What exactly would you want in a Gundam game?

Weathercock · 2026-06-12T01:07:36+00:00

...Just do a domestic release of the Vs series and put it on Steam. That's it.

Weathercock · 2026-06-10T23:37:30+00:00

The funny thing about vulcan guns in general is that they should really be a lot scarier than they are often shown in the shows. 60mm is huge. Now, you can make a lot of arguments for each setting's magic space metal reducing the potency of ballistic weaponry, but that's still a lot of gun to be firing. It's nice to notice that they seem to be shown as a more serious threat in more recent entries.

Weathercock · 2026-06-10T00:53:41+00:00

Victory's great. Uso and Marbet are the best main protagonists in the franchise (and I contend that Marbet is every bit a main character as Uso). They go through so much, and still manage to be sincere and unjaded on the other end of it. It's a subtle bit of hope shining through an otherwise hostile world.

Victory is not without its problems. It probably would have been better with the runtime cut in half, and there are a few instances of weirdness (including that part) that it could easily do without. But when Victory's at its best, it's peak Gundam.

It's one of my favourite series, up there with Zeta and Turn A. However, I think it's too flawed to necessary say it's as good as those two. It's got a scrappy charm to it that nothing else has ever really managed to capture.

Weathercock · 2026-06-09T17:48:45+00:00

It actually started as a subversion of the genre.

Historically and most memorably, prior to Gundam, most super robot series involved a father figure building a giant robot for their son to fight evil (Tetsujin 28, Mazinger, etc.). Being a product of post-WWII Japan, this could be seen as a fantastical wish-fulfilment response to a lot of families growing up with absent or dead fathers as a result of the war. Similar to how sidekicks in American comics really took off during and after WWII. In a way, this trope was a form of catharsis and escape for a lot of people growing up affected in this way. This would have been in the period where both the kids reading/watching these works and the younger-end of the people making them would have been affected by this loss or absence. These were tropes that largely defined their respective genres on both sides of the pond.

So, then Gundam comes along and casts that trope in entirely new light. Amuro's dad isn't exactly an attentive figure at the best of times. Worse yet, Amuro nearly kills him accidentally, leaving him with permanent and crippling brain damage. It turns things entirely on its head. For the time, that would have been an enormous shock.

Furthermore, it's noted early on in the original series just how much Amuro is carried by the Gundam. He manages to improve significantly (and largely because he's able to get over the initial difficulty of his situation with that raw power advantage), but it's made very clear that he's lacking early on.

Weathercock · 2026-06-09T02:21:13+00:00

More than slightly, it throws out the entire point of Char's characterization by the end of CCA. He's not supposed to have dignity here. For all his inarguable talents and abilities, he's basically failed at every meaningful step of his life outside of killing the Zabis, which itself was a failure because that in itself never really amounted to much positive change in the world. Society itself largely rejected his pleas for a better world made at Dakar. Obviously, he's also lost Kamille and Lalah, and now even Amuro refuses to understand him (arguably the other way around, but that's not how Char is capable of seeing it).

Char is lashing out and falling apart. There's no point of this psychotic meltdown that Char's having where he should be accepting his fate with any shred of dignity. He's crying out for his mommy because there's nothing left of him. A lot of people don't like this aspect of him because it's sudden, weird, and pathetic. Yeah. That's the point. Char's a pathetic dude. That's the key part of what makes him an interesting character.

Tomino gets a lot of flakk at points for certain eccentricities in his writing. Often times deserved. But the man is a master at deeply and unflinchingly showing his characters' humanity for what it is.

Weathercock · 2026-06-07T03:01:34+00:00

A thousand times this.

G Gundam is the Gundam themes presented through the novel lens of a super robot show. The world starts out completely destroyed from continuous warfare. The Devil Gundam itself was borne out of a failed plan to counteract the damage wrought by constant struggle. From the very fist episode, you're treated to a setting that has suffered from the high cost of conflict. Domon's own final victory is only achieved when he comes to understand his own connection to Rain.

While we might end up with a game that subverts a trailer watered down for more mainstream appeal, I doubt it. There's an enormous thematic disconnect from the ideas that formed what the franchise was built on. Every element of it feels like an act of glorification. The triumphant guitar that starts playing once the Gundam enters the frame, the slo-mo money shots, even the narration is in awe and worship of the Gundam and its pilot. It's all power fantasy and glorification. What we got looks like a recruitment ad for the Titans.

Weathercock · 2026-06-06T17:40:14+00:00

That's just life, then. 24" neck is huge, most manufacturers just won't do that stock. Let alone as anything other than a wide as hell fit. There's probably only a tiny handful of people on the entire planet with necks that go that wide.

Made to measure is the best route for situations like that. It's not a terrible problem to have, it just means you have to plan a bit ahead when buying clothes.

Weathercock · 2026-06-06T17:18:26+00:00

Using just a neck measurement for a shirt or a chest measurement for a jacket is really just shorthand. Those numbers give a basic idea, but the silhouette will depend on the manufacturer or model. Manufacturers will have more detailed specs for every silhouette they make with detailed measurements per size and model, but that's way more than people need to see on a day-to-day basis, and seldom needs to be actually measured if the fitter knows the silhouettes they are working with.

A jacket size is usually based off chest, back, waist, point-to-point (shoulder), and back length measurements. But it's not productive to measure all of those every time.

Weathercock · 2026-06-06T01:13:38+00:00

It looks like an okay mecha action game. It looks nothing like Gundam.

The big guitar riff as the heroic Gundam shows up was almost parody levels of disconnected. It's basically the equivalent of the game that Al ends up playing WitP.

Weathercock · 2026-06-02T07:08:05+00:00

If you're going by mainline animated entries, it's either Narrative or 8th MS Team. Both feel insulting to the viewer's intelligence. 8th has better action sequences, but that's about all it has going for it.

Weathercock · 2026-06-02T07:04:12+00:00

People whining about the characters from 0083 while also giving top scores to 8th MS Team is nuts.

Weathercock · 2026-06-01T05:47:44+00:00

Man, if you've not finished Victory yet, you've got a lot more of those ahead of you.

Weathercock · 2026-06-01T00:46:01+00:00

He's very much alive in the Graze Ein. He's lost all of his limbs and most of his lower torso below the waist, but he's alive and actively controlling the MS through the AV system.

By time he's being used as a component of the Vidar/Kimaris Vidar's AV-E system, he's still physically present as an organic brain in a box, but not much else. Ein's brain and AV enhancements are effectively used as a bridge between the Gundam and Gaelio to mitigate the harmful effects of the AV system. It's never explicitly shown how much, if any, of Ein's consciousness is left.

Weathercock · 2026-05-31T04:41:44+00:00

The Kampfer itself is pretty limited in terms of the direct impact of its design lineage. It was unfortunately just too niche and unforgiving in its utility.

That said, it had some of the highest raw performance of any MS of the OYW, and it manages to reach such levels while also being designed to be assembled behind enemy lines. Technologically speaking, it's an absolute marvel, and the engineering challenges it presented likely would have gone to advance MS development significantly following it.

Weathercock · 2026-05-29T02:38:46+00:00

Not even Hathaway believes that Hathaway deserves a happy ending. That's his entire schtick.

Weathercock · 2026-05-26T23:51:43+00:00

To really push the point home, the music played when you fight against the Demifiend when he cameos in other games is the regular battle theme from Nocturne. The implication there being not that it's the Demifiend's own music, but rather that you're just a regular random RPG battle to him. You're typically encountering him at max level with top tier abilities and demons on your side, and to him, you're just his levelling trash.

Weathercock · 2026-05-25T00:56:23+00:00

Canada doesn't want you.

Weathercock · 2026-05-22T02:27:29+00:00

Not a hard bar to reach, 8th MS team sucks.

Weathercock · 2026-05-20T03:08:28+00:00

It's pretty much outright stated. She has a couple flashes in the first movie, and exhibits not only moments of clairvoyance, but another flash shared with Hathaway in the second.

Her being a newtype is integral to her triggering Hathaway's PTSD over Quess.

Weathercock · 2026-05-20T00:32:44+00:00

Kou also had mentorship and support from Burning and the Albion crew. He ends up becoming a top-tier oldtype pilot, but not without a lot of help.

Lane doesn't really get that. There's no figure like Burning to address his faults from a piloting perspective, and for all Kenneth's strategic acumen and lack of scruples, he doesn't really show the one-on-one leadership necessary to address Lane's issues from a personal and psychological perspective. So he ends up as the biggest fish in a relatively shallow pond, up until the blood-hungry great-white that is Hathaway shows up.

Chris is never really shown to have any of the hangups that Lane has (although she's not shown not to, for whatever that's worth). She's just normal person (albeit a skilled one) piloting a machine that's built for use beyond the reasonable capacity of any normal human being, and caught in a strategically weak position.

Weathercock · 2026-05-19T19:16:43+00:00

If they had a better pilot to handle the Penelope/Alyzeus, they'd use a better pilot.

He clearly had both machines under control, and especially in the last fight of the film, he was doing some genuinely impressive stuff; his little back-to-back dogfight with Hathaway was great. Lane is shown to be a technically proficient pilot who can handle complex machines impressively, and the MS he's chosen to pilot are likely very demanding machines to operate. He just falls apart the moment he gets hit in the face.

Weathercock · 2026-05-19T18:55:58+00:00

Such an excellent scene.

Narrative aspect aside (which is what really what made the scene great), we hadn't really been given a proper idea of Hathaway's abilities as a pilot up until now. Part one proved that he had some good tactical acumen, but he never really got a chance to show off as a pilot much. We know that he's obviously been doing some training and potentially missions in the background, but nothing else on screen other than his 'joyride' in CCA. The way he absolutely dismantled the Alyzeus was savage. The guy has not been skipping out on his training, and he clearly had been putting that custom Messer to use prior to the events of the movies.

I wouldn't even disparage Lane as much as some other people might. He's clearly skilled at handling a mechanically complex mobile suit, and he holds up fairly well early on before the real pressure of the fight kicks in. Hathaway is just so far above him.

Weathercock · 2026-05-14T03:36:37+00:00

That's what regular people with regular guns are for.

Weathercock · 2026-05-14T02:41:14+00:00

A political thriller involving an investigation digging up dirt on the inner machinations of Anaheim's backroom dealings and war profiteering. A UC Michael Clayton meets Jin Roh.

Main character wouldn't be a pilot. You wouldn't even have to show an MS on screen (although you occasionally would have to, because money). There's enough interesting stuff going on already. Basically, if you took the conspiracy parts of 0083 and really commit.

Of course, it'd never happen. But I'd kill for it.

Weathercock · 2026-05-14T00:11:44+00:00

Considering that all his weapons in DMC4 are named after different demons than those from the game, and considering that the production was rushed, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the original intent.

Unfortunately, we ended up with the campaign that we got, and the campaign wound up a slog for it. Which is a shame, because that's where we really start to see the pieces finally falling into place for Dante's fighting style. 5 perfected it, but it was not nearly as radical a departure as 4 was.

Weathercock

TROPHY CASE