Google Translate tells me that he thinks the thing won't let you take the survey until you finish the game, but that's not true. There's a serial code in the game's manual (just checked my digital one) that will let you take the survey. I think the survey just asks you to please play the game for 5 or more hours before you take it.
As for impressions from playing
a bit last night,
It was pretty clear to me shortly after Force was announced that this was not meant to be a competitive portable version of the game, so my expectations were already pretty blank. That said, I'm mostly enjoying it so far, considering that I knew it was going to be a stripped down game system. The button changes are implemented pretty well, especially since I'm familiar with that 'shift' system that's been used in some other mecha games (like Another Century's Episode). A lot of them are missing some moves from the Big games because you only get 2 'special' attacks, so that is kind of a bummer.
The one change that I'm not crazy about is removing the Burst/Awakening system. Any of you who have played with me know that I'm not very good at dodging, so having even that one-time chance to break out of an attack string was very important for me. Maybe this game will make me 'git gud'/better at dodging, but when you have a time sensitive mission and Barbatos gets you in one of his long melee attack strings, it can get pretty frustrating.
Another kind of weird thing is the Lock On system and Free Camera mode. When the first mission was forcing me to look around with the right stick in order to lock on to enemies, I did not like it. If you see my stream, you might see one of the very first things I do before getting into a game is increase my camera sensitivity a little. After getting into the first game, I maxed it out. It's still less than ideal, but I suppose they did need a way for you to be able to look around in the large '
Force' missions that are not just straightforward '
VS' battles in a small space. In missions where you're just doing the standard fights, it's not a problem. You can just switch between two targets as normal.
I find that I gravitate to the VS missions in the main mode to avoid the hassle, but of course Force missions are required to progress.
The Force missions themselves are kind of interesting? Since I can only read very very simple Japanese I don't really get what's going on a lot of the time. There was one mission in the Zeta timeline that I kept failing on where you have to protect a building but at the same time you have to capture enemy camps around you. I didn't solve it on the stream but playing it in bed later I did eventually get past it. Another streamer, not sure if he's a member here, was ahead of me in the game and gave me a tip to send my minions to capture the bases while I stayed to protect the building myself, and that did the trick. I hadn't been utilizing my allies much at all (since they were pretty useless in a fight), and there was a whole 2nd 'platoon' space that I wasn't using. Once I filled out the 2nd platoon and sent them to just capture the bases, it worked out better.
I have no opinion on the story or the little girl mascots because I skip them whenever they come up.
The force missions are actually...kind of MOBA-like? you have these enemy turrets (like towers) that spawn minions that try to capture your bases, and other tougher 'hero' units will also spawn. Your own captured bases/turrets also spawn autonomous minions in addition to the platoons you bring in and they march towards the nearest objective on their own. As you kill stuff and progress, you gain currency that lets you purchase temporary bonuses for your units, and you get some more advanced bonuses as you level up, leading up to a full on assault from your equipped battleship at the highest level. I havent' figured out what all of the bonuses do yet, but the ones I've been using the most are Damage bonuses and HP recovering. Damage bonus in particular was useful for that building defense mission, because without it it takes way too long to kill enemies (even with two platoons) and they eventually swarm and overwhelm.
Persistent progression is also very simple. For playable units, you gain some kind of EXP at the end of the battle, win or lose, just for the user-playable units that participated. Units that you can not control that participate (i.e. Amuro's Dijeh) do not improve or earn EXP, but if you have a playable unit that's participating as an NPC in one of your platoons (i.e. Hyaku Shiki, etc that you're not controlling directly) they will earn XP. Each playable character has certain exp thresholds that will unlock a bonus once you reach that threshold. Examples I've seen are simple, static things like 50% increase to shooting power, 50% increase to boost gauge, things like that. Nothing that you have any direct control over like in the previous Big games.
Haro medals are also part of this persistent progression. Your platoon composition is limited by a cost, I think it starts at 3000. So in the very first mission, you can only use 2k Gundam and 1k Guncannon in your platoon (nevermind that it forces you). As you collect Haro medals, it increases by 500 at a time. I'm up to 4500 right now. Haro medals are basically challenges in each mission. Common examples are simply clearing a mission, clearing a mission using a specific unit, clearing a mission while only using melee, and clearing a mission within a certain time limit. I mentioned earlier getting stuck in a Barbatos string in a time sensitive mission, what I actually meant is for one of these Haro medal challenges. In addition to increasing your platoon cost, there are also missions in each 'route' which require you to earn a certain amount of Haro medals to unlock. In Area 2 where I am right now, there's a mission that I'm pretty sure will unlock F-91 once I clear it, but I need to earn 24 Haro medals just in Area 2 before it will even let me play it. So that's my priority right now, lol.
The game is pretty stripped down from what we're used to, but they did put some thought into this single player mode. The Haro medals have juuust enough of a hook to make them worth shooting for, and maybe extends the value of the single player mode a fair bit. I'm concerned about the longevity after you clear all the single player stuff, so I do hope there's more to it after that or that more features get added later.
Curious to hear impressions of playing with a stick on a PSTV, I would suspect it feels the same but I'm nervous.
I tried hooking up my Qanba last night, it didn't take. Would be nice if it did! Maybe I'll try it again. There's also no way to manually set each button in the software, so depending on your
preferred layout you might have a little trouble.