Every little kid grows up wondering, in a crossover fight, who would win? I remember arguing long and loud that Shockwave would take on any non-Transformer and beat them senseless. And I even demonstrated this belief by taking my old Shockwave toy and having it run roughshod over any He-Man, Thundercats, and GI Joe figures any friend of mine would bring over. These toy fights develop out of two different fantasies. One is to have battles with any kind of character possible. The other is to simply make toys do neat things. And video games, ever reflections of the games we once played, managed to come through in both aspects. For the people who craved the crossover battles, you get games like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Capcom’s Versus series of fighting games. And for the people that just liked sending toys at each other, there’s Virtual On and Capcom’s Gotcha Force, which might be the greatest Gamecube game nobody owns.
To begin, the story is, to be honest, extremely goofy. You play as Kou, a kid that just moved to Safaritown. One night, after a meteor shower, he discovers a toy-sized robot called G Red, who came to Earth to team up with a human to fight against an army of evil robots called the Death Force. Of course, along the way Kou meets friends and rivals that also have toy robots, or Gotcha Borgs in the game’s parlance, and you train to be able to take on the Galactic Emperor, leader of the Death Force.
Okay, I’ll be honest: this story is a bit lame. Not as lame as that of Custom Robo, but then again few things on the Gamecube were. I personally would have been fine if they set up this game similar to the N64 version of Custom Robo, where you were in a school and dealt with other people who used the robots in question. However, the story as it’s laid out does give you an excuse to encounter, on your first run, each of the game’s 200-plus Borgs on the first run, so the story at least gives the game a reason to exist as it does.
I will give credit to the characters, though, because they still act like kids even when they know they’re training to save the world. They get on each other’s nerves; they tease and joke with each other, and generally act like kids all around. Even when various rivals start working with Kou, it’s clear that it’s a matter of practicality and not bonhomie. In particular, any interaction involving Nekobe is priceless and fairly nuanced for a strict action game.
The game’s controls are fairly simple to grasp at first. You control your current Borg in a behind the character view, and you have two different attack buttons at your disposal. Which specific attacks you can do (including different attacks depending on range and charge attacks) vary from Borg to Borg, and it’s pretty easy right off to figure out which each attack does (it helps that it gives a brief description of each move on the status screen).
The game’s challenge and most of the fun lie in figuring out how to best use each Borg you acquire, and which best suit your style. If you like dodging a lot and laying in with melee attacks, then you go with various ninjas. If you prefer to dodge and fire at a distance, the Girl Borgs are your speed. If you want tanks, you can take either high-defense Borgs for figurative tanks or just take the literal tanks. While quite a few Borgs have similar abilities (for example, all of the Angel Borg series have relatively low defense and shot power, but high speed and reload times to go along with a killer drilling dash attack), each one is distinctive enough that require their own fighting style.
One thing that each Borg has in common, though, is that the controls are responsive. You never sit there frustrated because the character on screen did something you didn’t want it to do. Yes, occasionally you wish that a given Borg was faster (particularly if you’re hit by anything described in-game as a “Buster Laser”), but you can at least understand this is in the game to properly balance it, rather than a fault within the game’s programming. Though keep in mind that the computer’s Borgs are also fairly responsive. You win many more battles if you save your powerful shots for when you have an opening, and use your weaker attacks for when opponents are dodging much. Fighting in this game is a matter of timing as much as what you attack with.
Another part that makes this game work so well is that you always automatically target one opponent, and you can shift targets simply by cycling with the L and R buttons. This isn’t to say that your shots will home in on your opponent (only a bare handful has any attacks that can search out foes, and even they are imperfect). Also, for the rare Borg that has an ally support skill (like the Quick Valkyrie’s Haste Spell), you can target your allies by holding the Z button. But you won’t ever have to hunt down who you’re aiming at next – you can always see where they’re standing, even behind a wall or obstacle, as well as how much health they have remaining. I expect, at this point, fans of Virtual On will note that the control scheme is almost identical, even if the particulars are not.
I have to mention right off, in warning, this game generally moves pretty fast. Even the slow characters can lay into you with a massive can of whoop-ass in a heartbeat. If you have a hard time following heavy and rapid action, this game is going to be dizzying to you. And this is if you stick to slower characters like the various knights found in the game. Should you use plenty of ninjas and girls (like I do), you’ll have to fight off motion sickness. Once you get used to the game it’s easy to follow, but this game is not anyone’s idea of a sedate time.
Of course, this game is a relatively recent game, and you heard me mention over 200 different types of Borgs. So given that this is on a Nintendo system, you know what that means: it’s also a collection game. The collection aspect is pretty important: your force is made up of G Red and whatever robots you’ve earned from a battle and you can only earn what was present in a given battle. Sure, at first you’re stuck with Normal Ninjas and Revolver Gunmen. But it doesn’t take long to get some decent Borgs like the Barrier Girl (which might be the most versatile Borg in the game) or the Ice Valkyrie. The game also balances out the need for more powerful Borgs without giving you any game-breaking new recruits (outside of the Barrier Girl, and even she has some notable weaknesses). Most of the powerful enemies only give you data crystals when you defeat them, and you have to acquire the appropriate number of data crystals (from two to five) in order to get the really nifty Borgs. It might sound unfair, but seriously, a single Beam Gunner (which requires three appropriate data crystals) can wreck an entire armada of Death Force mooks. The game does properly balance giving you power versus what it throws at you.
One way it helps is that the game does give regular rewards for each battle. Each Borg has a point cost, and your pool of available points restricts how large of a force you can assemble at one time (as much as I’d like to use my 14,000-point force, I don’t have much opportunity). But each victory in battle gives an additional 10 points (except for special battles, which can give much more), and those can quickly add up to upgrading to a much nicer unit for your ideal battle force. It doesn’t take much effort to improve your squadron until you can put together a fierce fighting unit.
But more importantly, the game keeps track of experience for each fighter. Even if you should lose a fight, each participating Borg gets an experience point. They get two if they win the fight, and they quickly add up to new levels. At first, I fell into the trap of dismissing the levels, because on most Borgs it only gives an additional five hit points (the larger Borgs typically get ten, but level slower). But those add up quickly: You’d be surprised how often a Borg will be chipped at, and when you deal with much chipping those extra five hit points come in handy. And when you’re dealing with a Borg that only starts with 150 hit points (like the Barrier Girl), 4 extra levels is 20 hit points, which can be the difference between victory and defeat (particularly if you’re good at dodging). Levels also can change how useful a given Borg can be. The Wind Valkyrie has the same stats as the other Angel Borgs, but its special ability is easily the worst of the lot (you push enemies away from you, which is only good against melee-only opponents). But she levels in half of the time of the other Angel Borgs, so if you don’t care about the special abilities, the Wind Valkyrie is actually the most useful of the group.
One thing that the game does to drive up the collection aspect (evilly so, perhaps) is that is also gives out plenty of palette swaps. For each Borg, there are alternate colors, crystalline, silver, gold, and shadow versions. The alternate color version is just like the basic with some minor changes (for example, the Shuriken Ninja is blue with red trim ordinarily, but the alternate version is blue with gold trim), but the other swaps actually have different abilities, from increased speed to dramatically increased life bars. You won’t see too many of the really fancy Borgs until several runs through the game, but they’re each suitably different that collection fanatics will want to get over a thousand different Borgs.
Finally, to drive up game play, the game has several different modes. The Story mode is the centerpiece, and you can keep running through that as much as you want. You can also replay any level you’ve beaten (which includes secret levels if you’ve accomplished certain Story mode objectives) in Special mode, and you can even do the in-game Challenge mode. Finally, there’s a multiplayer mode for anyone who wants to share the joy of this game. In each of these modes, you get to use the accumulated force you’ve already acquired, complete with any levels they’ve earned. Thus, you don’t have to worry that all the work you’ve put into your Samurai Shogun will go to waste when you use him in the hardest Challenge Mode.
The game’s multiplayer has three aspects. The first two are quite similar. You can cooperate with a friend in Challenge mode, or you can have a head-to-head match-up with up to four players (and computer partners to make up any shortfall). The play control is remarkably similar in each one, and the game zooms out to help avoid the problems that arise from a four-way split screen. The only notable difference is that the status graphics (such as your health and amount of ammo in your current clip) are much simpler in multiplayer mode (to cut down on screen clutter). You can even dupe the game into using the same memory card information for each player, so you can introduce a friend to the game by having them partner with you and use your previously trained force.
The other part of the game, of course, is the trading aspect (we’re talking about a collection game; of course, they were going to allow trading). Unlike some other games with trading options, you can actually offer uneven trades, which does make sense. After all, you could make the argument that a Cyber Ninja is worth three Command Girls. There is one thing that makes the trading problematic, though: the save file for Gotcha Force is not write-protected. Thus, you can just make copies onto other memory cards, and thereby duplicate (complete with levels) any Borg you want. This does cheapen things, as it makes it too easy to build up incredible armies of Borgs if you have a friend who also plays. As much as it might bite to be unable to duplicate a save file (like with Pokémon Colosseum), it does make cheating much more difficult. Capcom should have just asked Nintendo how to properly pull it off.
One thing to note is the game’s AI when it partners with you (as it will throughout most of Story mode). For the most part, it’s substandard, to be honest. It does chip at enemies decently, but it almost never hits with a decent attack, and they have an annoying tendency to bogart your victory (which makes it much less likely to win a copy of that Borg as spoils). There are three exceptions. Two of which are, of course, hidden characters that you have to perform certain actions to obtain. The third of which is Mana, who specializes in using various support abilities. Thus, she prefers to hinder the enemies of heal you, depending on which specific Borg she’s using. Occasionally you’ll find use of a particular ally in a given fight (Usagi tends to prove useful against large numbers of Knight and Fortress Borgs, for example) but overall the most use you’ll get out of AI allies is to distract your opponents during a fight.
For the game’s graphics, well... to be perfectly frank, they’re quite primitive. Sure, the game’s opening and ending feature a pretty well-animated sequence, and you’ll probably be fooled into thinking that you’ll see that quality of animation, and a few more FMVs, during the game. Sorry, but you get about a minute at the beginning, a minute at the end, and you’ll like it, by gum. You’ll see the characters in stills often, but for the most part you just see polygonal Borgs clashing in arenas blown up from a kid’s everyday existence (a school, some bedrooms, a park, and so on). It’s not quite fair, but the game does pull quite a bait and switch on you right off.
For the vast majority of the game (the game makes sure to extend the action sequences and compress the story bits, which is quite fine for this sort of game), you’ll see very blocky graphics that aren’t too detailed. For the most part, the game actually appears like a very late N64 game, with smoother animation. It still has some clipping problems (particularly with Nurse Borgs, but every Borg has an elbow or foot that clips a little), although it’s not nearly as noticeable as it could have been. The game also fortunately renders a wall translucent when the camera is stuck inside of it – you can see just fine, and you can also see that you can’t continue in a given direction. Bluntly put, the graphics are designed to be utilitarian, not eye-catching.
The game’s sound is probably its weakest point. The game’s actual music (particularly on the map screen and the status screen) gets quite repetitive, and it gets on the nerves of even the person currently playing. Anyone nearby will likely be driven up the wall. Most of the sound effects are high-pitched and are vaguely reminiscent of a car alarm (the notable exception is the low rumble of any rapid-fire attack such as that of a Gatling Gunner). And the voice acting... to be kind, it’s atrocious. I don’t know where Capcom dug up most of these characters. You have the entire gamut of bad voice acting in this game: wooden delivery, shouting your lines, mouth-breathing, unnaturally deep voices for male characters, overuse of synth overlays to replicate a robotic voice, the works. The only passable voice in the entire collection is Usagi, but one character hardly justifies the entire game.
However, I must admit that there is some perverse joy in mocking the voice acting in this game. The fact is, even the worst voice actor in this game (for one of the optional characters) manages to put some zeal into his lines, and it’s just funny commenting on the lines as they’re said. I have to admit, I take personal pleasure in making jokes about the game’s resident geek, Tsutomu. You see, he’s got dark eyes and hair, wears glasses, and says bleedingly obvious things like “This will hit!” immediately after he’s already successfully hit something. I swear, with God as my witness, he’s just like my old college friend, Nelson. Tsutomu even manages two classic Nelsonisms. First, he shouts, “Well, it’s obvious!” whenever you enter hyper mode, in which you basically go nuts attacking your foes. Nelson used to always point out the obvious, like that you have the advantage during something called hyper mode. But even more incredible, Tsutomu will shout out “Don’t worry, it’s all going to plan” whenever he loses a Borg. Nelson would say almost the exact same thing, “Don’t worry, it’s all part of The Plan,” whenever he started losing at anything. Heck, I have to admit that I love this game if for nothing else than to relive my college days. But unless you take a real joy in mocking the game’s sound effects, just mute them. You’ll miss out on Usagi and that’s it.
At first, anyone would be quick to dismiss Gotcha Force. It has archaic graphics, annoying sound, and an incredibly simplistic concept. But the fact is, I’ve never seen the concept handled so well. Despite the fact that you can’t tune an individual Borg (like you could do in Custom Robo), you can build such a dizzying array of different lineups that this game has so much more playability than almost any other Gamecube action game. You literally can play the game any way you like, even to the point that several Borgs have many different effective strategies to use (I dare anyone to try to find a fighting style that doesn’t worth with a Cyber Ninja). It’s cruel irony, to me, that one of Capcom’s strongest and most customizable titles in the last decade is almost totally unknown. It might not be the most artistic of games, but it’s certainly one of the most fun, simply because it does the little things right.
