YMMV / Gundam Battle Assault 2

• Contested Sequel: Battle Assault 3 is seen as either a worthy follow up that was unable to capture the same lighting-in-a-bottle success that the previous two games did, or too radically different and a Franchise Killer due to removing well-received elements of the second game. The large focus on Gundam SEED also means your enjoyment stems from how much you liked that series to begin with.
• Cult Classic: Didn't garner much attention when it was first released due to debuting at the tail end of the original PlayStation's lifespan and being overshadowed by the sheer flood of great Fighting Game options available at the time, but it's remained a low-key favorite among both mecha fans and fighting game enthusiasts.
• Even Better Sequel: Battle Assault 2 enjoys nearly-universal acclaim as a better game than its predecessor by addressing the flaws of the original Battle Assault (the characters moving more slowly and the controls being less responsive) while expanded upon what players enjoyed. Battle Assault 1 is worth a play for mecha fans, but its sequel is a must-play for them and the gameplay is robust enough for even non-mecha fighting game fans to give it a shot.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Heavyarms's missile barrage. It fires eight homing missiles simultaneously which are launched fairly quickly and the best part? They doesn't consume any ammo meaning you can spam this attack over and over.
  • Dark Gundam's double beam attacks are unblockable projectiles and go all the way across the screen. Once you unlock this mecha, you'll be dominating any matches with ease.
  • All of Deathscythe Hell's normal attacks with his beam scythe are unblockable. Mix them up with his beam scythe special move, his unblockable super move and you have a very broken character. They don't call Duo "The God of Death" for nothing.
• Low-Tier Letdown: One expects low performance from the likes of the humble Zaku II and Ball, but Char's Sazabi shockingly underperforms, and even fans of the Suit can't really defend its lackluster options in both this game and the original Battle Assault.
• Memetic Mutation: One of this game's biggest contributions was- hey, Big Zam.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Even if the earlier games were a bit clunkier, they were still fun fighters with nice sprite-work and a badass soundtrack. Battle Assault 2 stands out as the best of all, with some people hosting small tournaments to this day.
• Old Guard Versus New Blood: Deftly handled, as the games includes both plenty of UC-era Mobile Suits for fans of the classic Gundam era and all the main protagonist Suits from both Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and Mobile Fighter G Gundam, the latter of which had just been released stateside when Battle Assault 2 launched.
  • Unfortunately played straight in regards to Battle Assault 3 and the Game Boy Advance games, as they focus entirely on SEED. It's one of the reasons why it's considered a Contested Sequel.
• One-Scene Wonder: Valdor Farkill has one spoken line in Street Mode, the very first and only line of his entire existence since he only appear in the manga, Last Outpost: G-Unit.
• Padding: Congrats on beating the story modes with all mobile suits! Now do it all again on Hard mode to actually unlock anything for Versus mode.
  • Battle Assault 3 is especially guilty of this with its Mission mode, as in order to get 100% Completion, you have to replay each stage over and over until you clear all of the branching routes.
• Sequel Displacement: Battle Assault 2 is far well known compared to Battle Assault 1. No one knows both games owe their existence to the Japanese exclusive The Battle Master series.
• That One Attack: Dark Gundam's Twin Lasers described above. It's one of two unblockable projectiles in the game (the other being Heavy Arms' Spark Missile) with its own variant having a much large hitbox. It also does damage comparable to a Mega Special despite being just a special move (and thus can be used infinitely), and can easily be used to lock opponents down into a Cycle of Hurting by a human player who chooses to just spam it over and over (thankfully, the CPU will only use it in single shot bursts).
• That One Boss: Dark Gundam in Maxter Gundam's Street Mode is without a doubt the hardest of all the Street Mode bosses, owing less to Dark Gundam itself (Burning and Master also have to fight it) and more to Maxter being a much lower-tier character due to it only being useful in close-range. The only reasonable way to win is to set the game timer to 30 seconds and time it out with higher health.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Bandai acts as if the Psycho Gundam Mk-III never existed after Battle Assaut 2 came and went, made even more infuriating with the existence of the Psycho Gundam Mk-IV in Mobile Suit Moon Gundam. Shame, it would've made a sweet Gunpla or unlockable in the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam series.
  • No one from The Battle Master ever makes a return after they were removed from Battle Assault, ensuring that they remain forgotten even among the most hardcore of Gundam fans.
• Unexpected Character: While Shiro Amada is a welcome presence, many were rather confused by his piloting a Ball rather than a Gundam Ground Type or the Ez-8. Even then it's not the orange-painted twin cannon Ball he used in the show, but a regular white-coloured one from the original series (though this could be a side-effect of Shiro taking Gloria Chanvalley's place as the pilot, as she used a regular Ball in The Battle Master 2).
• The Woobie: Despite having a rather upbeat theme and piloting the quite powerful Quin Mantha, Synapse's life is pain. Originally a Lieutenant named Indre Parkwest, he was caught in the crossfire of Maria's rampage when she hijacked the Psycho Gundam Mk-III, leaving Rachel widowed before they were even officially married. The Federation, rather than letting Parkwest stay dead, took his brain and forcibly turned him into a killing machine, with his thoughts constantly being ridden by the AI commands in his robotic suit, ensuring he doesn't remember a thing about his old life save for a few flashes. It's telling that his ending is one huge Catharsis Factor, in which he regains his memories, ironically thanks to Maria, and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to reunite with Rachel.

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