Gundam Arsenal Base is a new type of Gundam collectable card game, some may remember the previous game that died out several years ago now, though this one seems to be doing much better. Theres always a novel aspect to collecting the cards and the rush of getting a high rarity card is something anyone can enjoy.

Like most arcade games over here in Japan, it features a rather lengthy tutorial to get you started, the tutorial does throw tons of information at you very quickly, and for those who may not have any Japanese ability, you may get a bit lost, thankfully though the actual gameplay is pretty straight forward if a bit hectic, though fun.

Each match consists of a 5v5 battle, with 5 Mobile Suits and 5 pilots to go along with them, the tutorial gives you a set of rental suits and pilots so none are needed to start, it also features a bit of a rock paper scissors mechanic with the different types, the image above shows the three types, essentially they are attackers with Char, Defenders with Hayato, and Suppressors with Amuro.

This image shows how it all works together, as Char the attacker can take out the defensive mobile suits, The Defenders can handle the suppressors and the suppressions are the best at attacking bases, so creating your team and balancing it correctly is key to success.

The main game screen has a lot of information, including the rock paper scissors style chart for reference and your overall health and your mobile suits. Each suit has its own special ability, as well as each pilot has their own special as well, so you can create some combos to go along with your own style. You gain CP as the game progresses and you can use that to either deploy suits to the field, or use a MS ability on a suit thats in the field.

The game uses a full touch screen, and you can deploy suits by simply dragging them on the transparent field below, where you can have them either attack the left side, right side, or hang back on defense. Using abilities is simply as sliding the pilot/suit image up to use the MS ability. There is also the pilot special, which is gained through combat itself, these abilities are pretty strong overall.

Using one of the SP Specials, you get a cut-in scene, followed by a gauge that you want to time up and press the only physical button on the entire machine, I think I remember a similar mechanic in the previous Gundam card game, though can’t fully recall, either way the special completely obliterated Dearka and his Buster Gundam here in 1 shot.

If a mobile suit is destroyed they get sent back to base and enter a repair cycle which seems to take a good deal of time, so using your suits wisely is always recommended.

Of course the game does give you the opportunity to buy a lot of cards after you win, and can be useful for building up a collection quickly, the most expensive cards that have been seen in the various second hand shops around Akiba have been the UR Nu Gundam and Sazabi from Char’s Counterattack (which also seems to have a lot of TV commercials with Char and Amuro advertising random things on TV… weird) the current campaign is based on Gundam Seed, and the UR Freedom and Kira Yamato are pretty expensive as well. From what I have seen they are totally busted with its ability to Lock on to everything, but thats just how Freedom rolls, and I can imagine the card will be more expensive once the next set comes out and it becomes harder to get.

That wraps up a quick overview of Arsenal Base, a pretty fun game that I plan to play a bit more of soon, the overall first impression was pretty positive and I hope to score one of those busted cards at some point.