BANDAI-NAMCO Mobile Suit GUNDAM Silver Phantom

From the Godfathers of Pacman & the endless Gundam Universe, comes a VR experience attempting to bridge cinema with gaming. (It's what everyone's talking about & something I really want to achieve too). Billed as the first feature length, playable animated film, it's a big shout, but then this is NAMCO. Adapted from a tv series, it is feature length. Arguably a first. Anyway, I played it through & there's a lot to see & do. We have a classic anime intro on the big screen, describing the whole back story (for those not familiar with the subject matter, a useful onboarding for a future where humans live & fight in space, wearing huge mech). Then we jump straight into space in 3D with 360 degree anime, animation. It's pretty impressive, although at first you don't know where to look and following the action could have been made a bit tighter. The visual effect is quite good, except for the lack of a visible face on your character's opaque visor, which one can only assume was just a step too far for the budget. A bit of a let down tbh. Your buddy character does have a face though & it's a quite decent translation of 2D anime into a 3D walking, talking model. The characters are motion captured so they move well, convincingly rendered with cell shading which gives a flat surface but definitely 3D cartoon look. The director moves you around from shot to shot as we progress thorugh the scenes, which takes a little bit of getting used to, it doesn't always work. Sometimes you end up a bit lost going from wide to reverse & then close up at funny angles. It's a genuine attempt at cinematic, I appreciate the sentiment & it is inventive. Needs a bit of refining if I'm being picky. Then there's the actual Gundam suit, which is a faff to get into, but you climb in to the cockpit & it feels quality. There are various actions you perform. You have a regular pistol, GUNDAM operated light sabre, shield and the big auto-shoot pulse cannon. My favourite mechanic being a gaze initiated navigation system through space to avoid asteroids & (of course, sight guided weapons). Overall I'd give this 4 stars just for putting the work in & almost pulling off something that feels genuinely new. I'm not a huge fan of flashback in story, but the 2D, 360 animation in classic anime style which provided crucial plot anchors were pretty cleverly handled. There's probably something lost in translation from the Japanese script but I can always let that ride, it's part of the experience, even when the dialogue feels written bang on the nose. Love the music - which as far as I can tell is from the original tv version. There's a bit of mixed reality as an extra feature. Probably an afterthought as production was finishing and Meta wanted to see mixed reality examples to sell Quest3, but it's an aside to the main event. It's a co-production, which is apparent. Not quite as tight design wise as it could be.. but like most of my favourite kids tv cartoon series, were a combination of Asian / European collaborations. Think Battle of the Planets, except you get to play Marc !