It's not easy being a videogames playing anime fan. Your judgement is often blinded by your affection for a certain series or movie, and you therefore end up buying every videogame adaptation that's on the market. The sad fact is that 90% of anime-themed videogames are badly programmed, shameless cash-ins. Macross M3 doesn't attempt to stop this sorry tradition. Previous Macross titles have been pretty dire. The only outstanding game to bare the proud title is the age-old SNES side scroller Macross: Scramble Valkyrie, and even that is only average by shooter standards. The appalling Playstation and Saturn versions are better left forgotten. History lesson over, let's get back to the present.
Macross M3 takes place in between the original Macross series (called Robotech here in the West) and the Macross Plus series. I won't expand on the plot, because there isn't much of one, to be honest. The fact that I can't read Japanese might not be helping, but the storyline seems pretty dull and uninspiring, and isn't helped by the unambitious static cutscenes that form the backbone of the games plot. There's the usual mix of aliens, robots, spaceships and large-eyed anime babes, that's all you need to know. For those Macross fans among you who feel I'm being disrespectful to the game's plot, don't get offended - in terms of story there is nothing here worthy of the Macross name.
The game proper is divided up into two rough sections - air and ground missions. The objectives of these missions are painfully unoriginal - take out targets, engage a single enemy, proceed to checkpoint, that sort of thing. There's very little here that stands out and this only makes the other negative aspects of the title more apparent.
Success in Macross M3 means getting to grips with your Valkyrie fighter. There are three transformation modes - fighter jet, Garwalk and robot mode. When in jet mode you can travel faster and make sharper turns. Garwalk is a middle ground between robot and plane, and robot mode is pretty much as it sounds. For combat in the air, the ideal modes are Jet and Robot, Garwalk is more suited for ground missions. Problems with the control system become apparent as soon as you start the first mission. You'll figure, like I did, that because you're in a jet fighter and you're flying through the air, the jet will control very much like those found in Ace Combat and Air Force Delta. This assumption is a mistake. The Valkyrie doesn't operate like a standard videogame airplane. Natural instinct tells you that pushing down and left will make your fighter bank sharply to the left. In Macross, performing this movement on the analogue stick results in a patheticly slow turn. This therefore renders dogfighting impossible, and removes any of the entrainment value that games like Ace Combat have. The fact that your viewpoint is locked in third person is also a pain - although target crosshairs remain on screen all the time, it often becomes hard to aim at your enemy simply because your Valkyrie obscures your field of vision. Another problem is the response of the craft - in Garwalk mode and Robot mode control is hopelessly slow and unwieldy, and for missions involving navigation through tight spaces, this becomes extremely annoying. You have two basic attacks available - Vulcan cannon and Missile. The Vulcan is your standard machine gun, and it when you target an enemy your cannon fire tracks it. If you press and hold down the fire button you activate the missile lock system, which places a box around each target you've selected. Releasing the button results in a volley of projectiles being launched from your craft. It's very similar to the system used in games like Panzer Dragoon. On top of these attacks, you have "action" moves at your disposal. These range from simple evasive manoeuvres to full-scale missile attacks, and the power and effectiveness of the attack decides how much of your "action" gauge is depleted. The gauge fills up over time, and this gives the game a welcome touch of strategy, but unfortunately the action moves don't really do much good, and when you activate one control of your Valkyrie is taken away from you for a short time, leaving you exposed to enemy fire.
I suppose I'll have to mention the graphics sometime. In a word: awful. I swear that if you removed the anti-aliased textures, this would be a PSX game. The robot models are so simplistic it's hard to actually tell them apart. The enemy robots are laughably rendered, with hardly any animation (the attackers on mission two stand motionless, and simply turn to track you). The ground stages are dull and sparse, and fogging is used in an attempt to hide the shortcomings of the hideously under-programmed game engine. On the ground missions slowdown is rife, even when there are no enemies nearby. Witness the second part of mission two - your robot walks in slow motion towards the distant target as the frame rate heads south. There really is no excuse for this. The DC has been around for years and we know it's capable of some stunning visuals.
Macross M3 is poor from start to finish. There are several other negative aspects I've not even commented on yet - the dreadful load times, the nondescript music, the limp sound effects - but I think you've got the picture by now. Don't buy this game. I know it says Macross on the cover, but resist. This is a stain on the good name of the series, and should be held up as an example of how not to use an anime licence.
1 out of 5
