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Developer: Bec
Publisher: Bandai
Genre: Shooter
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 27 Sep 05
User Rating
10 (2 votes) -
- The celebrated anime series gets transleted into yet another mediocre video game, plagued by a convulated story, repetitive combat and messy controls.
Overview
To me it has always seemed like anime are not given the proper treatment they deserve on the video game consoles. In fact anime is so popular among gamers, that you would actually expect the genre to do better then it has. With that being said, anime games come out left and right, but none of them seem to have the needed necessities to be considered great games. Well today we get to look at the next game from the Popular Gundam Seed series, in the longest gaming title ever (slight exaggeration) - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Never Ending Tomorrow for the Playstation 2. So is this game going to keep you interested for a long time? Read our full review to find out!
Gameplay
I can’t say I am a huge fan of the Gundam anime series, but I have to say that I do keep up on their video games. Never Ending Tomorrow comes after a long line of quite capable and fun games that take a very fast mech approach with an interesting and colorful cel shaded visual. None of these Gundam games however have really managed to pull all the strings together and create a great game. All of the games have had either camera issues, too much repetition, or too short of a story mode. So can Never Ending Tomorrow possibly put everything together and make a workable game.
Right from the beginning, you will see the anime roots of the game from the opening cut scene, which serves quite is a lengthy introduction to the story. I usually like to try and give you a brief overview of what the story of the games I review are, but the storyline in Never Ending Tomorrow is so confusing that I cannot even begin to fathom what exactly the storyline of the game is. To be honest I was so confused I began to laugh as I had many points where I had no idea what was going on. The cut scenes did look pretty good but the little portions of the storyline I did understand were pretty dry and lacked any sort of flair that you can find in the show. It amazes me that with a game that is based on a anime series that they couldn’t manage to put together a fun interesting storyline that wrapped gamers inside like the show has done. Instead we are left with one that does nothing positive at all.
So with the storyline obviously not being a huge factor in the game, can the actual gameplay hold up? Well on paper it sounded like the gameplay was really going to be a big improvement from in years past. We were promised a more immersive game, with plenty of variety in the gameplay mechanics. Basically what you get in Never Ending Tomorrow is something quite different. The game is broken down in campaigns, which consist of several smaller missions. From there you drop down and are forced to really wreak havoc against your foes.
Without getting too far ahead, the problem does not lie with the concept, but rather the controls, which to be quite honest are a complete mess. You have way too many buttons to press at the same time to try and keep the camera locked on to the desired target. The controls are ok when you have one or two enemies on screen, but any more than that and you have total frustration. The controls just never manage to feel right, making the task of taking out your enemies a chore.
Another huge issue with Never Ending Tomorrow is the repetitious nature of the missions. Besides one or two missions that actually have you taking out ships instead of mechs, you will be doing the same thing over and over again, and this is not a good thing. The gameplay itself not only is repetitive, but it is the exact same as what we have seen in the past five Gundam titles, but with even more frustrating controls. If you can’t tell already Never Ending Tomorrow, was more of a Never Ending Disappointment.
Graphics
The visuals of Never Ending Tomorrow I thought would be a great feature for the game as they have been in the past. However, the game really seems to have taken a turn for the worse. The actual mechs are not that bad, with a good amount of detail and the typical color scheme for an anime game. What really disappointed me though was how bland and unimaginative the environments were. In fact all of the space missions looked exactly the same, as with the land missions.
The graphics of this game were really quite disappointing and they did seem to go downhill from where they were. It just seemed like the developers tried to rest on an adequate looking game, but in the end it just feels like it was missing huge chunks that really hurt the visual presentation and also the overall feel of the game. To say the least I doubt many will come out of their experience with this game overly impressed with the visuals.
Fun Factor
I am a huge fan of Mech style video games, just because they are great at giving you a great sense of size that very few other types of games can do. However, I did not get any such feelings with Never Ending Tomorrow, as the game never seemed to gather up the right sort of ideas to make this game worthwhile. The controls themselves were enough to make this game a pain, because instead of being able to enjoy the battles in the game, you had to struggle with the dual shock 2 controller. The storyline didn’t help either, as it was confusing and nowhere near as interesting as the show.
Overall
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Never Ending Tomorrow is one of those games that has more potential then it knows, but never ends up making use of any of it. Even if you can get past the extremely frustrating controls, and weak storyline, there is nothing overly new or exciting to make anyone feel like they got their moneys worth with this game. Even if you are a die hard Gundam fan, you are probably better off skipping this game. It just doesn’t have enough positive features to even deserve a rental.
- Gameplay
5.0 - Graphics
5.0 - Fun Factor
4.0 - Overall
5.0
