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Let's Play

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Alrighty, the title of this one is undress with a capital "G". That's right folks, Gundress has made its way to this channel. Whether you've never heard of this until now, were brought here by the near legendarily jacked-up anime that this is based on, or just love all things Masamune Shirow (of "Ghost in the Shell" and "Appleseed" fame, among many others), I will start by saying this: the game miiiiiight not be great. It's not horrible... there are a few redeeming qualities overshadowed by dubious design choices, but before I get into all of that, here's a little history.

Gundress was an anime that was heavily marketed as the next masterful mecha anime since "Ghost in the Shell", with Masamune Shirow getting a LOT of credit for it. Released in 1999, it was directed by Katsuyoshi Yatabe (who, prior to this, was best known for VOTOMS, Wataru, and some work with Dirty Pair) and written by Akira Amasawa (ORCA, who had no real accomplishments at this point), so where does Shirow come in? He designed the characters and mechs, but he explained that the artist renditions (particularly of the mechs) were not meant to be animated at the time and were conceptual. Anyone who knows Shirow's work knows he has a very detailed style, but Katsuyoshi insisted they incorporate them as they were central to the plot and wanted to begin production right away.

As such, they were reluctantly added to the movie (with a few instances of them not even being colored) in a highly degraded and rough form, and the creative team quickly went over their estimated budget, plaguing the ending which was meant to include a sequel which, of course, never happened. With animation quality below even late 80s standards, a plot that was equally straightforward and reminiscent of that decade (with a lot of parallels to the popular "Bubblegum Crisis"), it was almost some kind of punishment that Shirow's name would be the headliner to recoup heavy losses from Gundress' less than stellar box office sales and notoriety. It just feels like a production that was at least ten years too late.

Whelp, in another bid to recoup money, ORCA outsourced the license to Starfish (HOT-B) to make a low budget game with a high budget price tag (MSRP of 7800 yen for something that wasn't an L.E., where the average was 5800-6800 yen), AGAIN using Shirow as a way to market it (listed on the back of the case "with designs from Shirow Masamune's hard-boiled movie-turned-game"). The end result is another one of those dang fabled relationship sims (but from the perspective of Angel Arms rep. Takako Houraiji), with a pure strategy game attached to it. To Starfish's credit, there's a few good ideas in here and the mech designs are just as good (if not better) than the anime. The in-game character designs look like they're trying to imitate Shirow's style at times as opposed to actually being Shirow's style, but they're serviceable as a whole (but not consistent with the case front... they added a bunch of grotesque wire/veins and designs to the various girl's suits). The music and some of the sounds are another story... low quality, obnoxious, and no way to adjust the levels pretty much sums it up outside one or two tracks. The voice acting is strictly standard fare.

The gameplay is about sixty percent adv/novel style with occasional choices here and there to influence the mood of the heroines, and the rest is strategy fare where players move along a grid with five characters. As the game is an expansion of the Gundress universe, there are new characters and scenarios, such as the "Judges" (rival "Land Mates" or mech operators) who try to clear bounties before you do, but there is no leveling, only item acquisition and resource management. As there are no shops, consumable items need to be used sparingly and it's strongly encouraged to explore and find any weapons and upgrades you can to improve your arsenal. Each character has weapons and guns they're locked into, but everything else is fair game, and each character has an action unique to them (camouflage, hacking, strong attacks), and some missions will prioritize certain abilities. The A.I is not very smart (ESPECIALLY the Judges, who can move through your allies but are instead programmed to treat them like an obstacle), so the strategy element isn't all there...

The game has generic dialogue and narration and almost no options (and infrequent save periods with no way to suspend battles, which can drag), but it will last a while and comes on two discs (a data disc with extras like cells from the anime, the script, storyboard, etc., and a bonus film strip). The XRGB-Mini DOES NOT like this game as it constantly shifts screen position and resolution (like battle, which is slightly higher), so there are several edits. If you want to learn more about the plot, you can at:

http://www.theanimereview.com/reviews/gundress.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0331508/

This is a video of several scenes in action. Enjoy.