Gundam titles are always a mixed bag. Journey to Jaburo is no exception. The clunky controls make it a tiresome act to perform simple maneuvers. It’s easy to give up on Gundam, but Journey to Jaburo’s top-notch presentation and voice acting is worth it to get to grips with the mobile suit.
Journey to Jaburo takes place during the “One Year War.” Players take control of Amuro Ray, a young pilot who’s just got his mittens on the new Gundam mobile suit.
Recent Gundam titles do one thing exceptionally well – bring players right smack dab in the middle of the Gundam universe. Journey to Jaburo does the same with 40 minutes of original and vintage animation that moves the story in between missions. The animation is classic Gundam and the excellent voice actors bring every character and scenario to life.
The same holds for mission presentations. In each mission, Amuro Ray will hear radio banter from the White Lion base and other comrades. Each mission also features in-game cutscenes to further the story. After each mission the animated cutscene is saved in the Gallery option to view later. Journey to Jaburo gets high marks in every presentation category.
Where the game suffers is what players need most – gameplay. The Mobile Suit Gundam that Zeon forces are afraid of is clunky. Gundam can’t turn well and is slow in hand-to-hand combat. This doesn’t matter in most missions since the AI isn’t that quick either. But there are times when superior AI jet past Gundam, making it a pain to catch up and battle again.
The Gundam jets can be a major pain. They boost the suit up well but moving during a boost is sluggish and doesn’t propel as far as it should. Double tapping left and right will boost players in that direction, but it's very easy to accidentally jet when adjusting the Gundam. Players will have the most problems with this in the third mission – Garma’s Fate. Let’s just say jumping on top of a floating ship was never so difficult or frustrating.
Gundam can use a good assortment of weaponary – Beam Rifle, Hyper Bean, and Hyper Cannon. Players choose one for each mission and have a beam saber at all times. There’s even a plain old machine gun – but that doesn’t do much.
Missions are varied in their locals. The Mobile Suit will head to the desert, a forest, cities, a seaside harbor, and other places. The visuals aren’t the best but they get the job done. All mechs are well built and textured. Journey to Jaburo retains the look of the cartoon with bright colors. The sound effects are very good, with all classic Gundam stomps and fires intact.
Gundam fans will want to check out Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo. The control can be a pain but the strength of the Gundam story is good enough to struggle through it. The mobile suit would fall flat on its face if it relied on gameplay alone.
