Fantasy Dimensions

Kidou Senshi (Mobile Suit) Gundam SEED Destiny: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. II Plus is a game for the Playstation 2 currently only available in the NTSC-J format (meaning Japanese only). It is a pure action/arcade style game that captivates the essence of Gundam Seed Destiny from its mecha to its characters. It has full voice acting, lots of mechas, familiar characters like Shinn, Kira, Athrun, and Mwu and a lot more.

I’ve played the game a good deal and let me tell you, it’s nearly on par with A.C.E. 2 & 3 with its action segments. The controls are fluid and the combat is easy to understand even for someone who knows nothing of Japanese. The battle system does take a few things to understand though. There is 1,000 points per battle with each suit costing a certain amount of points on its death. When you run out of points you lose the battle. You lose points by losing suits. So if you go into a battle with a grunt suit that loses 200 points on death then you’ll have 5 lives. If you go in with say Infinite Justice that costs 590 points then. Well you have two lives. You start with one unit and if you die you’ll have 490 points left. If you die again you’ll fall below 0 which is good game. CPU units will also take from your battle guage but only half the points of the unit.

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The controls are fluid and the arcade style play is brimming with tactical awareness on the battlefield. The A.I. can be brutal and sometimes knowing everything that a single suit can do can be the difference between winning and losing. There isn’t a whole lot more you can want out of a single mecha game.

If you’ve played the A.C.E. series and are a fan of Gundam Seed (you don’t have to be a fan of Destiny to enjoy this game, but having some background is good, because I’m sure no one is a real fan to Destiny) then pick up this sequel to the first game (which plays nearly the same). As a matter of a fact, pick up the first one (Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Union/Federation/Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. It’s your pick how you want to translate it). If you’ve never played an A.C.E. series game or any of the other arcade style 3d robot games then I suggest seeking one out to see if you like the niche genre.

Overall, if there were a scoring system I’d give it a 7/10. It’d score higher, but it’s hard to compare to some of the other offerings.