Gundam Breaker 4 Review – Not Breaking The Mould (And That’s Fine)

Imagine this. What if an entire library of toys from a specific brand was digitised into a video game? With the ability to interact with the play feature of said toys as best as it could be in this form? Lego recently are doing this with their own games as well as via Fortnite.

For Gunpla enthusiasts and Gundam fans, this has been a thing for a while now.

The Gundam Breaker series has one powerful pitch: Here’s an arcade game where you get to build your dream Gundam. Specifically using all the actual, available Gunpla model kits Bandai sells. Kitbash them. Colour and detail them however you want. All of that, in a video game. That’s Gundam Breaker. And it’s a series entering its fifth title with Gundam Breaker 4, developed by Crafts & Meister.

Hold on, this is the fifth? Apparently, the game had what was like a reboot to the series with New Gundam Breaker, but it was lambasted by fans that for the next game, they went back to being a numbered series.

That’s all I know about the game series before embarking on GB4. And my knowledge of Gundam the anime series is scant. Though I have bought and assmbled some Gunplas. So what do I think about this game? It’s fine.

Presentation

Gundam Breaker 4 looks fine for an Unreal Engine game. The plastic toys can be as shiny and glossy as how the images in marketing portray them to be or ragged and craggly by the hands of professional builders or rowdy kids. With thousands of individual parts across hundreds of 1/114 High Grade, Master Grade, and new to this entry, Super-Deformed kits, it’s staggering to see them all being free to be kitbashed into custom builds, clipping be damned. The good old problem of textures not loading in full resolution in time can still be spotted, though.

The environments look perfectly superficial. Of course the buildings look like blocky rectangles with barely any depth. Not because this is PS2 graphics, but it is supposed to look like dioramas where these model kit figures are displayed. These locales are just arena maps, so it’s pretty small. And most of the time the game can run at what I perceive to be 60 FPS when in performance mode on the PS5. There is at least one map where, for some reason, the framerate just tanks miserably. It’s not the abundance of plastic sprues in that particular map; maybe the water feature? The framerate goes fine if you look away from the center, apparently.

Audio-wise, Gundam Breaker 4 sounds flat, purposefully, so I assume. A lot of the sound effects here are lifted from the Gundam anime series that began in the 1980s. They are too iconic to be tampered with, so it’s fine. The soundtrack is good; I love the amount of J-Rock head during battle, which morphs into blistering-fast speed metal levels of drumming during mini-boss fights. There is an odd bug where the music starts and stops over and over during these fights for some reason.

As for the voice acting, the English cast definitely went anime-style with the line delivery. It’s nothing to write much about, but everyone did a good job to present the anime-style story it has.

GB4 did an adequate job in its presentation. Nothing here is outstanding, yet it’s more than just servicable. And the bits that may seem like bad graphics or audio are done with intent.

Gameplay

There is a story in Gundam Breaker 4. And the story revolves around you, the player of Gundam Breaker 4, playing this game called GB4. Yes, this is a “game within a game” story where everyone here is playing a game. You meet a few characters, start making friends, create a clan, and aspire to be the best GB4 players. And then something happens near the end that fans of the series know what will happen.

Gameplay-wise, Gundam Breaker 4 is an arena battler with loot. You are free to assemble and kitbash your Mobile Suit to your liking, whether that be for fashion or for the stats and abilities the part has. Once you’re set to go, you pick a mission, and that mission is usually three waves of shooting and hacking down other Gunplas. Keep hacking, slashing, and shooting, and loot in the form of new Gunpla parts will drop. Finish the mission, go back to the lobby, and maybe tinker with that build using the newly acquired parts. And repeat.

Combat is done in the third-person, with the ability to use lock-on or a player-controlled camera (soft lock-on). Things get hectic, so you might want to use lock-on most of the time, though the lock-on struggles when fighting giant bosses with way too many lock-on points as it just couldn’t get to the specific weak point you want to lock-on to without immense struggle.

The feel of the combat is a bit mushy, a bit chewy. Button presses won’t register if you press it too early before an animation completes, so you can’t just be button mash and expect cool things to happen. The melee considers tilts as different inputs, as in a push of the analog stick will do a different move as compared to when pressing the same button without any direction input. So that’s another learning curve.

While there are combos, there are only specific combos that flow well. Try to be creative, and it usually won’t work. For instance, the Heavy Sword archetype of melee weapons can do multiple hits with one button, which then ends with a launcher that brings you and the opponent up to mid-air. And the only way to guarantee a perfect follow-up from this part is to hold the other melee button. And just that button- no tilts. If done correctly, you’ll guarantee to smack that poor opponent down to earth. Try to boost forward and then press the other melee button, or forget to not input any direction when pressing that other button, and you’ll whiff it and be stuck on a combo where you hit nothing.

The combat in GB4 doesn’t flow with the button presses of a regular gamer. But it can be learned and mastered. That one particular example is just one of the many movesets that will require players to play on the game’s terms to really get the most out of it.

While the core moveset is limited per weapon archetype, you can expand your abilities via OP (option parts) skills and EX (Extreme) skills. Some Gunpla body parts have weapons attached, and you can use them in battle, which is sick. The gunbarrels on the underam of the Gundam Barbatos 6th form are usable, which is rad.

Though not all parts are created equal. I am a bit confused as to why the Gundam Astaroth’s left arm, which has a big-ass forearm attached to its forearm called the large manipulator, isn’t an OP ability when equipped. Because you can also attach OP parts, accessories essentially, which grants OP abilities without having to equip the body part it comes with. And one of them is a large manipulator that lets you zoom to an enemy and grab them in the head as an attack. 

That ability is wonky, though. The hitbox just doesn’t register a grab as consistently as I thought. There is one other funny ability with a better hitbox that comes from the Aegis Gundam chest that lets you grab an opponent and self-destruct. It’s a shame the suicide attack doesn’t deal enough damage to consistently take your opponent out with you.

There’s plenty of leeway for you to mash different gunpla kits to make wicked custom builds. As mentioned earlier, parts can just clip into each other, making for dream combo parts that are just impossible to do with the real Gunplas. You can freely change (almost) all the Gunpla’s colours so they look like a cohesive build. The colour can also have different textures to emulate weathering, rust and battle damage. There’s no livery editor, but you can have stickers on designated areas of a Gunpla part.

You can’t change the colours female-looking Gunplas. Yes, these kits don’t just have giant robots and giant robots with feminine features like the Noble Gundam. Models like Super Fumina are just girls. And I totally understand why these specific kits have been restricted from colour changing, don’t want to mess with the age rating the game has. Still, you are allowed to stick an anime girl head or a teddy bear head on your giant plastic robot if that’s your thing.

Still, the customisation aspect of GB4 really is the big draw here. Imagine the ability to play with all the Gunpla kits without spending money to get them all (outside of this one game purchase)! And you’re not forced to grind them if you’re here for a specific model kit.

Over time, the in-game store will have model kits in store for you to just buy, with all the parts associated with that Gunpla. They will have terrible stats compared to those dropped in battle, but you can still upgrade them later on. And not just upgrade the level, but the rarity as well, so any part you buy from the store can be made viable. That doesn’t mean grinding is moot; you still need those parts that have a randomised array of passive stats, which can be transferred to other parts. You still need those god rolls for your perfect build, but at least you have a lot of control over what exactly the stats you want on your perfect (grade) Gundam.

GB4 is designed for 3-player parties taking on missions together, and there is multiplayer mode for that. Otherwise, the single-player missions allow you to bring two AI wingmen from the pool of characters you meet within the story. The AI wingmen don’t get in the way; they always target enemies that you’re not targeting, but they barely contribute to the match other than drawing aggro. Don’t expect a miracle or a major difference if you bring one character or another. These AI wingmen won’t outclass having competent real players as teammates. But at least it’s an option for those who fly solo.

The core gameplay of Gundam Breaker 4 is solid, but nothing earth-shaking. It takes time to get used to, especially for beginners. The game tries to handhold you too much with so many tutorial messages early on, yet I argue it’s ineffective. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out on my own what’s stopping me from firing my long-range weapons continuously. There’s no ammo counter. No energy bar on the sides of the screen. Apparently it’s right there in the middle of the screen- two vertical blue bars. I went back to the tutorial messages, and apparently they explicitly say that, but the way it’s written makes it so that you’ll miss the important bits if you just skim the text. That said, I like that the game slowly introduces new features.

Overall, GB4’s gameplay is fine.

Content

The main story takes about 20 hours to complete, across 36 missions. It’s a decent amount, but man, I wish it was half the length.

The problem I had with the game’s content was twofold: one is the lack of mission variety. The other is that I just don’t resonate with the story being told.

The mission variety is objectively something the game needed to do better. Most of the missions are just “kill all the mobile suits” over and over. The only other objective is the “defend the missile launch,” which still boils down to just smashing a bunch of mobile suits over and over. It gets dull really quick.

The giant bosses where you fight Perfect Grade Gundams and other giant mechas are fun, at first. By the end of the story, I was tired of fighting the same Unleashed Gundam and Unicorn Gundam over and over.

Every two or three missions I started yawning and needed a break. That’s not the kind of “break” Gundam Breaker 4 should be serving. But I had to take quite the number of naps in between the sessions to finish the story.

By the end, when a plot twist strikes, the game finally throws some semblance of new ideas and new mission types, but that gets repetitive quick as even those got overused.

As for the story, it’s very anime-style. If I made a bingo card of all the anime tropes covered in the story, I would have at least gotten one bingo. There’s nothing wrong with this style of storytelling; I just don’t feel as enamoured by it, and this is a subjective take. I do find it weird that by the end of the game I was actually rooting for the villain. When they said they don’t like the current state of the game, I was going “Hell yeah!” since I don’t think the mission variety in this game is good enough.

I think fans of the series will love the callbacks and cameos. This game story is connected with Gundam Breaker 3.

Outside of the long story, there are other modes of play, including survival mode, where you try and survive up to 50 waves of enemies. That would’ve sound fun if I wasn’t burnt out from the story missions previously. As for other content, you get to create your own diorama and pose Gunpla kits, which is a pretty rad feature.

There’s plenty to do in Gundam Breaker 4, though not much of it is meaningful, original content like the diorama feature.

Personal Enjoyment

I came into Gundam Breaker 4 as a newcomer; I never played the previous games. I am also not much of a Gundam fan- I don’t watch the anime series but am well aware of how good it is when it comes to its portrayal of human drama and political intrigue. My sole connection to this huge franchise is that I happen to bought a few of the 1/144 High-Grade Gunpla kits out of curiosity and found the build process enjoyable.

So I enjoyed Gundam Breaker 4 more for it being a virtual shopping list for me. Here I get to see the breadth of the Gunpla catalogue and see each part in detail, on their own. Ever since I’ve earmarked some models in my wishlist should I ever come across them again. I’ve seen these kits in the wild, but now that I come to appreciate how they look, I’m more enticed to actually get them next time.

As a video game? I think I’ve had my fill by the 10-hour mark. The gameplay is fun, but there it has been too much of a good thing. With little variety in mission type it offers and the story being something I don’t care much about, I struggled to see this game through, which left me a bad impression.

Gundam Breaker 4 failed to convert me into a Gundam Breaker fan, but I do care more about Gunplas, so that’s something.

Verdict

Gundam Breaker 4 is a solid battle arena action game. The variety of customisation on offer is amazing and should convince more people to pick up the hobby of assembling model kits. The gameplay loop is fine, and there’s a lot of flexibility that allows anyone to pursue their dream Gunpla build without worrying too much about the loot grind.

The mission variety is subpar, but everything else in the package is standard. It’s not going to win the hearts of newcomers, but for the series veterans, they probably won’t have it any other way. Gundam Breaker 4 isn’t breaking the mould, and that’s perfectly fine.

Played on PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher.

7.9

Gundam Breaker 4

Gundam Breaker 4 isn't breaking the mould, and that's perfectly fine.

• Presentation 8
• Gameplay 8
• Content 7.5
• Personal Enjoyment 8