Gihren no Yabou (
Gihren's Ambition), commonly known as
Gihren's Greed, is a turn-based strategy game set in the Universal Century timeline of the
Gundam franchise. It is based political and military management to the One Year War (and in later games, beyond). In a way, it is like
Civilization and
Hearts of Iron, but simpler to manage, and more difficult. This series is quite popular on 4chan's /m/board, with threads popping up every now and then.
The first game,
Gihren's Ambition, was released in 1998 for the Sega Saturn, the game follows the path of either
The Earth Federation or Principality of Zeon throughout the
One Year War. The player has 150 turns to defeat the opposing side with either a scenario victory or a complete victory. If you meet certain requirements, you can unlock factions such as the
Titans and
Char's Neo Zeon (though they do not have access to post-OYW units for obvious reasons) as well as Kycilia's "Legitimate Zeon". A remake was released on the PSP in 2011, including among others updated attack scenes, a new anime opening and characters from
Gundam Unicorn.The second game,
Gihren's Greed: Blood of Zeon, was released in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation. It added a complex political system to the game, the player can now improve relations with various third parties and get rewards(ie: Enemy mobile suits) and create ceasefires and treaties with their enemies. It added more characters from various
Gundam OVAs and stretched the timeline to the Gryps Conflict of
Zeta Gundam as well as adding
Axis as a faction. The map system was also updated, with battles taking place now on separate "battle maps". It was ported to the PSP in 2005.
The third game,
Gihren's Greed: War for Zeon Independence, adds an updated map system, political system and military system, several new characters, an updated spying system and Mobile Suits from MSV. The battles are fought in full 3D, unlike previous titles in the series. However, it only includes mobile suits and characters from the One Year War, and does not go beyond that timeframe. It does not include bonus factions, but it allows the player to create his own faction and choose such options as a leader (or creating his own leader), their base of operations, which captains and pilots to start with, which technology group their faction is in and what units the player starts with.
The fourth and most recent game,
Gihren's Greed: The Menace of Axis, restores many of the features missing in the last game and returns the battles to 2D, instead of 3D. The timeline is stretched to include the events of
Gundam ZZ and
Char's Counterattack, Factions featured in "Blood of Zeon" also make an reappearance. However it removes the ability to create your own faction AS well as the diplomacy system, replacing it with the
Alignment System. This game contained EVERY single Gundam protagonist and antagonist, that piloted a mobile suit or was on a warship. Units from
Char's Counterattack,
Ms Igloo,
Hathaway's Flash and many more are included—there are said to be roughly 400 MS/MA featured in this version of the video game. A major feature that was taken out were Event scenes, having animation: instead there are more than 400 still scenes created in collaboration with Sunrise to represent important events as portrayed in previous titles.
As of this writing, a fifth game has yet to be made, and the series is
not available for purchase in the West.
This game presents examples of the following tropes:
- Alternative Calendar: The Universal Century
- Alternate History: Since all of the leaders of the playable factions die in canon, and their canon deaths lead to a Game Over, this game is focused on this trope as they have to survive their canon deaths, as well as several What If? scenarios for each side.
- This goes into the technical side as well. As the supreme commander, you also make the decisions of what Mobile Suits get the nod for R&D, further developing Super Prototype suits that the characters bemoaned the lost potential of.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Averted; any faction can be played as Lawful or Chaotic. Yes, this means that Gihren Zabi can be played as a Lawful Good leader of his people (and gets a special ending for it), though this is much more difficult for the Principality to do than it is for other factions (among other things, it's very difficult for the Principality of Zeon to capture Jaburo without resorting to Operation British II). Overall, the game tries to encourage behavior in line with your faction's canonical ethics (Zeon and the Titans have a lot more faction-specific ethical violations than the EF or AEUG), but doesn't hold you to them.
- Always Lawful Good: Averted. See above.
- Awesome, yet Impractical: As powerful as the Super Prototype units were in their respective eras, just how horrendously expensive they were is reflected in their in-game costs. Sure, you could try to manufacture as many RX-78 Gundams as your budget can afford, but you may want to wait for the humble GM Mooks and their variants instead; less flashy, sure, but far more practical.
- Defector from Decadence: If Gihren proves to be evil enough, Garma and Dozle may rebel against him, along with many of the more heroic Zeon pilots.
- A max alignment EF player in Axis No Kyoui V can get Paptimus Scirocco on your side, along with plans for transformable MS after defeating the Titans in part 2.
- Enemy Mine: If you get the bad Zeon ending in Blood of Zeon for the PS1, Part 2 opens with Gihren joining forces with Revil and the AEUG forming an alliance fighting against the Titans, who has seized control of the Earth Federation and most of Earth through a Coup d'Etat
- Heel Face Turn: Many, but most notably, if the AEUG maintains perfect alignment throughout the game, Quattro will remain with the AEUG and not turn against the Earth.
- If you have perfect alignment as an AEUG-allied Revil's Federation, you can have Paptimus Scirocco deflect from the Titans and it may also be possible to prevent Jerid, Mouar, Lila and even Yazan Gable from deflecting to the Titans in the first place.
- Fix Fic: For every faction that you play as. You can prevent the canon deaths of certain characters and avert disasters that impact your faction negatively.
- Golden Ending: The max alignment ending is generally seen as the Golden Ending for the faction that one plays as.
- Humongous Mecha: As a Gundam game, this is to be expected.
- In Spite of a Nail: In the Principality of Zeon campaign, after the Principality defeats the Earth Federation, the Gryps Conflict still plays out on schedule, and the Titans, AEUG, Axis Zeon, and later Neo-Zeon all form as enemies of Gihren Zabi, despite the situation being radically different from the canonical history.
- Karma Meter: The alignment system in the most recent game.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: As of the fifth game, the game includes every single Gundam UC Character up until Hathaway's Flash. Through there are quite a few useless ones that you can use as a result of that.
- Mythology Gag: A lot for the Universal Century, by the very nature of the series. One example refers to the Unicorn Gundam originally being made for Amuro in mind. Depending on how the game unfolds, that's actually possible.
- No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted in that you can play as either Federation or Zeon, or as any of the AEUG, Titans or Axis Zeon in the Zeta era. However, Char Aznable's Neo-Zeon, Scirocco's Titans, and most other factions are unlockable and do not have full campaigns.
- No Export for You: Through, to be fair given the fact that Gundam is not popular enough in the West, along with the fact that it would take a LONG time to translate all the menus and units and find voice actors to voice the battle conversations, this is kinda of justified. Not to mention that chances are, Western critics would probably slam this game for having a lot of similarities to certain turn based strategy games that are well-received in the West.
- And to those who are hoping for a fan translation...well, you're out of luck, since the game has lots of menus and stuff to translate, it would take a REALLY LONG TIME and a lot of commitment, far more than most indie or fan projects to be successful.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Many special endings occur due to making the wrong decision in the event trees. Sometimes, this is even the historical event path, as with in the Zeon campaign, Kycilia Zabi executing Gihren for patricide.
- Oddball in the Series: War for Zeon Independence had a lot of creative ideas that didn't really pan out, most notably the create-a-faction and the 3D battle system. Shin Gihren's Greed for the PSP had a DLC system along with a system that focuses specifically on the storyline of various pilots that also seem to be going nowhere.
- Skippable Boss: Char's Neo-Zeon can be skipped in the AEUG scenario if you end both the Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ arcs with a perfectly lawful Karma Meter.
- The Battle Didn't Count: Averting the hell out of this trope is pretty much the entire point of the Mobile Suit Gundam: Gihren's Greed games. Killing named characters before or after the point they were supposed to die in the original series can change the way the entire story progresses, creating any number of Alternate Histories of the Universal Century timeline.
- Up to and including the survival of Gihren Zabi himself.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
- The Titans have plenty of ways to be evil; nuking Jaburo, murdering Blex, and setting up the Cyber-Newtype research labs. The only problem is that as in the anime, Scirocco becomes The Starscream if the Titans are evil, resulting in either Jamitov's assassination or Scirocco's defection to Axis.
- Through the game encourages you to be Chaotic as Gihren's Zeon, if your Karma Meter sinks low enough during the One Year War, either Garma or Kycilia might form their own faction, the latter being a HUGE blow as Char and all the Newtype pilots will deflect with Kycilia. Considering that this happens almost towards the final turn, it is very hard to be able to move on to part 2 if this happens.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: The historical result for most factions occurs if their leader is assassinated.
- What If?: This series deals with what-events such as Garma surviving the White Base's attack or Ramba Ral being given the Doms for his final battle with the White Base along with many others.
- Indeed, the survival (or deaths) of certain characters can result in opening up new factions. Among the possibilities are New Zeon, led by Garma and Dozle Zabi, and Kycilia's Legitimate Zeon.
- The Earth Federation campaign's second half asks "What if Johann Revil were alive to command the EFF during Axis Zeon's incursion?"
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