Again in early 2016 after I was in search of import-friendly video games on PS Vita, I used to usually see Gundam Breaker talked about. In the event you’ve by no means heard of the collection earlier than, consider them as hack and slash motion video games with RPG parts, deep customization, and a pure unadulterated love of Gunpla. Across the time I used to be trying into the collection, Bandai Namco introduced an Asia English launch for Gundam Breaker 3 on PS4 and PS Vita, and I made a decision to purchase each variations. I ended up loving it as my first Gundam recreation. Since then, I’ve imported and performed Gundam Breaker 1 and a couple of on PS Vita, and in addition gotten principally each Gundam recreation launched in English throughout platforms. To see Gundam Breaker 4 introduced earlier this yr and confirmed for a worldwide multi-platform simultaneous launch stays considered one of 2024’s largest surprises. Quick ahead to as we speak and Gundam Breaker 4 is lastly right here on Steam, Change, PS4, and PS5. Having put in about 60 hours throughout platforms, I am keen on Gundam Breaker 4, but it surely has just a few points proper now.
Gundam Breaker 4 is an important launch not solely due to the sport itself, however due to how far we’ve include the collection within the West. So what makes Gundam Breaker 4 an enormous deal? Gone are the times of ready for an Asia English launch to import. Gundam Breaker 3 was an Asia English launch not launched within the West, and simply on PlayStation. I can’t recall the final Gundam recreation that had an English dub possibility, however right here we’re with a twin audio possibility and a number of subtitle choices (EFIGS and plenty of extra). However what concerning the recreation itself and the totally different platform variations? I’m going to cowl all of that on this prolonged overview that can even take you on a journey of me beginning my first Grasp Grade Gunpla (Gundam Plastic Equipment if you happen to’re new to this) after constructing some Excessive Grade (simpler and smaller kits) earlier than.
Gundam Breaker 4’s story ranges from getting the job completed to some highs and lows. The lows are after I felt like sure pre-mission dialog was occurring a bit too lengthy, and the highs had been within the latter half of the sport when there are fascinating character reveals and in addition extra fascinating dialog. In the event you’ve not performed a single recreation within the collection earlier than, Gundam Breaker 4 nonetheless does a very good job of bringing you on top of things, however you may marvel why the looks of sure characters is an enormous deal in a while. The embargo solely permits me to speak concerning the first two chapters of the story, and it looks like an easy affair throughout these two. I ended up liking the primary characters fairly a bit by the top, however my two favourite characters seem a lot later within the story.
The true draw of Gundam Breaker 4 just isn’t the story although. It’s constructing your personal good Gunpla, bettering it over time, getting higher gear, and turning into stronger to deal with greater difficulties and extra quests. If you start, you get the fundamentals, however what the crew actually underold within the promotion is the customization facet. It’s unbelievable. Not solely are you able to modify particular person components like left and proper arms, however you may also modify ranged weapons for every arm, melee with twin wielding, and modify the person half dimension and scale. This implies you’ll be able to even use SD (tremendous deformed) components in your regular Gunpla and both have it seem like this bizarre frankenstein swimsuit or scale issues to your liking.
Past the precise components for every fundamental class in meeting, the customization in Gundam Breaker 4 takes issues additional with builder components that allow you to add much more issues to your Gunpla. A few of these even have their very own expertise. Talking of expertise, you’ve got EX and OP expertise to make use of in fight. These rely in your components and weapons. In a while, you additionally unlock capability cartridges which have their very own specs that provide you with buffs or debuffs.
As you undergo the missions breaking components and incomes S-rank reward components, you additionally get supplies. These can be utilized to degree up your components. Every mission in Gundam Breaker 4 often has a really helpful components degree indicating how appropriate it’s in your present gear. Along with supplies you earn to improve components, you begin incomes supplies to extend half rarity in a while. This allows you to improve for extra expertise as properly, and you should use older or lesser half expertise once you improve and cannibalize these older components.
Throughout the primary story, I spent a little bit of time on the non-compulsory quests to earn cash or components, however really feel like the sport is balanced sufficient the place you received’t really want to grind throughout the primary story on the usual issue not less than. Talking of the problem, you unlock three greater difficulties as the primary story progresses, and these up the problem and half degree advice fairly a bit. In the event you do plan on skipping a lot of the non-compulsory quests throughout the primary story, be certain to control the brand new unlocks as a result of among the non-compulsory quest varieties are a number of enjoyable, particularly the survival mode.
Exterior of all of this, you may also modify the paint of your swimsuit which helps you to shade schemes you’ve unlocked by way of development or from DLC. In the event you put time into Gundam Breaker 4, there’s a ton of stuff so that you can get out of it, and I’m floored by how a lot has gone into this. If you’re completed with paint, you’ll be able to work with decals and weathering results as properly. Gundam Breaker 4 is the true deal for Gunpla fanatics, however does it play properly?
Having loved every thing Gundam Breaker 4 has to supply in its gameplay by way of story missions, facet content material, and boss fights apart from one particular mission sort, I feel the crew nailed it. I by no means bought bored of fight regardless that the conventional issue is on the better facet. I stored swapping out weapons and attempting the varied varieties earlier than selecting a greatsword model weapon for the remainder of my playthrough. All the things feels various sufficient, and the person expertise and stats make for a contemporary expertise all through.
On the subject of the bosses and minibosses, I like having them seem on the stage within the Gunpla bins after which breaking out earlier than combating you. This by no means will get previous, and seeing one of many Gunpla kits I constructed seem as a boss in a while was superior. Most boss fights contain focusing on weak factors, damaging the various well being bars, destroying shields, and the same old. I did have bother with one explicit boss’ weak factors utilizing particular weapons, however I modified to a whip and sorted it instantly. The one actual onerous boss combat within the story was coping with two of a selected boss without delay. I received’t get into particulars for spoiler causes, however I did battle with the AI in a single particular combat.
Visually, Gundam Breaker 4 ranges from nice to effective. The environments look missing early on, however I discovered the variability good general. A lot of the work went into ensuring the Gunpla kits and animations look one of the best, and it reveals. The builders clearly weren’t attempting to go for a sensible artwork model right here, so don’t anticipate one thing like Gundam Evolution and even how some bits of Gundam Breaker 3 regarded. The aesthetic in Gundam Breaker 4 works properly and it scales because it ought to on decrease finish {hardware}. The consequences look nice, and the size of many boss fights is superior.
The music in Gundam Breaker 4 ranges from forgettable tunes you received’t consider outdoors the sport to some actually nice songs in particular story missions. I’m dissatisfied under no circumstances to set music from the varied anime and flicks right here. Often we’d see some anime music pack DLC or a premium bundle for Asia and Japan, however I’ve not seen any of that but within the recreation or introduced. I additionally don’t see a method to load customized music like in Cellular Go well with Gundam Excessive Vs Maxiboost ON on PS4.
The voice appearing has been a nice shock. I performed by way of the sport utterly with English on one save, and in addition spent a few dozen hours with the Japanese voice possibility on one other platform save. Each had been excellent and I discovered myself liking the English extra throughout missions as a result of I hate studying small subtitles throughout motion battles after I’m specializing in combating enemies.
To this point, apart from one mission sort actually annoying me (fortunately not too prevalent) and some bugs, I’ve had no actual points with Gundam Breaker 4. If you’re new to this collection and aren’t a fan of replaying missions to grind out higher gear and drops, chances are you’ll discover issues repetitive. I’ve all the time seen Gundam Breaker like Earth Protection Pressure and Monster Hunter the place after ending the story, I spend time constructing my good Gunpla.
As for bugs, I bumped into one the place sure names wouldn’t save or two I feel are Steam Deck-specific. The primary is that returning to the title display from in-game takes means too lengthy. The second is one particular mission that crashed for me solely when taking part in on my monitor. I replayed it on the Deck itself and it was effective. It’d simply have been regarding the efficiency penalty I see in some video games docked, however I can’t say for positive.
The one facet I’ve not touched on thus far is the net. Pre-release I managed to play a very good quantity of the community check on PS5 and Change, however I solely managed to check a little bit of the retail launch on PS5 with a buddy who’s reviewing that model. The PC model’s servers haven’t been on-line pre-launch in any respect, so I can’t check if the net works effective on Steam Deck but. I can be updating this as soon as servers go surfing and I’ve managed testing the PC model on Steam Deck with associates on-line.
At this level, you’re in all probability questioning concerning the Gunpla I used to be constructing. I made some progress and bought by way of 5 units of runners, however made a mistake with one small half. I panicked and nearly broke it whereas attempting to separate issues. That is the place my guitar decide got here into the image and saved me. I ended up stopping with my RG 78-2 MG 3.0 about midway completed. As soon as the overview embargoes of this week are over, I’ll get again to it and end it.
Now let’s get to the platform variations and options.
Gundam Breaker 4 PC port controls – keyboard, mouse, and controller help
Gundam Breaker 4’s on PC is the one model of the sport that helps above 60fps. The PS5 model is capped at 60fps and the Change model hovers across the 30fps mark. The Gundam Breaker 4 PC launch additionally has mouse and keyboard help along with controller help with a number of button immediate choices.
When taking part in on the Deck itself, it displayed Xbox button prompts. When utilizing my DualSense controller over the Dock on my monitor, Gundam Breaker 4 confirmed PlayStation prompts appropriately. It additionally auto switches between keyboard mouse and controller prompts based mostly in your enter. The one controller-related difficulty I bumped into is the sport not appropriately detecting after I’ve reconnected a controller. I examined this on my DualSense and 8BitDo Final controllers wirelessly.
Gundam Breaker 4 ships with three controller presets and a customized possibility. You may modify the keyboard mouse and controller settings independently.
One setting I like to recommend altering instantly or after you check out the primary few missions is digicam sensitivity and distance. You are able to do this in Participant Mode from the sport settings. I discovered the default too sluggish and shut.
Gundam Breaker 4 PC graphics settings and show choices
Gundam Breaker 4 helps a number of resolutions and body charge caps. On the Steam Deck itself, it sadly doesn’t help a full 800p and runs at 720p and 16:9. On the body charge facet, it will possibly go from 30fps to 360fps and limitless on PC. I set it to 120fps when taking part in on Steam Deck since I performed it nearly completely on my Steam Deck OLED. You can too toggle v-sync.
On the graphics facet, you’ll be able to modify the standard of textures, anti-aliasing, post-processing, shadows, results, and in addition modify brightness and toggle movement blur.
Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck efficiency – does it work out of the field?
I performed Gundam Breaker 4 with Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) as I usually do for untested video games, however I additionally examined it on the default Proton. It really works completely out of the field and even invokes the on-screen keyboard for textual content enter. I’ve confidence on this being Steam Deck Verified pre-launch or quickly after. The 35 hours I put into it on simply my Steam Deck OLED show that.
When taking part in with all settings at Excessive apart from shadows, Gundam Breaker 4 simply hit 60fps, however I wished extra. For this, I turned issues to medium and performed at 80-90fps nearly throughout the board. A number of late-game missions noticed drops to the excessive 60s throughout gameplay, however in any other case I had no points in precise gameplay. In-engine cut-scenes do take a success to efficiency and run within the 50-70fps vary for me on Steam Deck. I did run into one difficulty the place the meeting part instantly dropped to 1-3fps for just a few seconds earlier than capturing again as much as 90fps. This didn’t occur greater than 3 times complete, however I couldn’t determine what triggered it. If this can be a Proton associated difficulty, I hope Valve can repair it.
The one visible difficulty I had when taking part in on the Deck itself is among the icon glyphs and menus had both smaller than anticipated fonts, or they weren’t as crisp as they need to’ve been. I observed this even on Change so it probably is a matter with the sport being designed for the next res and greater display. Not a dealbreaker, however price stating.
Gundam Breaker 4 Change vs PS5 – what to purchase?
On the console facet, I didn’t have time to check Gundam Breaker 4 on my PS4, so I centered on the Change (Lite and OLED) and PS5 variations. Gundam Breaker 4 on PS5 seems superb and runs principally completely at 60fps within the time I put into it, however I didn’t attain the few missions within the story in the direction of the top that had been extra visually demanding. I additionally didn’t attain right here on Change, however I put practically two dozen hours into the Change model to see sufficient of the way it runs there. Take a look at a comparability of the opening tutorial mission on PS5 and Change within the screenshot comparability under:
The most important downgrades on Change apart from the efficiency are with decision, element, and reflections. This is applicable not solely to the phases, but in addition the Gunpla components. In the course of the community exams, a buddy of mine identified how the Change model regarded like an HG Gunpla whereas the PS5 model regarded like an RG in some scenes. In the event you constructed Gunpla you’ll perceive this, however for everybody else, it simply means Gunpla within the Change model finally ends up missing in lots of particulars like decals, lining, and even weathering results in particular conditions. They do seem, however I feel the decrease decision and draw distance makes it in order that they’re invisible generally. That is a kind of modifications you received’t understand till you see the sport outdoors Change.
I truthfully anticipated this to run at 120fps on PS5 given the visuals. Enjoying Megaton Musashi at 120fps was good as a latest launch. Perhaps the builders capped this to 60fps for multiplayer causes with the PS4 model, however I’m unsure. Except for the 60fps cap, Gundam Breaker 4 has respectable rumble help and even has PS5 Exercise Card help to load into your save faster. For the reason that overview embargo prevents me from displaying something past chapter two within the story, the screenshot under is from after I simply started taking part in displaying the Exercise Card implementation for story mode. I hope this helps on-line play and lobbies sooner or later as properly.
Talking of loading, the Change load occasions are actually lengthy in comparison with PS5 and Steam Deck. Even working the sport off the SD card on my previous Steam Deck LCD had a lot sooner load occasions than Change.
In the event you solely care about portability, you clearly received’t hassle with the PS5 model, however the Change port presently has one main difficulty that makes me hesitate to suggest it. The meeting part and diorama mode really feel very sluggish. Whereas the primary foyer or hub can be sluggish, the efficiency in missions is healthier albeit nonetheless not an ideal 30fps. I noticed drops even in early missions from 30fps, however once more, this can be a lot higher than I anticipated given some latest Change ports.
I might be happy with this given the {hardware} if the meeting part ran higher contemplating you can be spending a number of time there after every mission. Diorama mode additionally wants extra optimization on Change with how sluggish it feels. In the event you performed Gundam Breaker 3 on PS Vita, you can be greater than effective with the Change model, however I hoped for a greater port all issues thought of. Since there are extra content material updates deliberate, I hope we see some optimization on this entrance.
For many who personal a number of platforms, I solely suggest the Change model if you happen to completely wish to play portably and don’t personal a Steam Deck. Talking of moveable play, I loved Gundam Breaker 4 on my Change Lite apart from the textual content dimension in some menus. Gundam Breaker 4 can be sadly the ultimate recreation I reviewed on it earlier than the display developed some LCD-related points.
Is the Gundam Breaker 4 Final Version price it?
I had entry to among the DLC included within the Gundam Breaker 4 Deluxe Version and Gundam Breaker 4 Final Version. I can’t touch upon the story DLC but because it isn’t out there, however the early unlocks aren’t recreation altering. You get degree 1 components for the fits listed on the shop web page, however I discovered the builders components to be higher as early DLC that will help you get began.
Past that, the Diorama content material doesn’t appear to be absolutely out there proper now, however there may be some content material from the DLC I had entry to, and it was actually good for posing Gunpla and utilizing the cel-shaded filter as properly. Having tried the Diorama mode quite a bit throughout my playthroughs on all platforms, picture mode fanatics and those that get pleasure from these sorts of modes in video games will discover quite a bit to like right here. Having extra gadgets and equipment on this mode can be good, however you could possibly get these individually I assume. I like how Gunbarrel Strike Gundam – Gundam Breaker Ver seems, so having these components was good. I favored the design sufficient to order the collector’s version the second pre-orders went up as properly.
Is Gundam Breaker 4 price it for the story?
I’ve seen some of us excited to play Gundam Breaker 4 for its story, and whereas it’s a effective story, you actually are right here for personalisation, battles, and constructing your ultimate Gunpla. If you need a story-focused recreation as an alternative, have a look at Megaton Musashi. Each video games have their strengths and weaknesses, however I ended up clicking with the gameplay in Gundam Breaker 4 extra as a fan of the older video games.
Once I bought my overview codes for Gundam Breaker 4, I had a enjoyable concept of beginning the MG 78-2 Model 3.0 package and constructing it alongside the sport to complete each on the identical time, however sadly there are too many different video games releasing for me to have the ability to do this.
Not solely was it nice to play a brand new Gundam Breaker alongside constructing my latest Gunpla package, however there’s a brand new discovered appreciation I’ve for the work that goes into designing these kits now after shifting to an MG and in addition an RG from HG kits. I’ve additionally been fortunate sufficient to have some associates who’re tremendous useful with Gunpla ideas for decals, panel lining, and in addition what to do when caught. I sit up for ending this package after which engaged on my RG subsequent.
The look ahead to Gundam Breaker 4 has been tremendous lengthy, and I didn’t even suppose we’d see a brand new recreation within the collection after New Gundam Breaker, however right here we’re. Gundam Breaker 4 is actual and it’s spectacular in nearly each means. It’s my favourite Steam Deck recreation this yr since Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance, and one I sit up for taking part in on-line and offline over the approaching months with all of the DLC deliberate.
Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck overview: 4.5/5
