I like Gundam, especially the early UC stuff. So a game based around a secret all-female Zeon unit definitely sounded like a cool take on that time period.
So let’s get right into it. I was not a fan of what I played here. As much as I love Gundam, I am a bit tired of these Gundam spin-offs where the dev team obviously has some good ideas, but are simply not given the time or budget to fully explore them.
Take the combat for example. I know mobile suits are supposed to be big and weighty, but the combat in Code Fairy just does not feel good to play. In spite of cool mechanics like type matchups, a combo system, and a fairly decent selection of weapons and mobile suits, these unfortunately are not enough to escape this overall feeling of clunkiness.
Movement feels off and the whole thing is incredibly slow – with a lot of fights devolving into this repetitive long-range shootout where I find myself just walking backwards and shooting at the enemy chasing me until they are dead. It takes forever to reload and enemies are very tanky for the most part, so this combat becomes quite the boring ordeal early on.
Melee is even worse. I’ll be setting up this cool combo only for my melee strike to completely miss the mark. It’s like 50% of the time my melee strikes don’t go in the direction I want them to or are otherwise too slow to connect in time – ultimately the reason why I ended up sticking with ranged weapons for the majority of the experience.
And this is all wrapped up in some mediocre mission design. You may have some additional objectives like “capture this point” or “guard this structure”, but all the missions ultimately boil down to “kill all enemies” and this lack of variety becomes apparent early on. The side missions add a bit more variety (it’s kinda hard to not have fun piloting a guntank), but the main stuff is lacking.
Difficulty-wise, the game is surprisingly harder than it looks. If the enemy outranges you, they can easily just gun you down even if you’re rolling and trying to evade shots – like they have some sort of aimbot. And if you’re up against more than two at a time, well… good luck. Despite this, it never felt like I hit a wall. I may have had to replay certain mission segments over and over, but the game is at least nice enough to grant checkpoints so you don’t lose too much if you die – just a bit of pride.
On the topic of story – Code Fairy takes a more anime approach. As in, the game is literally divided into 15 episodes and has numerous anime cutscenes in-between missions. It was honestly kinda cool, at least presentation-wise. I say that because the story itself is fairly weak in comparison to other Gundam works set in the same time period. It was hard to tell if this game was trying to tell a serious Gundam story or just some random spin-off of a bunch of girls having fun with their mobile suits.
I mean, one of the chapters literally ends with the characters going to a Halloween party so I guess it’s leaning more towards the latter. Some might enjoy this approach, but to me, it didn’t feel like a Gundam story all that much. And the weak character writing isn’t helping there either – these girls are hardly given any development at all to give the few serious moments the impact they need.
Graphically, the game is also not that great – and this is perhaps where the lack of budget is most noticeable. I played on PS5 and while I didn’t have any performance issues, it definitely doesn’t look like a proper PS5 release, or even a PS4 one. Low-res textures, blocky environments, objects constantly clipping in and out of existence – it felt more like a Vita game.
So no, I wouldn’t say that I can recommend Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy. Whether it be the clunky combat or the aimless story, I just didn’t have a good time with it – even as a Gundam fan. Perhaps one day we’ll get a new Gundam game with a proper budget, but today is not that day.
Quote: Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy is simply not worth the time, even for Gundam fans. Clunky combat, aimless story, lackluster graphics – the budget just isn’t there.
Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy retails for $50 USD on the PS Store. A deluxe version is also available for $60 or you can just purchase each volume individually (containing 5 chapters each) for $20.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
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