towers, most licensed games shouldn’t leave me wanting more. I shouldn’t have to find myself drooling as I stare into the mobile suit selection screen like some kind of fanboy-ish, indoctrinated zombie. But it’s true; I love Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space – just as I do Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2.
Now, considering how obscure this game must be to the general public, it would be relatively difficult for someone to get into the game without fully understanding what it was licensed after. Within the TV series of ‘Mobile Suit Gundam’ there were only three compilation movies that clustered together important episodes within the show, from the time the White Base escapes Side 7 in the original ‘Mobile Suit Gundam’, to the war on the Earth called ‘Soldiers of Sorrow’ and finally what’s known as ‘Encounters in Space’, the third TV movie. This game can be considered the sequel to ‘Journey to Jaburo’, which is also considered the ‘ground’ form of the two games. Encounters in Space, often considered the better of the two games despite being the least well-known added some additional content into the Gundam universe in a way that ‘Journey to Jaburo’ could not. For example, while the main story focuses on White Base crew and Amuro’s skills as a pilot increasing even as he re-enters space combat the addition of the ‘Ace Pilots’ mode allowed us to play as the likes of Anavel Gato from Gundam 0083 and even some relatively unknown but legendary pilots like Johnny Ridden and Shin Matsunaga. They even included the ‘Thoroughbred’ story about the G04 and G05 units that allowed for multiple endings according to your successes or failures within this mode. Created from Tomohiro Chiba’s manga ‘Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: Space, to The End of a Flash’, it stars Ford Romfellow and Lusse Kessel as Gundam pilots in their attempts to help end the one year war.
To a newcomer, everything will get tossed about at once and it’s going to seem intimidating. But don’t fret, my friends; even without background knowledge of the Gundam series, one can enjoy this game to the best that the extent of blowing up giant mechs and partaking in some epic battleship combat can give you. If it helps, let me give you an introduction of how this felt for me going into the game:
My collection of Playstation games was disasterously short back when the system first came out. Because it was dominated by the likes of my two brothers hogging up screen-time with Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, SOCOM 3, Need for Speed, Ace Combat and several other obscure games my own line-up games was short lived. There were two faults to this crisis; One, partially because I was rarely given time to play against the onslaught of children’s tears and friendship queers who would lovingly come over to play alongside my little brothers in whatever obscure things they were playing. But, even as a youngster I persevered for that one day where I might break the ice and finally have my turn at an addicting game. And that time came seven years ago, as I was able to save enough lawn-cutting money and allowance to find myself at the mercy of Gamestop.
Back then, I’d only have enough money to buy one game that would last me for a year or so before I’d eventually have to go through the vicious cycle again. Naturally, my choice had to be extremely careful and decisive lest I made the mistake of buying something completely half-assed and revolting to the point where I’d gorge my eyes out with a spoon. So, as I entered the Gamestop with the rest of the family in tow, I made a mad dash for the PS2 games without so much as a second though. Nothing could stand in my way as I leaped and bound over video game accessories and gift cards before I came across the new games section. At the time, the only subscription I had was to Nintendo Power, and even then it was at it’s very end of the yearly amount and I would lose the Magazine for another year. Considering I had no outside resources to tel me what was a good game or not, I simply had to make do with my gut instinct and my brazen courage as I traversed through the section to a find a game worth mentioning. I’ll be honest; I looked for games with character creation, and at the time there were few apart from that stubborn genre of games that were even remotely good.
As I continued to browse with disappointment looming in my eyes, I desperately tried to find something worth my common interest before I finally stumbled across what I considered to be the perfect match for me; Mobile Suit Gundam. As a kid, I watched parts of the show from recorded tapes my grandparents brought back from Japan, and so I was accessibly watching while I could. Amuro and crew were familiar to me, but acquaintances nonetheless. However, it was thanks to this game that I was able to spark back my love for the Gundam series. How did I know I would love the series as well as the game? For starters, I was always curious as to how the actual anime finished and though this might be the best escape back into the realm of Mobile Suit Gundam. Secondly; character creation. I mean, the actual customization was limited to six characters, but it was still pretty epic in the sense that you could change their voices and name them as well as increase their stats any way you wanted. The last and perhaps best reason for this game’s choice was due to the hundred-or-so different choices of mobile suits within the entire game, perhaps the largest roster I’ve ever seen of Gundams as a young teen. It took some debating however, in part because of how my brothers asked him for help buying another video game (not to be disclosed for privacy reasons). However, I finally managed to convince myself that this was going to be the game for me; the game that would last me an entire year before I picked up the lawn mower again or shoveled some neighbor’s snow.
Holy shit. Did I get what was justly coming to me.
This game wasted more than hours. This wasted years of my life. Never before was I so immensed in one of my favorite TV shows eve, and this game helped to bring it up to speed with me. I was thrown off by the Zone of Ender’s style controls at first, but even as I adjusted to the learning curve I was still getting my ass kicked on the harder levels and difficulties. And did I love every but of my sanity being thrown into this wondrous game. The adrenaline that coursed through my veins as I fought off Big Zam, or the chills down my spine as I battled through the final Battle of A Buau Qu left me hungry for me. This game was the Neeed for Speed killer for me; not only was I able to play this game ten times more often than my brothers game me the chance to, but suddenly they began to join, as well…
Continued in Part II: Newtypes shouldn’t be destroying each other!
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