Gundam Breaker 4 Review – The Ultimate Gunpla Experience Returns

Introduction to Gundam Breaker 4

We all see the Gunpla boxes at stores and events and tell ourselves, “One day, I’ll buy and build my own.” And never do. At least, that’s been my experience with the hobby. However, my dream of being a Gunpla-head wasn’t completely foiled, thanks to the release of Gundam Breaker 3. Unlike other Gundam games, the Breaker series is all about fun and creativity. It’s a game that allows its players to be the ultimate Mobile Suit designers and build their dream mechs up with each part. 2018’s New Gundam Breaker attempted to bridge the gap between the game series and Gunpla even further, but it didn’t really catch the attention of the fandom quite as much as Gundam Breaker 3, which brings us to Gundam Breaker 4.

This is Bandai Namco’s chance to bring this series back to basics and leverage the recent growth of popularity within the Gundam and Gunpla brands. While there’s a required time investment by the player to see everything this game has to offer, the Breaker series is definitely back with this one.

Gundam Breaker 4 Gameplay Overview

Gundam Breaker 4’s story mode takes place in the virtual world of GBBBB. Although the game is still in testing, players are climbing the ranks and making a name for themselves within the community. As you enter the game as a new player, Tao takes you under his wing to teach you the basics. This is when you meet Lin and a strange girl that looks just like her named Lilin, and then the story kinda just takes off. Each Chapter consists of 5 stages that build up some new rivalry or issue that is handled during the chapter. I was surprised by the amount of backstory some characters received while other plot threads were kinda just forgotten about.

I wouldn’t say the story of Gundam Breaker 4 is its strong suit, but it does provide a decent player experience. The issues the characters face are fairly surface level in the beginning, and then 12 hours in, you find out something about them that makes it seem like, at one point, this story has a lot more tension or depth. The thing is, Gundam Breaker fans aren’t technically here for a good story, but Bandai crafted one anyway with a large pool of characters who are interesting enough to follow.

The intricate customization system and thrilling combat mechanics make Gundam Breaker 4 a standout entry in the series.

A significant misstep was not allowing players to create a character avatar. During scenes, your onscreen presence is your Mobile Suit, but my Suit, especially in the beginning when you’re just equipping whatever your strongest gear, was very silly looking. I  never felt like a badass during these scenes as rivals picked a fight with my crew, and I looked like a Mobile Suit Clown. Further, it hurts any immersion in the story as your friends tell you heavy secrets and reveal more about themselves, and your character responds with a simple head nod. Sometimes, you can make dialogue choices, but it doesn’t affect the story, and all story scenes can be skipped if you want.

Features and Customization in Gundam Breaker 4

At the beginning of this review, I mentioned that the game requires a bit of a time investment. This is because mostly everything is locked behind the main story progression, which is about 20 hours long. That being said, this isn’t a negative on the experience. In fact, I would say Gundam Breaker 4 showcases an excellent rollout of borderline complex systems but makes them easy to understand and utilize, thanks to how it consistently raises the ceiling of available options throughout the campaign. I felt like a Gundam Breaker pro by the end, even after years of not touching the series.

Mobile Suit customization is pretty intuitive. However, this is a breaker game, so your available parts come from the enemies you’ve defeated and the difficulty you play on. Completing the game on Standard will get you a nice pool of equipment, but if you’re looking for the most powerful gear, you’ll need to replay stages on higher difficulties while ensuring you acquire an S ranking. When you first begin your adventure, I consider the game semi-challenging. If you don’t upgrade your Suit, you will be easily destroyed during a chapter boss.

Missions and Gameplay Structure

This is where Synergy is introduced, which allows you to Level up weapons and even increase their Rarity using items. While Plastic will power up your equipment, dismantling other weapons enables you to add their unique buffs to other equipment. These affect things like weapon cool-down, HP gain, speed, power, and more. Getting into this portion of the customization systems makes it possible to fine-tune and craft the perfect Mobile Suit. I focused my builds on speed, which increased once I initiated EX Skills like the Zero System.

Gundam Breaker 4 delivers the ultimate Gunpla-building experience with a return to its beloved roots.

EX and OP Skills are abilities that define your mobile suit. Depending on your equipment, certain EX-skills will be available. During battle, you can raise the EX gauge through various means, which allows you to use a powerful skill or repair your suit. OP-Skills can be acquired through equipment or builder parts, which can unlock the option to utilize unique OP-Skills. The cooldowns on these abilities aren’t as harsh as the EX-skills and are generally used for combo extenders or to beef up your long-range support with extra missiles, but there are melee and sword abilities as well, so you’re free to create what you want.

The missions are mostly wave-based, but there are a few defensive-style missions. Regardless, they’re all pretty straightforward and repetitive. Still, the added gameplay system of breaking and acquiring rare and specific parts makes the events a little less daunting. Other than that, this is mostly a hack-and-slash affair, so utilize all your abilities, exhaust all ammo, and try to avoid damage in each and every mission. I really liked the large boss battles, and at first, I thought they would just reuse the same boss rig for each of these gigantic fights, but they are all unique, which made the fights pretty exciting.

Diorama and Creative Features

I found the Diorama and overall staging options to be brilliant. This game wants you to relish in your mobile suit creations, and the time you put into creating Dioramas and editing scenes will pay off through fantastic depictions of battles that could only take place in our imagination. While I’m not the best designer, I found the controls-to-place objects intuitive and easy to use despite the options’ depth.

While the story may not be its strongest suit, Gundam Breaker 4 excels in providing endless creative possibilities for fans.

It’s a great feature that I believe is meant to be where players can sink a lot of their post-game time. This also leads me to the Painting options, which are even more extensive than the Diorama options. I’ll say that a huge downside is the lack of music. There’s a nice battle theme, but it always plays, which only highlights the repetitive mission design.

Final Thoughts on Gundam Breaker 4

Gundam Breaker 4 is the rare example of a game that proclaims it’s “Going back to its roots” and does so without overthinking it. This is the Gundam Breaker experience I’ve been wanting, and the online options only add more to this robust package. They definitely cut some corners with the lack of a true avatar creator and the HUB area isn’t the most exciting in its current state, but I’m sure it’ll fill out as more players discover the joy of building Gunpla without having to actually buy and build Gunpla.