I have been a fan of the Gundam franchise almost as long as I’ve been alive. As a result, I’ve also picked up the hobby of building Gundam plastic model kits, or Gunpla. Just like any hobby, it can get expensive quickly. Some folks take pride in their straight built kits—no panel lining, no painting, no decals. Other folks take extra care by sanding off stress marks, fine tuning part color with airbrushes or adding high quality decals. And other folks go above and beyond, combining parts from several different source kits to create something entirely unique. Regardless of your skill level, there is an excellent entry point for anyone: Gundam Breaker 4!
Gundam Breaker 4 is a fairly stock standard anime video game experience. You start out in a virtual online setting, meet some friends, and kick off the story of building the best Gunpla you can make! You steadily fill out a library of equipment, all while mashing together whichever random parts are your strongest. And that’s the real meat and potatoes of the game. Sometimes the resulting Gunpla is a bit uncoordinated or goofy in its design. Other times you find pieces from different kits that blend together nicely! Once you have a design you like you can begin focusing on the design of your brand new Gundam.
One of the most fun aspects of Gundam Breaker 4 was the customization of my personal digital kits. Not only did I have the freedom of mashing up parts from a wide variety of sources, but the color customization and decals are pretty deep. The biggest joy for me was seeing inspiration from folks sharing their digital and real Gunpla and trying to replicate those, and then taking the new skills on to developing my own custom Gunpla.
Another aspect of this customization I loved was how it allows players to essentially plan out a custom Gunpla before building it physically. As a Gunpla builder, I’ve longed for an easy to access way to plan out my custom Gunpla’s color scheme and posing. GB4 gives players immediate access to features like coloring, posing and even a digital diorama, the only limiting factor is obtaining the parts you need!
Now instead theorizing about cool custom builds, you can pick up a copy of Gundam Breaker 4 and put those ideas into the world! Customize and tweak your digital Gunpla until it’s exactly the outline you’d like to follow for your physical kits!
Are you a fan of Gunpla? Do you think that Gundam Breaker 4 is a solid way to plan out your custom builds? Let us know over on our Discord!
Featured Image: Bandai Namco
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