Videos: Gundam Side Stories Blue Destiny Promo
Posted on : 25-02-2014 | By : Cacophanus | In : Videos
Hardware: PlayStation 3
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So we now have the first promo for the Gundam Side Stories collection and it’s featuring Blue Destiny. There’s quite a lot of gameplay footage in this trailer and it’s clear now that these “HD remakes” are basically classic missions from the older games in the new Missing Link engine. This is a pretty big deal, as what made games like Blue Destiny so special was their claustrophobic first person view (something that seems to be entirely absent now). We’re actually pretty disappointed now about this new collection, as it seems very clear that Bandai are just going down the cheap and nasty route for this. Oh well, we’ll be picking this up in May but our reaction has now dropped to below “meh”. The other weird thing is that this version of Blue Destiny looks like it’s referencing the manga narrative rather than the original games (as the trailer talks about about letting down Marion after the Blue Destiny GM’s head is blown off by a Dom). This is because the manga ends on Earth between the Blue Destiny GM and Efreet Kai, whereas the games finish in space between two EXAM system Gundams. Anyway, this collection seems to be comprised of a whole ball of weird. The trailer is shown below.
[flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5jp_ueeRz0]
I don’t think it’s necessarily referencing the manga referencing since they wouldn’t spoil the ending in a trailer months before the game is out, that’s just the cliffhanger of the first part. Besides, guys, we knew it was going to be in the missing link engine from the start. The scans the first time we found out had BD-1 in 3rd person. What did you think was going to happen?
I don’t think this is exactly the cheap and nasty route. Bamco could’ve gone 10x more nasty with this. No voice acting for example, no cutscenes, not having these missions at all (although Senki’s single player mode was short it was sweet so it’s not /that/ bad).
Ontop of that, the manga implies that it’s not over yet (as Marion speaks to Yuu) but the company that made the manga just folded at that point.
Also, I want to mention that they literally show the covers for each game (including the second and third that aren’t covered in the manga) in the video.
I noticed that too. It looks like they only showed action from the first game; why show all the covers if you aren’t going to include it?
While I miss the first-person view….well, this still looks interesting anyway. And as you said, why the shock over the 3rd-person view? The scans from the magazine clearly show this, and these scans have been out for some time.
I’d rather that we wait and see whether the games themselves are actually good _after_ playing them.
Just my two cents…
I have sincere doubts about this game right now, especially after this trailer. Gun combat looks fine (as it was in Battle Operation, too) but melee combat looks janky as hell.
Except the BG GM head contains Marion and she gets “killed” at the end of the manga by nixing the head, so it’s likely they’re doing that. Plus this basically looks like the highlights of the three games, notably the second (so not all of them). As for whether they were intended as HD remakes, Bandai made a BIG deal that these wouldn’t just use the Missing Link engine and setup. Instead, they’d be entirely reworked as per the originals (balancing and all). Obviously that’s not the case.
That’s impossible since Marion is /also/ in Nimbus’ Efreet. And it’s not a highlight since there were multiple missions in this video, Blue Destiny at night stopping the nuke, the first time they sortie with it (with everyone in GMs) and then another one with everyone in GM Commands. Although I do wonder if you’re right about them just having “highlights”, that’d be a bit of a shame since we wouldn’t be doing the whole story at all. Especially since with this online engine they’d be able to do the rest also.
Marion is also in the BD Gundam heads too but the manga ends with the loss of the prior BD units, which is what was emphasised here. As for the highlights, I meant missions. It’s almost like they’ve solely focused on the 2nd game in the trilogy and cherrypicked missions from that.
I really want to believe in bamco JUST this once, especially since their front page is also prominently showing BD2/3.
The Famitsu magazine reveal also showed models for Units 2 and 3
By the by, they announced their limited edition and it’s ALREADY sold out. Comes with a kit, artbook, 2 cds and the game and a special box.
Not sold out near me, still plenty of pre-orders.
I don’t know enough about Blue Destiny to argue about it but I do know the game looks less terrible than I thought it would be.
I don’t think this PV is enough to start panicking about what’s included and what’s not in each remake. Lack of any space scenes made me concerned at first too but I’m back to wait and see, maybe the official page will show us more. This PV was just telling a story. One that strangely ends where the manga did admittedly.
Still, I’m definitely more than meh for this game still and eagerly await the next update/reveal. A “hardcore” first person mode would be a nice surprise though, Bandai
I’m less worried about lack of content and more about the functional veracity compared to the originals. Having a cockpit view and a terrifyingly weak rifle made every encounter very tense. Third person and dakka dakka loses that.
I’m starting to think Bamco just doesn’t feel like putting the effort into making a proper,functional, first person Gundam game. It’s a shame, it’s not like they don’t have the money to do so.
Maybe but it’s more because the third person games tend to sell more here.
I wonder if that’s due to a lack in quality in the few first person titles available or a general disinterest in the viewpoint by Japanese consumers?
It’s more the latter, FPS games just aren’t a big deal here.
Oh, Bamco….
So lazy.
JP devs have likely just begun to get a handle on programming for the PS3. Dealing with the costs.
Programming isn’t the cost these days, it’s art and the army of artists required to make it.
And yet we’re seeing less ambitious efforts than Crossfire, really just better PS2 ports, towards the end of the PS3’s life.
That’s because they don’t have an army of artists, plus almost no Western devs change engines late in the cycle. They just try to improve what they have, which is the same with Japan tbh.
The lack of FPV doesn’t bother me as much as framerate.
Yeah, but you can have an independent input framerate to counter that from a controls standpoint. We won’t know that until the game’s out though.
Yeah, hopefully it means we have those missions too but it’s more likely just extra playable units for the other games (as it sounds like there is a lot of unit crossover).
NICE! You wanna link that to me?
You mean ye olde physical shoppe? AmiAmi and Play-Asia are out at least
Yeah, they have shops here.