Gundam games are a rarity for overseas release. While we've gotten our fair share — especially with things like Gundam Breaker 4 or G Generation Eternal getting English language releases — there's a ton of Gundam titles that never saw an overseas release. The PS Vita exclusive, Gundam SEED Battle Destiny, was one such title. It's a small but notable hit that was released exclusively for the PS Vita in Japan. With the release of the new Gundam SEED film "Gundam SEED Freedom,", this niche title was given a new chance to shine and a first shot at overseas success. Is it worth the wait? It depends on how big of a Gundam SEED fan you are.

Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered is functionally a retelling of the first two Gundam SEED television shows, mixed with dabs of a few of its spin-off stories. For those unfamiliar with the setting, it follows a war-torn, distant future where mankind is in the midst of a violent civil war, with natural-born Naturals battling genetically engineered Coordinators to determine the fate of humanity. Like all good Gundam shows, the two shows follow a young person who ends up in a powerful giant robot known as a Gundam and must fight for their survival amidst the fires of war.

Battle Destiny is not a game for casual fans. While it does technically cover the entirety of the two SEED shows and all of their major events, it does so in a loose way to the point where I'd be shocked if anyone who isn't familiar with the characters and plot could follow the story. If you just enjoy cool robots crashing into one another, it might be fun, but otherwise it is really a game for fans only. For fans of the series, it contains a lot of deep cuts, so if you have an obscure favorite, the odds are pretty good they're playable somewhere in this title.

When you start the game, you're allowed to choose between two sides: The Earth Alliance or ZAFT. You need to create a character who will serve as your avatar through your adventures. Players can pick either from a Natural, a non-genetically engineered person who has lower starting stats and can't pilot every mech but can equip more skills, or a Coordinator who can pilot any mobile suit but is limited to only one skill slot instead of two. Coordinators can be on either side, but Naturals can only be on the Earth Alliance side. From there, you can select your character's look and starting skills, but the skills can be freely changed (except for the Coordinator skill) after the game starts.

While it fits the setting, the Natural/Coordinator divide on mobile suits isn't a particularly great gameplay choice, especially since the choices on what is and isn't pilot-locked don't necessarily feel right to what the series claims. A lot of the cool or fun suits are locked to being Coordinator only, and while you can eventually get skills that let Naturals pilot Coordinator machines, it means picking Natural tends to limit you to a handful of mechs, especially early on. Thankfully, this can be turned off in the post-game, but I think it would've made more sense to allow certain suits that the canon says can be piloted by Naturals to be usable, such as the Strike Gundam.

The core gameplay is straightforward. You pick a mission, and you and your chosen suit, as well as potentially an AI-controlled partner, are dropped into the battlefield where you must shoot down enemies. One button shoots, one button melees, one button jumps, and one button uses your dedicated subweapon. Most suits can also swap between multiple main weapons if you hit the controller shoulder buttons.

This is probably the area where Battle Destiny shines the most. Most suits stand out from one another with a variety of different gimmicks. Some can transform into other forms, some can turn invisible, some can swap between different weapon packs, some can fire long-ranged DRAGOON weapons, some have grappling hooks to stun enemies, some can cast off their armor to return to the fight in a more mobile form, and so on. Even though a number of suits are functionally interchangeable, their different weapons or gear is a nice way to keep everything distinct. If you have a favorite Gundam SEED suit, then it's probably in the game, but there are a few notable absences. (Astray only has a handful of units and is missing a few major ones, like Mina's custom Gold Frame, and obviously nothing from SEED Freedom or Destiny HD appear, so there's no Strike Ootori or Rising Freedom.)

The flow of combat is built around your SP gauge, which fills naturally over time and as you take and deal damage. At any point, you can hold down the right shoulder button (or corresponding keyboard button) and press one of your main buttons to supercharge it. Press it, and then shoot to fire a stronger-than-average blast and instantly reload, or press it and jump to boost forward at super speed. Each move takes up a small chunk of the SP gauge, and you generally want to be timing your usage so you can constantly reload your weapons without waiting for them to recharge. You can also spend a big chunk of your bar to do a Special Move. Pilot Special Moves either temporarily slow time or make you temporarily invincible, while Unit Special Moves are unit-specific abilities and attacks that range from powerful self-buffs to devastatingly powerful attacks.

While the combat AI isn't the smartest in Battle Destiny, it's very easy to get nicked by stray attacks and take gradual amounts of damage from missed dodges or narrow attacks. Shields and specialized defenses like the physical-resistant Phase Shift Armor can lessen this, but it's very easy to get caught off guard and blown to pieces. When you die in combat, you're allowed to respawn, and the number of times you can respawn in a stage is determined by the overall power of your units. Stronger units can respawn fewer times (or not be allowed to respawn at all), while weaker units get more tries. You can upgrade your units, but doing so may reduce the number of times you can respawn, which makes it a mixed bag.

The game gets a tad repetitive. While there are a ton of different mobile suits with different gimmicks, it's rarely worthwhile to do more than power up one weapon and use that to the exclusion of all else. It didn't matter if I was using a GINN or Strike Freedom Gundam; I tended to pump up the most reliable high-damage beam rifle or machine gun and use it almost exclusively on every foe. There are some suits that have fun niches, such as anything with Mirage Colloid turning invisible, or the Strike Gundam and Impulse swapping between high-damage guns and powerful melee attacks, but even there, it rarely felt worth the trouble to optimize. Even the existence of physical-repelling Phase Shift Armor rarely matters because almost everything has beam weapons. Phase Shift armor depletes so quickly that it rarely gives enemies more than a slightly expanded lifespan.

I still had fun buzzsawing through the forces of ZAFT and the EA with a variety of suits, but once I got to the point where I was trying to optimize for S-ranks rather than just picking what looked fun, it became clear how repetitive things got. There's a wide quality disparity between various suits, and once you find one or two good suits, there's little reason to venture outside of them. Even the respawn limitations rarely matter compared to having a fully upgraded suit. The game is fun, but it isn't deep, and if it doesn't click for you, you'd get bored very quickly.

There's quite a bit of gameplay in the game. Both SEED and SEED Destiny have three routes (EA, ZAFT, and a bonus Archangel route), and once you've finished the game, you can go back with your pilot and try the routes you missed to unlock more mobile suits. There are also special stages that feature distinct challenges and suits in addition to tougher versions of various stages and multiple challenge missions. If the gameplay works for you, you can spend hours upon hours burning through the game. The Remastered version includes some changes, but they are mostly small things, such as allowing you to complete all missions with one pilot instead of multiple ones.

Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered is a fine enough update of a PS Vita game, but it retains its portable heritage. The models aren't super visually impressive, and even the updated fidelity leaves them looking kind of plastic and basic. The combat animations are acceptable but not great, and there are some genuinely awkward visuals, such as how the Destroy Gundam is barely bigger than a standard mobile suit. It's not awful, but it's clearly a slightly polished Vita game. The voice acting is fine, mostly featuring actors from the show reprising their roles, and the music is passable but not exceptionally good, aside from when it's reprising SEED's excellent soundtrack.

Overall, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Battle Destiny Remastered is a pretty by-the-book update of a game that was clearly made for the limitations of the PS Vita. It's genuinely fun to play and smash your way through enemy robots as your favorite Gundam, but it's a very shallow game. You'll probably get bored of the combat loop well before you do everything the game has to offer. Fans of the franchise will have enough fun to make it worth the cash, but those looking for something with more meat on the bones will probably be better off looking elsewhere.

Score: 7.0/10