Also On: PS4, PS5, Switch
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: CRAFTS & MEISTER Co., Ltd
Medium: Digital/Physical
Players: 1-3
Online: Yes
ESRB: T
Six years after the last release of Bandai Namco’s Gundam Breaker series, New Gundam Breaker, the company began to tease the release and development of the next awaited entry: Gundam Breaker 4. Grab your model kits, your nippers, and your controller, because there’s more Gunpla than ever before for you to play with!
For fans of the previous Gundam Breaker stories, this is a continuation of the story established in Gundam Breaker 3 and GUNDAM BREAKER MOBILE. If you’re wanting to learn more about what leads into Gundam Breaker 4, Bandai recommends you watch the Gundam Breaker Battalogue anime. To make this even easier for you, the official YouTube channel “GundamInfo” has uploaded the first 6 episodes as two separate videos, each containing 3 episodes each. And for anyone wondering what Gundam Breaker Battalogue is, it’s an anime series featuring characters from the Breaker games that blend into stories of each of the games.
Gundam Breaker 4’s prominent feature is the ability to combine and build any combination of Mobile Suit you desire. Featuring over 250 full mobile suit model kits to choose from and combine, you are nothing short of guaranteed to find something that both speaks to your creative process and to your gameplay preferences. Wanna use a Gundam Exia chest with a Gelgoog set of legs? Go right ahead! Realistically, the sky’s the limit to what you can create and piece together. With every part you slap on to your ultimate Gunpla, you’ll gain stat changes and even new skills, further fleshing out your combat prowess. On top of a nice part system, you’ve got a surprisingly in-depth painting system to let you really make the childhood dream mobile suit of your creation!
I’d be stupid to not mention how fun and surprisingly intense the gameplay really is. It rewards trying out new combinations of weapons, enabling you to do more damage and break parts easier to further increase your collection of possible options. You’ll encounter bosses with “broken” parts that don’t fully come off, causing them to take significantly reduced damage. You’ll want to be using all of your movement options to get to a more advantageous position to maximize damage potential. Of course, your weapons play a part in this as well. Perform combos with all sorts of weapons for your left and right hands, including machine guns, sub machine guns, rocket launchers, beam sabers, longswords, and so, so much more! Maximize your combat potential with all sorts of parts and unique skills and dominate the battlefield as a combination of your favorite mobile suits throughout Gundam’s 40+ year history.
The multiplayer feels quite nice, and being able to run missions with friends is always a treat. You can link up in lobbies with other players, interacting with various emotes and whatnot while checking out each other’s Gunpla. It’s worth mentioning to those that have played previous entries in the Breaker franchise: multiplayer is now 3-player co-op as opposed to 4-players. I’m not sure how much of an issue this is for the majority of fans, but I think 3-players is still super acceptable.
While audio may not be a big deal for a lot of players jumping into Gundam Breaker 4, I have to comment on how fantastic the sound effects and whatnot are. Each type of mobile suit has all sorts of effects and sounds coming from it, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see that they all seem to mirror the series’ anime that they may appear in. From the classic beam rifle sounds on the RX-78-2, to the Newtype warning from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, to so much more, the audio is exactly what I remember hearing in all of the anime entries in the franchise.
To touch on some other minor things before wrapping this up, I’d like to make note of something that may confuse players at the start if they’re brand new to Gundam Breaker, but have familiarity with how the Gunpla model kits scale in actuality. To start off, you’ll be acquiring High Grade (HG) parts, and upon completing story mode, you’ll be able to start collecting Master Grade (MG) parts for your mobile suit, furthering your performance and even increasing size. Additionally, you’ll probably want to be aiming for S-Rank in every mission, as that will net you extra benefits, whether it be more mobile suit parts, decorative pieces and paint jobs, or more money to spend on extra Gunpla kits in the in-game shop.
To add onto previous comments about combat and breaking boss parts, you’ll be wanting to aim for “Breaks” on every enemy suit you come across, as this will both potentially drop the broken part for you to use for yourself and remove that part temporarily from the enemy, causing them to lack movement or attack options, giving you a complete upper hand advantage.
Overall, Gundam Breaker 4 is a fantastic game for fans of Gundam as a whole, whether you are or are not acquainted with previous entries of the series or even the anime. If you’re just a fan of the mecha genre in general and customizing your own mech, I don’t think I could recommend Breaker 4 enough. It’s got excellent customization, fluid combat with enough depth to reward you for getting a feel for multiple attack possibilities, and plenty of reasons to continue to play. The developers have stated that there will be free and paid DLC released throughout the game’s life cycle, so be sure to stay tuned for new updates.
Note: Bandai Namco provided us with a Gundam Breaker 4 code for review purposes.
