They said it could never be done. They said it wouldn’t happen in a million years. Nevermind the fact that it already happened in a mobile game two years ago. But finally, Godzilla and Gamera have finally crossed over into the same piece of media. While it’s not a full Alien vs. Predator or Freddy vs. Jason situation, having these two titans together is still something to be excited about, especially in the fighting game space.
When Passion Republic Games first started teasing the next DLC expansion for GigaBash by posting the Gravity Falls “After all these years… Finally, I have them all” meme, the community immediately jumped up and shouted “GAMERA!” And with good reason, too! They’d already given us two expansions for both Godzilla and Ultraman, what mysterious third IP could they possibly be referring to? Sure enough, the two teasers that followed lent even more evidence that we’d be seeing Gamera, as well as the knifeheaded Guiron stepping into the ring. And now, the Gamera: Rebirth expansion has been unleashed on the masses. And as the resident Gamer of Kaiju United, it is my civic duty to inform everyone of how good or bad it may be.
Thankfully, it’s the former! As correctly assumed by the fandom, the expansion includes the titular turtle and Guiron, generally agreed to be the stand-out character from the recent anime series. This is, I’ll admit, more than I was expecting we’d see from the expansion; I had assumed that, like the Ultraman: Rising expansion, we’d get just one character, Gamera, and that would be it, so the addition of another character to the roster is a very welcome surprise. Both characters are fun depending on your preferred playstyle, and I can see both getting a lot of play in online matches or couch co-op sessions.
First up is Gamera, who, as his appearance would suggest, plays like a tank. He moves slow, but he hits HARD. Multiple rounds in the game’s arcade mode ended with almost no health lost by the end of the match, just because the damage output on some of Gamera’s combos was so high. To put it into perspective just how strong the Guardian of the Universe is in-game, his special grab, done one-handed, bounces enemies off the ground in a fiery explosion, and if timed right, can be followed up immediately with his anti-air move, using his jets to launch himself into the air. Of course, he’s also equipped with his signature fireballs, which can also be charged up to leave temporary fiery hazards on the arena floor, setting ablaze any enemy combatant who makes the mistake of walking over them.
Guiron, on the other hand, ended up being very different to how I was expecting he’d play. Judging by the source material, I’d expected him to be extremely fast, bouncing around the arena at lightspeed. And while he does that to a certain extent (his Ultimate move especially), to my surprise, he acts more like a zoner. The huge blade on his head has insane range on it, and while he attacks pretty slow with it, he can keep enemies at bay pretty effectively. Coupled with his heavy attack – firing his Scale Shot, the charged version of which fires near indefinitely – Guiron can essentially end the fight from a distance without letting anyone come near him if played expertly enough. Even then, if players want to get up close and personal, his dash move closes the distance while instantly transitioning into a grab, and if, God forbid, an enemy tries to close the distance themselves, a charged normal attack will quite literally send your opponent clear across the other side of the arena, ensuring no one will get close to you any time soon.
Previous GigaBash reviews have stated that the delightful people at Passion Republic have not missed once when it comes to DLC expansions, and the Gamera: Rebirth expansion is no exception. Both characters are a ton of fun to play as, and while Guiron might be a little more finicky than Gamera (if only because he’s not quite as brute force a character), the learning curve in figuring out how he works is rewarding enough even for inexperienced players. It might be recency bias, but this might legitimately be the most fun I’ve had with a GigaBash DLC since the first Godzilla crossover!
Also, one of Guiron’s taunts has him cutting up a big fish, so, really, 10/10 for that alone.
