Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Rise from the Ashes earns its place by making a mobile suit feel like a machine you operate, not an action hero you steer. Every mission begins with meaningful decisions about suits, shields, and weapons. The standard RGM-79 offers one approach, while the bulkier RGC-80 trades mobility for heavier armor and firepower. Projectile weapons, beam weapons, rockets, and grenades also force you to consider range, punch, and ammunition instead of grabbing a single all-purpose loadout.

The cockpit perspective is the game’s defining commitment. You move with the directional pad, look around with the analog stick, and can dash, jump, or hover with vernier thrusters. That mobility is useful, but overheating means you cannot mindlessly boost out of every dangerous situation. Sniping gives ranged encounters a more measured pace, while getting close to another mobile suit triggers beam-saber combat. The result is more deliberate than a fast third-person fighter, and the limited viewpoint can feel demanding when you want instant awareness of everything around you.

White Dingo is more than a name attached to the player character. Leung and Mike fight independently, but you can direct their movement and search patterns, assign targets, order defense of friendly units, and set their preferred engagement range. Anita’s OASIS hover truck cannot fight, yet its radar scan helps locate enemies. That mix gives the missions a small-scale command element without turning them into a full strategy game. Objectives can change in the middle of a sortie, so it pays to treat squad orders and reconnaissance as part of the fight rather than background flavor. For a period guide to the control and equipment systems, the Bandai original Dreamcast manual remains useful.

Graphics

The combat view is framed by thick black cockpit pillars, with hulking mobile suits filling the front window at close range. A dark gray-green Zaku’s rounded head and bright red mono-eye are especially easy to pick out, and the orange glow of a beam weapon cuts sharply through the muted battlefield.

Low-resolution, angular models and sparse terrain textures show the game’s age. Mauve-purple skies and dark rolling hills give the Australian battlefields some color, but much of the ground looks plain. The big silhouettes and glowing enemy eye still make the important targets stand out in the gray dust and steel.

Story

This is an original side story set during the One Year War, running alongside the events of the first Gundam series rather than retelling them. Lt. Rayer leads the Federation’s White Dingo guerrilla unit in Australia, supporting a larger counteroffensive against Zeon. It is a solid framework for a military campaign: the stakes come from a specific front in a larger war, not from trying to replace the franchise’s central story.

Commander Hawkins delivers pre-mission briefings, while FMV messages from Leung, Mike, and Anita keep the squad in view between sorties. In-engine scenes also carry plot developments during missions. That structure makes the campaign feel focused on the unit and its assignment, which suits the game’s compact nine-mission shape.

Gundam fans will get the most from seeing familiar Zeon hardware, including Zakus, Goufs, and Gelgoogs, used as battlefield threats within a Federation-side operation. The story is not trying to be a sprawling role-playing epic. It works better as a concentrated war chronicle built around preparation, orders, and successive combat objectives.

Overall Experience

Rise from the Ashes has a specific kind of pull: it asks you to inhabit the cockpit and think like a squad leader while still delivering mobile-suit combat. The equipment choices carry real weight, the thruster limits discourage careless movement, and the ability to direct teammates gives the White Dingo team a purpose beyond accompanying you into battle.

Patience is the entry fee. The fixed first-person view and simulation-minded movement are less immediately freeing than an external-camera Gundam brawler, and the brief campaign will not satisfy anyone looking for a huge, sprawling war. If you would rather have a more outward-facing team combat game, Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon takes a distinctly different third-person approach.

For the right Gundam fan, though, the trade is worth making. This is a compact, unusual Dreamcast take on the license that treats suit selection, weapon discipline, and squad coordination as the heart of the fantasy. Its rougher visuals and deliberate pace have not vanished with age, but neither has the satisfaction of spotting a Zeon mobile suit through the cockpit frame and deciding how White Dingo should take it down.

Retro Replay Score

6.4/10