[Cacophanus]

Ah, Meguriai Sora. For some reason it got universally panned by Western reviewers despite being actually quite good and offering an insane amount of gaming content. Interestingly it was also in development for close to four years. When the first Gundam game on the PS2 was released, which was very much the Target in Sight of its day (though I'd argue that Target in Sight is much much worse), there was a trailer for Meguriai Sora once you completed the game.

One of the reasons it took ages was because they had massive problems getting space based combat working properly (the previous entry had been resolutely ground based, which conveniently covered the first two movies). It's why there are two main veins of gameplay; the on rails Panzer Dragoon-esque shooting sections and the spherical shmup approach similar to that of Omega Boost.

The amount of content in the game is a little crazy though. Apart from the main campaign, which covers the TV series and Movies, you also have an ace pilot mini-campaign (featuring mecha as far as 0083 and also events that pre-date the One Year War, such as the Battle of Ruum where you have a few Zakus taking on a massive Federation fleet), then a whole new sidestory made especially for the game, followed by a user created campaign where you start as a grunt and work your way up and the game's also bloody online!

The game also features entirely re-animated footage too, which many thought was a portent of things to come in terms of re-animating all three of the original movies (instead we got the patchy Zeta Gundam movies, damn their eyes!).

I managed to nab the Japanese box set of this, or more accurately my wife did on my behalf (I actually got an e-mail from here off her mobile as she queued saying "I'm feeling very hardcore"). The boxset came with a lovely DVD of all the new animation, a limited edition MSIA toy and a reworking of the previous Gundam game with wingman control (similar to Lost War Chronicles).

Oh, as for Char and Amuro dying at the end of Char's Counterattack....

Look carefully, you'll see a solitary booster plume pull away from Axis (something that was made far more obvious in the PSone game). Bit cheeky in terms of creating a narrative loophole but bringing them back as cheeky old geezers (something that happened to the ZZ Gundam pilot Judau Ashita in a V Gundam sidestory manga) would be really lovely.
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[Cacophanus]

[Cacophanus]

[Cacophanus]

First, to clear something up, the American version of Encounters in Space doesn't have the online play. As a booby prize, most of the online-only content (basically, two G Gundam mecha and two Endless Waltz mecha) are available for use in Versus mode at the very beginning (with insane point costs to balance out their requisite Plot Armor). If you ever wanted to see who would win in a fight, the Tallgeese-3 or the Neue Ziel, then I guess this is very, very good news.
:-(

[Cacophanus]

[Cacophanus]

[Cacophanus]