The follow up to Senjou no Kizuna, is a rather hefty addition to any arcade here in Japan, its a rather nifty machine, and while the full pod that the previous game had was pretty neat to be in, the new version is a bit more accessable and comes with some tech upgrades as well.

Featuring two pedals, one which controls your forward thurst, and one that is a jump and vertical boost, in addition to two levers which do a lot, from strafing, to tackling, to dodging, there really is a lot of take in to this game, and its one I feel would need a lot of play time to fully master, the tutorial does cover the basics, but thats about it, from the gameplay I saw from some other players, a pro is going to floor a novice 100/100 times in this game.

You get the option to deploy in several different mobile suits, each with their own cost that takes away from your team score when you die, listed above are the GM, Gundam and Guntank, all of which serve different roles to play, there are also several kinds of attacks you can do such a standard shot, meele and tackle, theres also some others such as vulcans as well. The Guntank has its own special attack style where you need to manually set the angle when you launch the main guns, great for attacking the fleet ships that are on the field.

It’s a pretty neat game, I wish that I had the time to really sit down and figure this thing out, because it is really indepth, though I feel it would need a huge time commitment to get anything really out of it. It’s a very high end machine and you can tell Bandai put some money into it.

Moving on, one Gundam game I have been able to put some time into is Arsenal Base, as the tourist plague seems to gravitate towards Initial D, and they are usually loud and just doing random guest battles in groups, and Wonderland Wars doesn’t pick up until the after work hours.

Collecting the cards is always nice, and learning more about what counters what has been fun as well, and forming some weird combos. Theres several rarities including Common, Rare, Master Rare, Perfect Rare, and Ultimate Rare, I’ve managed to get 1 ultimate rare pilot in Athrun, and 1 ultimate rare mobile suit in ZZ Gundam…. Not exactly the ones I was looking for, but their power can not be understated.

One neat thing that can happen while your are in Card mode, is there is a chance for a EX Special battle to appear, these seem totally random and cost 200 yen to play, but you are guaranteed a Master Rare or higher, the battle itself is actually pretty hard, though does not need to be won to get the card… so its pretty much just a bonus high rarity if you want to coin up for one.

Theres a few other card types I plan to explore as well such as a Linkage card, so theres still more to explore, I am getting rather encumbered by crum cards, and I may need to pick up a carrying case now that I have a few cards that are worth something.

Anyway, a full Saturday is in front of me, and its rainy for the first time, so a good day to dive into the arcades (as long as everyone else doesn’t have the same idea)