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.

Continue reading after the jump.

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.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=OAZfp-g0kwU[/youtube]

The Gecko Go is currently under the crust fighting the Corellians trying to get through to Eureka. Your in the Strike Freedom (with the M.E.T.E.O.R. upgrade) with King Gainer and Justice (also with the M.E.T.E.O.R. upgrade). The Corellians are attacking from every angle and the Gecko Go can not fall. You blast and blast and blast and blast and you run out of ammo and use the ultimate attack. Everything around you is destroyed but they keep coming. You jettison the meteor unit and start using up your basic ammo. The Gecko Go is sustaining damage still.

It finally makes it to its destination and you’re doing alright health wise. That’s when theEND arrives and oh god you fight it while it’s going all insane on you and the voice actors are shouting at you. You finally defeat it, Renton saves Eureka, and the world is at peace.

That’s just one mission, mind you. Nothing like one mission where the Exodus (King Gainer), the Nadesico (Nadesico), and the Gecko Go (Eureka 7) are trying to take out this one area that is defended by these shields. You have to clear a path for both of them and you can do it as Master Asia or Akito or King Gainer or oh man it just keeps going on.

The music is pulled from the anime themselves and I’ve already mentioned the three big ones and of course there is Gundam and Macross. Actually there is: Overman King Gainer, After War Gundam X, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Eureka Seven, Turn A Gundam, Geterr Robo Armageddon, Macross Plus, Metal Armor Dragonar, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Martain Successor Nadesico, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, Aura Battler Dunbine, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Brain Powered, Wings of Rean, and of course A.C.E. Originals in this game.

If you didn’t just cry some manly tears at how awesome it is for Char and Master Asia to kick ass then well, you’re not one for the burning.

Honestly the gameplay isn’t fantastic. You’ve got about three normal attacks (Triangle, Square, and Circle) which are usually your blaster, your sword, and a special attack. Then you have the R1 button and about three to five more attacks that really fit the mecha. For instance King Gainer can use his overskill to freeze enemies or slow time. Outside of the weapons you can do some dodge attacks and fly around and stuff.

It’s not exactly the epitome of perfect combat. It is however very realistic for each and every robot. Eureka 7′s units surf on the surfboard and plays just like you’d think they’d play (although I only used the Nirvash one mission). King Gainer uses the light rings in various ways to show realism to that series. When you equip the M.E.T.E.O.R. units on Freedom and Justice they become harder to maneuver around but it easily makes up for it in destroying most units in one blast.

Not to mention how most Gundams have their massive straight line of everything in it dies attack. Oh man.

The graphics are alright. I ran into some slowdown on the levels where there is a ton of mechs on the screen. The skill required isn’t that much. I played no normal difficulty and only lost due to the fact I couldn’t figure out how to upgrade. (Hint: If you get it to upgrade on the unit selection screen it’s like one down, then one down again. Just play around until you get to it). Then I upgraded and added wingmen and from there never lost again.

Like, the missions are obvious in what you need to do. Defend either the Exodus, the Gecko Go, and/or the Nadesico if they’re on the map. Go to everything that blinks and destroy it. If there are green X’s those are units in defensive positions. Take out anything near them to make the map a little easier.

Honestly I’d want to say this it the perfect game. Not because of the gameplay (I beat it in 5 hours through all 30 missions) but for the awesome storytelling, the ease of play, and being able to be King Gainer while helping the Gecko Go. Every time I heard GRAVITTIII BLASSTTTOO from Ruri Ruri (yes it’s the Prince of Darkness Nadesico) I wanted to cry manly tears thinking of Gai.

However, Gai isn’t in this. Neither is GaoGaiGar (could you imagine if GaoGaiGar was?) so I’m just going to give it a 4.5 out of 5. If you’ve got the ability to play imports then import this game if you love at least three of the series listed. If you don’t have the ability to play imports then well. I guess that really sucks since these kind of games rarely come stateside.

If you need more reason to import it: Master Asia. Get A.C.E. 2 as well, it has gai in it (but three has King Gainer).

•   Jump! Ultimate Stars This is a link to the GameFAQs page with the FAQ to understanding the gameplay, characters, etc.
• Use the FAQ in building your deck. If you cluelessly add stuff together you’ll probably be less powerful then someone who put some time into it
• Characters are upgradeable. You do not have to be Luffy and Naruto the entire game, unless you want to. You upgrade characters by going to the world select, pressing Y, going down one then hitting enter. From there you can put it together. You gain points by playing missions that can be spent to upgrade your “Koma”.
• Help characters are sometimes awesome (Death Note for instance) and sometimes lame. Sometimes they can be harmful. Kinda like how the Light koma where he writes someones name in the Death Note… it’s helpful in that it kills enemies but it doesn’t kill them with special attacks which are needed to get certain objectives completed.
• You get more worlds by defeating all of the current worlds. I’m not exactly sure what “defeat” is, I guess beat every mission’s main objective. I cleared them all and get the next j-universe thing.
• Certain characters are just better then others. For instance, Kenshin is better then Gintama in that he can triple jump, his ultimate flings people and can hit them easily, and he does a good bit of damage. However, Gintama is pretty awesome because hell, it is Gintama.
• Eyeshield 21 is an anime I need to see.

That’s pretty much it. Go read the FAQ people who search “Jump Ultimate Stars Help”. Heh.

The game, as mentioned earlier, features almost the full cast from Weekly Shonen Jump ranging from Naruto, Bleach, One Piece to Gintama and Dragonball Z. Each various series has a cast of characters that can be chosen to be played as either actual combatants, helpers (who come in, do something, leave), or as a form of a passive buff to one character or all. These characters are referenced as koma and come in those three types (battle koma (actual combatants), help koma (helpers), and support koma (passive buff).

These “koma” are laid out on a board and are arranged like pages of a manga. These are considered a “deck” or “panel”. You can choose different kinds or for some missions the game has a pre-set one already made for you. The fight plays out very Super Smash Bros. Melee like with you battling, using helpers, switching characters, and doing other things with the characters from Shonen Jump.

The game is completely awesome. For instance, you can be Goku. Fighting your enemies, you summon Light Yagami from Death Note. He writes their names down in his Death Note and they die 10 seconds later (we assume 45 in the game). Then, you switch Gintama. You hop on your scooter and dash into 3 enemies pushing 2 of them off the cliff. These enemies of course are Naruto, Luffy, and Vegeta.

This kind of gameplay is just amazing. For the DS that is. Each match usually lasts no more then 3 minutes so you can play, put down, pick up, play some more, put down. You don’t need to know much Japanese (but I urge an FAQ for assembling decks do you know what you’re doing). Doing Kenshin’s ultimate attack, followed by Goku’s Spirit Bomb, followed by some good ‘ol Death Note action is amazing.

If you can import and are even a remote fan of Shounen Jump I’d pick this up. If you don’t like Shounen Jump then I can understand skipping it. If you’re netural I would still say get it for the fun the fighting game presents however it’s way more enjoyable if you know a few of the characters (like Naruto and One Piece).

Upgrading your characters, unlocking new stages, and just battling will consume a ton of time. I think I’ve put about 5 hours into it and am at the second stage of worlds. Although I’m doing a lot of collecting and mission completing. There is just a lot to do.

It’s kinda expensive, ranging between 30 and 50 bucks imported. It’s also only for the Nintendo DS and not everyone has one of those (shame on you). You should get it though.

If I had a solid rating system, I’d say 5 out of 5 or 9 out of 10. It’s just a really solid game. Only thing lacking, of course, is the music. Totally not gar enough.