Released for the Nintendo Gamecube back in 2003, Gotcha Force is an arena-based fighting game that pits tiny robots (known as Borgs) against one another in hopes to save the Earth. Basically, it’s Autobots vs Decepticons if they were 4 inches tall.
I’ll be honest. I had never even heard of this game until a friend of mine gave it to me as a gift. Unfortunately, like Legend of Dragoon before it, I just never got around to playing it. Frankly, I always thought it was a kid’s game. What with its young protagonists and its child-like aesthetic. Apparently, I was wrong.
My live-stream chat later informed me that the game was not only good, but difficult as well. Curiosity peaked, I decided to make it the next game we finished on stream. Which leads us to the following question. Was it as good as Chat made it out to be or was this another game blinded by nostalgia?
Story
Does Gotcha Force have a story? Yes? I guess? Sort of?
Kidding aside; yes. Gotcha Force has a story. It’s just razor thin. Basically it boils down to a young boy named Kou finding an alien robot named G-Red. G-Red tells Kou that the evil “Death Force” is planning an attack against Earth. It is now up to Kou to find allies in order to create a kid army strong enough to defeat the Dark Emperor.
Along the way Kou meets up with several neighborhood kids. The youngest being (I think) 5 years old and the oldest being a pre-teen? They don’t really give much information about the characters. They just exist to fight alongside you.
Not all kids are friendly; however. There are three brats who, for reasons that I couldn’t figure out, have joined the Death Force. First you have Sho who, for all intents and purposes, is the Gary to your Ash Ketchum. He’s pretty much your rival. Then you have the rich, snobby brat Tama and finally you have the green-haired Orochi whose motivations I really never understood.
Eventually, you win over the hearts and loyalty of the other kids in the neighborhood and together you team up to face the Dark Emperor. The story is nothing special but it serves its purpose.
Gameplay
As we mentioned before, Gotcha Force is an Arena-Based action game. It’s a high-octane 3rd-person action game where you build a team of Borgs to face off against the enemy team. Every Borg comes equipped with 2 special attacks and a melee attack that can combo.
Teams can consist up to 30 Borgs at a time though you’ll be lucky to get upwards of 5 or 6. You see, Borgs cost “GF Points” and you cannot exceed the amount of GF Points you have in your pool. Smaller bots can cost as little as 200 points whereas the bigger, more powerful bots can exceed 1,000 points. You earn GF Points by participating in battles – which this game has in spades. Most battles will net you a few dozen Points whereas boss battles will provide you with much more. Usually in the hundreds.
Oh. Did I mention that Borgs also count as your lives? Yup. The amount of Borgs you bring onto the battlefield count as your life system. When all the Borgs die, you lose.
This adds a whole new level of strategy to the game. Do you want a whole-bunch of little/medium Borgs to maximize your chances of survival? Or do you want a trio of Heavies and hope they deal enough damage to kill the enemy before dying themselves?
Now having a lot of GF Points means nothing if you don’t have Borgs to summon. Luckily, collecting Borgs is as simple as playing the game. At the end of each battle you have a chance to earn one (or more) of the Borgs you just fought against. This either comes in the form of the Borg itself, or capsules that you need to collect in order to form a complete Borg. So you really don’t need to worry about finding Borgs. You’ll soon own more Borgs than you can handle. That is not an exaggeration either. From what I’ve been told, there are about 200 individual Borgs in this game. Each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
That’s pretty damn impressive!
Then there’s the Ally system. During the story-mode you end up teaming up with other neighborhood kids. These kids each have their own specialized team of Borgs that will fight alongside you in battle.
Now each kid has their own unique team. For example, your rival Sho specializes in heavily armed, melee-focused Knights. Tama on the other hand has a single Borg in his team but its a massive skyship that utilizes multiple cannons and lasers to decimate the enemy forces. Another has Jet-themed borgs whereas another has healers. These options allow you to further customize each battle to better your odds at survival.
For the sake of transparency; I will like to mention that there is a Challenge Mode and a Multiplayer Mode that I hadn’t tried. So, unfortunately, I will not be discussing either in this review.
Review
I like Gotcha Force. I like it a lot. This is one of those games that surprises you. It waves its colorful, childish design around before sucker punching you in the gut with its high-octane action and surprising difficulty spikes.
How do I describe my experience? Okay. So during the first half hour or so, the game lures you into this false sense of security. You’re tearing through the enemy Borgs with little to no effort. You’ll be facing maybe 2 enemy Borgs at a time. They each have very little health so it doesn’t take much to destroy them. Then will come the next wave of 2 enemy Borgs and you’d kill them easily as well.
Then, without warning, you’ll be facing upwards of 5 Borgs at a time. Each with mega weapons that cover the screen with bright, flashing colors and particle effects. You’ll watch as your favorite Borg suddenly gets bodied across the arena as if he weighed nothing. Lasers will blast you into oblivion and before you know it, you’ve lost half your team.
I am not exaggerating when I say that there are moments in this game where I can barely keep track of all the insanity that I’m seeing on screen. So many Borgs, so many weapons going off, so many explosions, so many special abilities firing off – it’s pure madness!
I love it.
For you see, these difficulty spikes forced me to reevaluate my Borg team time and time again. There were moments in the game where I felt like I had assembled the perfect team. A team who could destroy my enemies without a second thought.
Only for the Death Force to completely and utterly wipe me out. These new enemy Borgs rendered my tactics completely useless. They chewed me up and spat me out like so much scrap metal.
For this, I was thankful.
You see, it is all too common for me to fall into the trap of using the same group of characters from start-to-finish. It happens all the time – from JRPGs to Fighting Games. I find a team that clicks with me and stick with them until the end.
Gotcha Force forces me to do the opposite. It forced me to experiment with different Borgs – swapping out my Heavies for those with lower armor but higher speed. There was many a time where I eked out a victory thanks to a Borg I previously thought to be useless. This kept the game fresh and exciting.
Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for the game’s Storyline or it’s Voice Acting.
We mentioned before how Gotcha Force’s storyline is bare bones. It is basically the same plot as Power Rangers and Transformers. A force of good turns to kids to help them defeat their evil, almost identical, counterparts. We don’t ever learn why the Death Force is so bad nor do we ever learn the villain’s motivation. Hell, we don’t even communicate with the Dark Emperor until 3/4ths through the game. As such, I found myself spamming the A button to get through what little dialogue Gotcha Force has in order to proceed to the next battle.
The Voice acting is just as rough. Each character has a series of phrases that they repeat ad nauseum. The problem is that these phrases don’t match up with what the characters are saying on screen.
For example; Sho’s dialogue would read “…” but his dialogue would be “YES!”
To which your character says. “Who was that guy” but his voice would say “OH!”
It’s very conflicting. Sure, it’s funny at first but even I found myself rolling my eyes by the end of the game. I am sure this could be due to translation errors or something but either way; it was rough.
The music however, is upbeat and matches the intensity of the gameplay beautifully. I found it catchy and fun. If I had to make a compliant about the soundtrack it would be that there wasn’t much variety in the music. It had four, maybe five real tracks in the game. That said, the music was pleasant to listen too and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Conclusion
Gotcha Force was a pleasant surprise. I literally thought it was going to a laid-back game designed for kids. A “Babies First Armored Core” if you will.
I’ve never been so wrong. This game is intense! It’s non-stop, adrenaline pumping madness that keeps you on your toes. What surprised me the most was just HOW MUCH content the game throws at you. You get over 100 battles with the chance to collect about 200 Borgs – each having their own unique gameplay style and stats. Not to mention the multiplayer split-screen component and challenge mode. There’s even a trading option to allow you to trade Borgs with your friends!
The graphics are bright and vivid and the gameplay fast and tight. Even with so much happening on screen, I never experienced slowdown or stuttering. The few issues that the game does have (Voice acting and story) are so minute that it never distracts from the game itself.
I give Gotcha Force a 9/10. I highly, HIGHLY recommend Gotcha Force to anyone able to purchase (or emulate) it.