Assault Gunners HD is the mech-based combat shooter Playstation deserves, but not the one it needs right now. Originally released in 2012 for the Playstation Vita in Japan the port feels generations behind on the PS4.
Assault Gunners HD is broken up into missions and although there is a story that unfolds through scrolls of texts at the beginning of each mission it is not all that memorable. As residents of Earth decide to colonize the red planet a rebellion of robots called ANTS threatens their existence. Earth counters with their own mech units called SATs and the battle for Mars begins. The game is spoken in the Japanese language with English subtitles. Further proving how incidental the story actually is, sometimes the subtitles were missing.
Graphically Assault Gunners HD looks like it would have been quite lovely had it released on the PS2. Environments are very open and sparsely decorated with jaggy edges, enemies are made up of a handful of varieties that are repurposed from mission to mission. In its defense, the game does retail for around $10, so a Shadow of the Colossus level of remastering was not to be expected.
The controls are simple, move, give commands, change weapons and shoot. Shooting is done by way of the R1 trigger which completely threw me off as I'm now so used to the more intuitive R2 triggers. The L1 trigger will give you a boost, evade, or jump by tapping.
Assault Gunners HD is not all bad. It has a nice upgrading system and offers a decent amount of cosmetic options and guns to personalize your Mech. The combat isn't all that complex but if mindlessly destroying waves of robot armies is your thing, Assault Gunners HD won't disappoint. I found the game to be fun at times, but its wash rinse repeat formula became monotonous and boring. You continuously shoot the same enemies over and over, bigger enemies do not offer any variance in the way you take them down, and sometimes you just stand near points of interest for a few seconds to deactivate something.
The key to enjoying the game for me came by playing it as it was intended to be played, in small doses. Having been developed for a portable system and on the go gaming, I found that playing a few missions at a time versus long sofa sessions made the game much more enjoyable.
For those of you trophy hunters out there, Assault Gunners HD can lead to platinum in just a few hours and without very little effort. Most trophies are achieved by simply playing through the missions.
Assault Gunners HD is like one of those movies that are so bad, they're good. A cheesy robot romp complete with over the top voice acting and a meaningless story that could potentially find a cult following amongst the most die-hard of mech fans. I found it to be an unforgettable experience that was probably best left on the Vita.
Assault Gunners HD was developed by Shade Inc. and published by Marvelous.
A review code was provided by the publisher and reviewed on a PS4 Pro.