Official Review
Gundam Breaker 4 features a simple story, placing you in the role of a self-insert protagonist who is playing an in-universe version of Gundam Breaker 4. You start out by making a few friends in your 'online' sessions who you soon form a clan with, then slowly start building your experience and prestige in the community as you overcome rivals and work up to participate in the big Battle Tournament at the end of the season.
This plot is fine for what it is, but the whole thing feels rather inconsequential and thin when compared to genre peers such as Megaton Musashi W: Wired. Sure, most people don't play a mecha game like this for its deep lore and narrative, but there's a sense that more could've been done here to encourage more player investment in the universe. On the other hand, you could reasonably argue that the developers didn't focus too much on this aspect because they know you are showing up primarily for the gameplay, which is quite good here.
This could be best described as a mission-based beat 'em up, with quite a bit of in-depth RPG customisation thrown in for those who like to tinker. You start out in a small hub area, where you can shop for new parts, interact with other players (if you're online), and outfit your Gunpla with fresh loot. Once you've gotten set up, you then jump into a mission where you put your Gunpla through its paces against waves of foes, with a handful of varying objectives keeping the action fresh. Sometimes you're playing defence to keep enemies away from a given zone for a certain amount of time, while other times you're tasked with taking down a big enemy or two who are constantly swarmed by fodder enemies you have to periodically clear out. Based on your performance, you're then given a whole lot of loot and rewards that you can take back with you to the hub to start the cycle over again with a tougher mission.
It's a pretty simple gameplay loop when you get right down to it, buoyed by the excellent combat. Ripping through foes with a beam saber and boosting across the battlefield feels smooth and satisfying, while there's plenty of technical depth here to accommodate those who want to push their Gunpla to the limit in higher difficulties. The new additions of being able to dual wield and have up to four unique weapons equipped at once—one melee and one ranged on each arm—open up a lot of combo possibilities, while giving you a lot of freedom in how you want to express yourself in combat with different kinds of builds.
In addition to your melee and ranged attacks, you also usually have a small selection of OP skills and EX skills equipped for a fight, which offer some powerful limited-use actions that can turn the tide of battle through something like a powerful beam attack or a quick heal for you and your party members. Their trigger limitations ensure that you don't use them as a crutch for not properly learning how to fight, but we appreciated the options they offer to round out your loadout and provide some additional tools to maintain an advantage.
To keep you moving and incentivise smart, surgical play, you're also always juggling two combo meters during each mission—one increases with each strike or projectile you land, while the other goes up after every kill. After being pushed past various thresholds, each combo meter progressively unlocks passive buffs, such as shorter cooldowns or higher loot drop rates, to incentivise maintaining your streak. We really appreciated what this system added to the combat, specifically in how it pushes you to focus on being fast with both your damage and kills—prioritizing one at the expense of the other will lead to a substandard grade at the end of a mission.
If you want some help in a mission, you also have the option of playing with up to three players total in cooperative squads online (only online, no local or couch multiplayer here). Additionally, you can attempt Bounty Missions, where you can face off against an AI-controlled version of a player's Gunpla to see how yours stacks up. We weren't able to connect to the servers during the review period, but it seems that the online features here do a nice job of rounding out the PvE focus without creating too much focus on competition with others.
Back in the main hub, there are parts from over 250 unique kits that you can loot or purchase to then equip in whatever combinations you want to your Gunpla, giving you plenty of reasons to grind and chase rare drops. There's a pretty heavy pour of new loot as you progress through the main missions, but if you're looking for a specific helmet or axe for one of your builds to tackle a specialized mission, you often have to grind for it a bit in a mission where you know it's more likely to drop. Equipping new mods to your Gunpla is simple enough, though the menu interface explaining all the stats can be noticeably difficult to parse in portable mode—we'd suggest playing Gundam Breaker 4 in docked mode for those of you who can't handle extremely tiny text on the Switch's screen.
Visually, Gundam Breaker 4 offers fair presentation, though it's quite clear this release isn't going for too much visual flair. Environments are rather dull and plain, textures are murky, and the Gunpla models all have a fake plasticky look to them (which kind of works here, considering this is based on a real-life toy line). It also bears mentioning that the Switch version runs at 30fps while the versions available on other platforms run at 60; considering the simplicity of the models and environments here, it's a bit disappointing that the developers weren't able to squeeze a bit more performance out of the hardware.
Another (minor) complaint that we have with Gundam Breaker 4 is that its gameplay tends to fall a bit too quickly into repetition. Other similar titles, such as the Monster Hunter series, manage to avoid this due to novel mechanics and unique strategies that each monster introduces to the base combat. And while Gundam Breaker 4 features a decent amount of enemy variety, it feels like the focus here is more on the staggering number of potential equipment options you have at your fingertips than on gameplay variety. And sure, it's cool to really get stuck in and try out various builds to see what works in a given mission, but we would've liked just a little more focus on more diverse mission objectives to help the hack 'n' slash combat feel fresh for longer.
Conclusion
Gundam Breaker 4 offers return to form for the series and demonstrates time and again that it knows the importance of focusing on its strengths. Though its middling graphics and somewhat repetitive gameplay can hold it back a bit, the incredibly deep customization options, snappy combat, and near-endless replayability make this the kind of game that'll get its hooks in you deep once it clicks. If you're into Gundam, we'd suggest you pick this one up when you get the chance, especially if you're looking for a content-rich and relatively low-investment action game to add to your Switch library.
