forgot i played this one lol. from what i remember it's a really unique entry in the gundam game canon--a canon which has a really strong track record so im not just bullshitting. main appeal of the game is that it totalizes the 'relevant' UC timeline into one cohesive branching path action game for you to run amok in, which is p baller tbh. campaign tasks you with creating a custom character as you guide through them oyw to cca, in a somewhat extensive fashion, with the option to switch allegiances in between each stage of the conflict. there isn't really much of a personal reason why your OC switches sides iirc so feel free to make up your own, but its dope that the option exists, given how well considered the allegiance dynamics were setup in tomino's quadrilogy. also offers a gamut of side missions to involve yourself that covers UC side material. i cant quite recall either if that coverage was even adequate, but it was cool to see that said side material gets integrated in the 'main' moments of the UC campaign: like in one mission where you're attacking jaburo as zeon and you have to fight against the mudrock or when in one branching path christine from 0080 shows up in the battle of a baoa qu. won't mean shit to non-gundam fans but if you know it imbues the campaign with a certain tragedy to see these characters escape their canon narrative fates but ultimately be done in by the war machine & their own dysfunction regardless. its a move which extends not just tomino's ethics of war as horror but also his view of war as Freudian prison in which neurotic overseers conscript unsociable & neglected children to defend resources & ideas they only superficially care about.

in terms of game its a little less interesting, its a few notches above serviceable but is in a rather awkward stage in that it treats the nu gundam and the zakrello as functionally the same machine with just different variables. while a suit will generally 'feel' more light and aerial as you advance further in the timeline there's a few general archetypes that all suits fall under, erasing the uniqueness & differentiation that these suits have gotten over the years. not a huge deal, because on the flip side you can crank the variables under the hood to in the free battle mode to an absurd degree. feels like i just bought a brand new tonka & an ap when i crank the speed of the zaku ii to the max level so im outrunning a team of 3 f91s.