Gundam 0079: The War for Earth is an FMV Game based off the first series of the Gundam franchise, released in 1996 in Japanese and 1997 in English for the PC, Apple Macintosh, Pippin, and PlayStation. It is notable for being the only official game in the franchise to be created by a developer from North America, specifically Presto Studios of The Journeyman Project fame.
The game places the players in the shoes of a faceless civilian who is now forced to pilot the experimental Gundam, a Humongous Mecha that can turn the tide of the war in the Federation's favor. The Gundam Pilot becomes a part of the White Base crew and must fight to safely travel to Jaburo while Char and the forces of the Principality of Zeon give chase.
The game is mainly remembered by the Gundam fandom for its live action cutscenes, featuring, among other things, an actor playing Char who is far older than the character should be and has a large cleft chin.
Gundam 0079: The War for Earth contains examples of:
- Adaptational Name Change: Ryu is named "Duke" in the English voice track, and Bright Noa is "Noah Bright".
- Adapted Out: Many examples given the Compressed Adaptation nature. To name a few:
- Rather than Amuro Ray, the player is a faceless civilian.
- Sayla Mass and Fraw Bow are removed with Canon Foreigner Sarah Hollin serving their roles.
- Hayato Kobayashi is removed as well, with "Duke" being the sole Guntank pilot.
- While a Gouf appears, its pilot is not explicitly identified as Ramba Ral.
- Adaptational Wimp: The Gundam in the original series is a Super Prototype, demonstrating its power before it has even stood up for the first time when the shots from Gene's Zaku Machine Gun bounce off of its armor. Here, that same machine gun can destroy the Gundam. Notably, Char in the anime has to get creative when trying to destroy the Gundam by bringing heavy weaponry or applying brute force so that Amuro being thrust around in the cockpit will inflict injury, while one of the failure scenes here show that his Zaku punching the Gundam in the face is enough to destroy it (conversely, the Gundam is still capable of taking out weaker mechs in one or two shots).
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The Gouf is changed from bright blue to gray, funnily enough making it closer resemble the Gouf Flight Type that wouldn't exist until almost a year after the game was released.
- All There in the Manual: The first cutscene gives a basic rundown of the backstory, but the game has a more in-depth version included via Wall of Text.
- An Arm and a Leg:
- The Gundam's leg is destroyed in the first battle with Char, necessitating its lower body be temporarily replaced with Guntank treads.
- Char retreats once his Zaku's arm has been destroyed.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Char grabs a bazooka to destroy the idle White Base mobile suits, and walks behind the Gundam to destroy the Guncannon instead of starting with the biggest (and closest) threat.
- Canon Foreigner: Among the White Base's crew are original characters Honey Asana and Sarah Hollin. Honey is a subordinate of General Revil while Sarah serves the roles of Fraw Bow and Sayla Mass.
- Collateral Damage: During the final battle, Char will land his Zaku on the White Base's bridge. If the player doesn't respond to the quick time event in time, the Gundam will try to fire at Char and hit the White Base's bridge instead.
- Compressed Adaptation: The game adapts several hours of story in thirty minutes, so expect a lot of cut content.
- Deadly Dodging: At the start of the final battle with Char, he parks his Mobile Suit atop White Base's bridge. You can try to shoot him down... but your only long-range weapon at that moment is a rocket launcher, meaning he gets time to just jump off the bridge and lets you kill several of your own commanding officers.
- Demoted to Extra: In the anime, the Guncannon fought alongside the Gundam until the end of the war and racks up a respectable body count. In the game, it's only ever seen docked in White Base's hangar and gets destroyed by Char in the climax.
- Dub Name Change: Ryu is named "Duke", though the Japanese voice track changes him back to "Ryu".
- Early Adaptation Weirdness: The game was one of the first pieces of Gundam media officially released in the West (literally the second after Frederik L. Schodt's translations of the novels), so many names are romanized differently. Among these are Char Aznable rendered as "Shar Aznabull", the Principality of Zeon as the "Duchy of Zeon", and Zakus as "Zaks". Oddly, the in-game supplementary materials use the more modern translations.
- Evil Laugh: The game ends with Char laughing maniacally, saying that his victory is soon at hand.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- There's some rather interesting text that scrolls by on the feed of the security camera at the beginning:
"Look at this dorky guy running into the door. He looks like Jodie Foster on crack. If you had to guess his IQ: .000068438 plus or minus blah blah double blah I hope nobody is reading this crap. Here are some numbers: 213882078437Y""- While Noah is talking to his commander, the logo of the Temporal Security Agency appears on a computer screen in the background.
- Game-Over Man: The game over screen features a shadow of a Zaku standing over the Gundam's freshly torn off head.
- Guide Dang It!: Beating the game without dying on the first try would probably require Newtype powers with how brief the quick time events are and it not always being clear about which actions are meant to be taken. Notably, the game expects the player to be ready to perform actions before the controls have even been explained.
- Hong Kong Dub: The live-action scenes are filmed in English, with the Japanese release having the original voice actors dub over the lines. No attempt is made to match the lip sync.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Char cannot be won, and the player merely has to hold out for him to destroy the Gundam's leg and cause it to enter the Earth's atmosphere.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: Failing a quick time event will play a cutscene that usually shows the Gundam being destroyed.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of the four actions that can be taken is to use the Gundam's shield to defend. While this won't always work, it is at least necessary to survive the second Zaku exploding.
- Made of Explodium: The Gundam is apparently made of paper, with a few small shots or just a punch to the face being enough for it to go up in flames. Granted, mobile suits exploding from minor damage is nothing new for the Gundam franchise, but it's a little odd to see with a main character suit.
- Motive Rant: By necessity, when Char turns on Garma, his original one-liner is expanded into a whole soliloquy about avenging his father's death at the hands of Degwin Sodo Zabi.
- Mythology Gag:
- When Honey Asana reveals herself, she asks to speak with Captain Paolo, the White Base's bedridden original captain in the early portions of the anime.
- As goofy as the Gundam torso being mounted on Guntank's treads looks, it's a reference to Clover's original line of toys, which had that as a play feature.
- No Name Given: Unlike the anime, the names of the Zaku pilots raiding Side 7 and the Gouf pilot are not given.
- Press X to Not Die: Most of the gameplay is responding to (very brief) quick time events, with the option between four directions of movement, five weapons, a shield, and an action button.
- Refusal of the Call: You can "refuse" Bright's offer for an officer commission by not responding to the Quick Time Event quickly enough, which prompts a disappointed Bright to accept your decision and offer to offload you at the closest opportunity.
- Sequel Hook: The game ends with the White Base reaching Jaburo and Char giving an Evil Laugh because he is confident he will win next time they meet. Presumably, Presto Studios intended to make a sequel to cover the rest of the original series' story.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the anime and its compilation movie, Ryu Jose performs a Heroic Sacrifice by ramming a Core Fighter into Crowley Hamon's Magella Top seconds before she can destroy the base. In the game, Duke is ambushed by Char and his Guntank destroyed before he can react, but the ending shows that he survived the ordeal, albeit bloodied and bandaged-up.
- Tank-Tread Mecha: The Guntank, true to the source material. After Char destroys one of the Gundam's legs, it gets its lower body swapped out for a Guntank's.
- Taking You with Me:
- The Gouf pilot attempts to catch the Gundam in their mobile suit's explosion. Responding to the quick time event in time will cause the Gundam to throw the Gouf over the edge and into the Thor Cannon.
- Garma attempts this on White Base after his ship is critically damaged.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The player is given a very brief window of time to perform actions before a game over triggers, and there are not always clues about which action is the right one. Expect to see the Gundam exploding a lot.
