A New Dawn… of mediocrity.
MS Saga: A New Dawn is set in a distant future, where a war has devastated the Earth’s surface and civilization was only able to survive in pockets scattered about the Earth. As the people of the Earth slowly start to get civilization up and running again, a new threat looms on the horizon. Meanwhile, as a young man named Tristan and his friend Fritz head off for vengeance on those who destroyed their orphanage years ago, they find themselves going up against this new threat – something that could easily take over the entire world.
While the setting is a little cliché, it’s still somewhat unique for an American release. After all, it’s far more unique than other RPG plots I’ve run into over the years. However, that feeling of cliché that I get from the plot doesn’t ever leave.
As Tristan and Fritz wander over the remains of the Earth, they’ll encounter the typical cliché RPG fare: random encounters, palate-swapped enemies that get stronger as the colors change, fetch-quests, treasure hunting and mysterious villains who never really get around to talking about their methods before the final battle.
Tristan and Fritz will also wind up recruiting other characters to help them out, with their party maxing out at 6 characters overall – though the people in that 6 will often change. Each of these characters that they run into are certainly designed very… uniquely, but honestly look like they came from Queer Eye for the Blind Guy.” Or perhaps even just walked into the wardrobe closet and thrashed about for a good 30 minutes before leaving with whatever they have on.
I know it seems a little petty to focus on something like this, but I do think it needs to be emphasized how awkward the character designs are. In a game where the fate of the Earth often balances in your hands, it’s a little discomforting to think that those hands belong to someone with bright pink hair, dichromatic eyes that don’t go well with the hair, a bright purple shirt, dark green jacket and spandex pants. I do realize that this falls under the ‘ah, well – its anime’ design idea, but considering Gundam is known for realistic character designs and military uniforms, it’s just plain strange.
Either way, the quests that Tristan will take part in carry him (and his crew) all over the world – but the way the quests are assembled quite often feel… stretched. The quests Tristan goes on are often either ‘take out this villain’ or ‘fetch this item,’ both of which featuring quite a lot of dungeon-crawling in the process. However, the way the dungeons are assembled wind up forcing the player to constantly back-track and wade through multiple random encounters in order to even make any progress at all. To make things worse, the random encounters are almost constant.
During the later dungeons, it’s almost impossible for one to take a step on the map without hitting a random encounter – and then there are even necessary underling, mini-boss and boss encounters that have to be taken down as well before one can progress through the game! As nice as it is to have a steady stream of experience, the enemies one runs into often repeat (and some of the grunts encountered later on are pure migraines to deal with) and the combat system is less than ideal. You see, the combat system feels almost directly out of the PS1 Final Fantasy games. It’s not a bad thing, but it feels overly limited compared to more recent releases.
Taking three of their six characters (or as many as possible, depending on how many are in the party), the player engages the enemy in turn-based combat. As I described before, though, it all feels familiar. The player can attack with melee or ranged weaponry, cast a variation on magic spells, use items and even use a ‘limit break’ when things get dire.
There’s a nice variation between melee and ranged, I must admit. Ranged combat, such as firing a machine gun or shoulder-mounted cannon, often does a fair amount of damage… but prevents the enemy from counter-attacking in reply. Melee combat brings the danger of an enemy counter-attack, but it also does far, far more damage than ranged combat does.
Magical spells (known as ‘techniques’ in this game) are pretty simple as well. They range from healing spells for the pilot to unleashing heavy amounts of damage with a somewhat nice looking semi-magical assault. Using a technique uses up Technical Points, which act exactly like MP does in other RPGs.
Also of note is the limit break, known as a ‘boost attack’ here. Unlike the Final Fantasy games on the PS1, though, each character gets a vast number of boost attacks to draw upon. Each attack varies somewhat, with some attacks being a straight-on melee assault and others being an all-fire mode where every single weapon is fired at once at the enemy. Other boost attacks are a little more complicated, featuring a dash attack that actually bypasses the armor of the enemy to deal the maximum possible amount of damage to their HP, or a sonic wave to deal even damage to all enemies on screen.
Using these boost attacks can easily save a battle for you, and they’re all pretty nice. However, they’re probably the best part of the combat system – considering the rest of the system is straight out of older RPG games.
But… I don’t think combat’s the biggest draw of the game, either.
You see, the player can finally do something that many Gundam fans have been begging for since Bandai started making video games based on the franchise: customizing their mobile suits. The player can purchase at least 30 different mobile suits from several different continuities of the Gundam universe, and then mix and match those parts in order to make almost any sort of suit they can imagine.
Want to make a Leo from Gundam Wing with the hovering legs from the classic Gundam’s Dom? It’s possible here.
Want to make the ultimate kitbash between Master Gundam and Wing Zero? You can do that too.
Like I said, it’s practically the Gundam fan’s ultimate dream. Add in a decent-though-limited custom-color scheme for each mecha part, and you’ve got a pretty solid system.
It should also be noted that each mobile suit can be upgraded from their basic stats by spending money to upgrade their HP, Armor or Speed. While this is also limited, it helps keep your mecha up-to-date when the enemies start to get insanely complicated in strength and speed.
Unfortunately, this is probably the best part of the game – because the rest of the game isn’t all that good.
The visuals for this game are… passable, to be polite. The cities and mecha are nicely rendered and do the job, but ultimately feel rather cheaply done because things look so generic. It doesn’t get much better in combat, considering the effects for fighting are usually just ‘random explosion’ and ‘vague smoke’ in most cases. It’s hard to compliment the game on it’s looks, but it’s also really hard to knock it for the same because it still works. Had Bandai put solid effort into the game, it really could have looked good – but as it is, the game is just plain average for a PS2 title.
Wish I could say the audio was the same. You see, the localization group decided to go ahead and add voice acting for the US release – much like it had been done for Dragon Quest 8 as well. Unfortunately, unlike DQ8, the voice acting in this game is just… horrid. It sounds like the developers themselves acted out the lines themselves to save the money. While it’s great that they wanted to add to the experience, they really shouldn’t have bothered – it just makes the game feel weird. Especially since only one or two scenes out of the random dozen actually has voice acting.
The music, on the other hand, is just slightly better. While the battle music is solid, the rest of the music is overly forgettable and even borders on the inane. Each city has its own musical score, but if the player has to spend more than a set amount of time in the city, they just might go a little insane. I can certainly remember the music of a certain African desert city trying it’s best to drive me up the wall as I searched for what little I could find.
And, of course, there is no music or vocal acting… or characters, for that matter… from previously-established Gundam franchises. It’s all original material here… for better or worse.
On the plus side, there’s more than a fair amount of replay value here. Trying to go about and collect every single mobile suit part in the game, to say nothing of making a player’s own personal mecha, will take many, many hours alone. On the other hand, I’m unsure if a player will really desire to play through the cliché and predictable plot over again.
In short, this game is made to please Gundam fans… and few else. I had fun with the game, but the overly predictable plot, stereotypical characters and outdated battle system just plain wore my patience as I tried to collect mobile suit parts. The fetch-quests and backtracking only really help pad out a game that already stretches out what it does far too long, and the bosses wind up breaking the game’s rules before long – adding even more difficulty to a game that loves to punish the player for wandering outside the game’s linear plot.
There’s a somewhat fun game here, but there are far too many flaws to draw it outside mediocrity. With many more advanced and much more fun RPGs out there on the PS2 (many released before or on the same year as MS Saga), I just cannot in good conscience recommend this game to anyone but the most hardcore Gundam fans…
…and even then, I have to recommend Super Robot Taisen: Original Generations 1 and 2 for the GBA first.
Gameplay: 5
Visuals: 5
Audio: 3
Replay Value: 7
Personal Tilt: 7
Final Score:
5 out of 10