This was then quickly followed up by Gundam Extreme Versus Maxiboost ON, which featured online multiplayer in the arcades. Neither of these versions saw a console release. However, we did receive a strange Vita game called but that was not exactly what Western fans of the series had hoped for. So now, we come to this all-new game on PS4. Byking’s involvement is but a distant memory at this point but it is very much in the spirit of the Gundam Extreme Versus games they made and it is finally coming Westward.
Before that though, the game has been released in Japan and I have been playing the quite a lot and for the most part, this is the game Western fans have been waiting for but with a few caveats. To understand what Gundam Versus is all about, you first need to go back to the previous games. In that, what changed up the Gundam Extreme Versus games over its precursors was how it broke down movement and allowed players to enact feints. Previously, you had a boost gauge and you could simply fly around and orbit a selected enemy. Up close, things got a bit tedious as whoever charged first would likely get slammed as their opponent would dodge and counterattack. What’s more, there was no real penalty attached to boosting around. Except that when you ran out of boost energy, you would have to wait for it to recharge.
‘Gundam Versus’ often has you face multiple opponents at once now, rather than just two. The games were fun though and had quite a following but what Byking did was to go back to games like and structured how the game allowed the player to move around. This is because in Virtual On you can misstep an opponent. Each dash you do has a fixed length and vector but what makes each dash a risk is that there is a movement freeze upon its completion. This means you have a dance of players trying to get a clear shot when their enemy is frozen at the end of their dash. Byking took this end of dash movement freeze and used it in the Gundam Extreme Versus games and that gave the combat more structure.
Admittedly, it was not as stringent as the dash freeze in Virtual On but it was still present and it had a similar though reduced effect. As for close combat, Byking did something new by allowing players to cancel out of the way of incoming attacks.
This feint could also be used at range but had less of an effect. The feint massively reinvigorated the close combat setup and kept players on their toes. This was because if you closed in for an attack your enemy could take the bait and try to dodge as well as counterattack. With the feint in place, this meant you could dodge out of the way of that counterattack and return one of your own. The result of this is that it produced a more aggressive set of tactics and forced players to openly engage more.