Having completed the playable demo available via Steam, here a few of my first impressions for the upcoming indie mecha game Dual Gear.

No bugs encountered, just a few rough edges. As expected. Game play was pretty intuitive, and I didn’t really need to bother with the tutorial at all. Battle system is a real time, strategy/turn based hybrid with movement based auto counter attacking. So positioning will be key. AI is pitifully stupid right now. You can avoid most damage by using terrain as cover. The AI will attack you as if you’re out in the open. Graphics are pleasing, clean. Needs some refining, as I am seeing a lot of jagged edges even with all settings maxed on 1080p. Speaking of. The game doesn’t appear to be a graphical power house but it was really working my GTX970. Even experiencing some odd surges in power needed. In spite of this, it still ran above 60 frames per-second without issue.

The UI could use a bit of work. Just to make things a tad clearer. The info it displayed felt muddy, not obvious as to what it was telling me. The mecha featured were well designed aesthetically, and made me quite eager to see what the customization will add to that. The combat was fun to engage in. The missiles and long range cannon were really fun to use, and made short work of enemies. Melee was confusing at first. Looks like it’s a timing based attack(at least with the sword). The blowing off of limbs is fun to watch as well. You can free aim weapons, but it didn’t appear to me that you could specifically target areas of the body. As long as your reticule was on the enemy, you just fired center mass.

This demo was simply fun. It really does remind me of games such as Front Mission, Armored Core, and a bit of Sakura Taisen

Now, you must keep in mind. All of this is Pre-Alpha. So a it is very early build of the game we’re seeing here, all of this then is subject to change. Although it’s already shaping up to be a great new mecha intellectual property.

We’ve been keeping an eye on Dual Gear since its Indiegogo campaign was announced a while back. Using Unreal Engine 4 it looks to be an interesting blend of turn based strategy coupled with a more action based approach. While it’s sad to see the crowdfunding campaign not supported as fully as it could be, the game now has a demo on Steam. Visually it looks good too and we really appreciate the mecha design as well. Developed by a small team in Thailand, we hope this game gets the support and recognition it so clearly deserves.

Great news non-Japanese speaking Gundam fans! Bandai Namco have announced they will be localizing Gundam Breaker 3 with English subtitles for Asia in June this year! This has become a growing trend lately with Bandai Namco bringing English localized games to the territory with Gundam Extreme VS Force being one of them. Interestingly, this might open the floodgates for future Gundam games to come to the West as well since the previously mentioned title has been confirmed to do so late last year. Needless to say, those who were on the fence about getting a Japanese copy Gundam Breaker 3 and dealing with the language barrier won’t have to wait too long for their preferred version. But for those who were planning on playing the game on their PS4 with their Vita, it’s been recently revealed that remote play has been disabled. As always, we’ll let you know more as new info drops!

The thirst for Free Battle is real as Bandai Namco have announced its addition in an upcoming patch to Gundam Extreme VS Force! Patch 1.02 released today includes the much wanted game mode that has been a staple of Gundam VS series. This will allow the usual 2v2 option of playing against the CPU, but of course players can adjust it to be 2v1, 1v2, or even just 1v1 to train with movesets. Free Battle mode can be accessed in the newly added VS Extend menu option. The addition of this mode has already been so well received that prices of the game have increased in Japan!

Other additions to patch 1.02 include an extremely hard mission centered around Gundam Barbatos. In Patch 1.03, there are even more additions across the board. Added playable mobile suits includes the Mack Knife, 00 Gundam, GP02A, Turn X, Master Gundam, and Strike Freedom Gundam. Course Battle (another staple of the VS series) is on its way as well where you battle multiple rounds of CPU mobile suits of varying degrees of difficulty based on the course chosen. Free Battle 1.01 adds the VS screen before the match starts. Other quality of life additions will be implemented to include custom button configurations and the ability to choose your mobile suit after completing a mission that restricted choice.

Hopefully these additions will already be out of the box for the Western audience when it arrives on their shores in the next couple of months. At the very least, these obvious game mode inclusions increases value to the overall product considering its single player focus. It’s good to know Bandai Namco have addressed some of the concerns players have had with Force since its release, but hopefully we’ll see the addition of online play and even more gameplay improvements in future updates!

Over the weekend, a twitter image had been making waves across western Extreme VS fans regarding its content and what it might mean for future console releases of the Extreme VS franchise, or rather lack thereof. Originating from a Japanese blog, the picture above is supposedly from an internal Bandai Namco report showing how there will be no console ports of Maxi Boost or Maxi Boost On due to the potential loss of players at game centers. As the Extreme VS series is a consistent top three small cabinet earner in Japan for the past several years (coming in second to Tekken 7 last November), the reluctance of bringing the newest version to the PS3/PS4 makes a lot of sense from a business perspective. But to not bring the previous version of the series to consoles on the verge of releasing the newest one like they’ve done with Extreme VS and Full Boost is somewhat shocking.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall with the release of Extreme VS Force for the Vita. With a single player focused version, maybe Bandai Namco were hoping to somewhat satiate the VS need at home while still bringing in the numbers in game centers all over Japan. While the game itself isn’t bad, the lack of content, reduced movesets, and lack of online play was not very favorable in the eyes of many. The Japanese audience particularly definitely let their opinions be known about Extreme VS Force via Amazon reviews and other outlets and prices of the game almost plummeted immediately after release.

While this may not necessarily be a huge problem for Japanese and Asian fans as they can make it to arcades to play Maxi Boost and eventually Maxi Boost ON, Western fans are practically out of luck. There was a slight ray of hope when it was announced Extreme VS Force was coming to the West as it possibly meant a future Maxi Boost console version would be next, but the messaging above does not appear to be kind to those waiting. Coupled with the way Bandai Namco have been flooding the console version of Full Boost with Maxi Boost unit DLC, the rumor does lend credence to the possibility that they don’t have plans of bringing Maxi Boost to the PS3 or PS4. Barring a trip to Japan or Asia, loyal fans in the West might not get a chance to play future versions of the series.

Mind you, we are treating this as a rumor so here’s to hoping it is false. As Maxi Boost ON gets ready to release in arcades this March, we may possibly get more info on a future console port that many of us have been waiting for.

More details have come out regarding the story mode of Gundam Breaker 3, coming soon to the PS4 and Vita on March 3, 2016. Unlike the previous story in Gundam Breaker 2 where you played part in a computer simulation, Gundam Breaker 3’s story appears to borrow a bit from Gundam Build Fighters where your team will take part in local battles that eventually culminate into your participation in the national Gundam Battle tournament. You’ll be helping your partner Misa, the daughter of a Gunpla shop owner who is looking to revive the popularity of a shopping district from her childhood by taking part in these Gundam battles. You’ll also be assisted by Robota, an autonomous Knight Gundam gunpla made specifically to aid Misa and yourself.

As expected of any sequel, there are brand new units along the way as well. They are the Gyan from Mobile Suit Gundam, the Zuda from MS Igloo, the Doben Wolf from ZZ Gundam, and the Palace Athene from Zeta Gundam.

To commemorate the series’ 25th Anniversary we will be getting a new Super Robot Wars game on both PS4 and PS3 later this year. However, this won’t be a mainline release and instead will be an OG (or Original Generation) game called The Moon Dwellers. In the latest promo video (shown below) the game looks very nice indeed but after winkysoft’s recent demise, this announcement is somewhat bittersweet as they were the original developer behind these games and helped out on recent OG titles as well. The other big takeaway from this is that the game will not have a Vita version, unlike the last two Z3 games (both of which were great fun). The good news here though is that the series is finally changing up to PS4 and that means a mainline release should not be far off, as these games share a lot of tech. In the meantime, we have a new Super Robot Wars game to look forward to sometime this year.

More info has dropped regarding customization and gameplay modes in Gundam Breaker 3, set for release on March 3, 2016. Aside from being able to mash various parts together to build the mobile suit of your choice, there are even more options now with the addition of hard points that allow you add more weapons and armor. You can even go as far as to make your own full armor version of any mobile suit you end up creating. Do you want to add the Turn A Gundam moustache on your RX-78-02? No problem! You can even add weathering and damage properties to your mobile suit to really give your creation a more customized look.

Also new to the mix are the SD Gundams. These units will provide support to your entire squad in various ways. Not much more is known about them, but hopefully you can both control and customize them as well.

There is another new gameplay mode called Bounty Hunter. In this mode, you challenge other players’ custom mobile suits and gain rewards and lots of GP.

And last but not least, the 1/144 HG Gundam Barbatos parts will be available immediately in-game as a first edition bonus. While you can eventually get the parts if you play the game normally, this just allows you to unlock them as you start the game. Aside from that, there are several new units to look forward to such as the Full Armor Gundam and Psycho Zaku from Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt, the G-Self from Reconguista in G, and the Kshatriya and Byarlant Custom from Mobile Suit Gundam UC.

Big news for those who might have been waiting for the English translated Asian version of Gundam Extreme VS Force. Bandai Namco have just announced they will be bringing it over to both North America and Europe in 2016. At the moment, it looks to currently be a digital title, but more info will be released next year including the actual release date. Needless to say, it’s pretty great to see Bandai Namco finally bringing the series to the West and hopefully we’ll see similar efforts for Gundam Breaker 3 and future Gundam titles. Some form of console Extreme VS at EVO 2017 proper? We can only hope!

Bandai Namco has been pretty busy today announcing Gundam titles for the 30th Anniversary, this time with SD G Generation Genesis for the Playstation 4, Playstation 3, and Vita. The most recent G Generation game was released on mobile, so this will please those who were hoping for a more console-centric version. Not much has been announced aside from a general release date in 2016, but it will be interesting to see if they go with either a sprite-based or 3d visual route. Until we find out more, check out the trailer below!