Note: This game review is based on Version 1.60 of the PC/Switch version. It will address both ports due to the fact their basic game content is identical. Technical differences between the two will be noted as appropriate. Score will be based on the PC version.

One of the oldest turn-based strategy games is chess. In the modern-day, while actual chess is still played, Mobile Suit Gundam fans like to play digital chess with the units and scenarios of that franchise. SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is the latest game in that game series based on the Gundam franchise to let Gundam fans do this, and it does so rather well.

The SD Gundam series has largely been confined to Japan until recently. The previous game had English but had to be imported from Japan, while Cross Rays was given a full English release in Western countries. The games are either "Crossover" games, in which they have the various Gundam canons interacting, or "Historical" games, which stick to the original canon of the shows depicted. Cross Rays is one of the latter games, with the following series represented as follows:

The basic game concept in technical terms is that of a top-down, turn-based strategy game, with story scenes setting the backdrop for the combat sections. There are intermission periods when you can further customize your forces by training the pilots, developing your Gundam forces, and defining additional teams for different situations. As long as you have an internet connection, there are "dispatch missions", where you can send a team off for some real-world hours to gain levels, money, additional units/characters, and otherwise use these missions to reduce the amount of manual in-game grinding.

There are a lot of systems involved in the game, and the game is kind enough to give you tutorials on all the game features as you play. It can be a bit hard at first, the game only allows you a rather modest group of original pilots with so-so stats and some very basic units to assign them. As you beat levels and fulfill certain bonus conditions, progressively better characters and units can be unlocked to improve your originally paltry roster of units and pilots. Knowledge of the Gundam series depicted is not essential, they effectively retell the relevant portions of the plots line by line in the story scenes so you can experience the story the game draws from for the scenarios in question.

Graphically, the game utilizes a mix of hand-drawn 2D anime-style art and 3D CGI. The former is used for the story scenes and the battle maps, while the latter shows up during the animated combat scenes. Both styles look good, with the CGI scenes occasionally interspersed by pilot cut-ins done in the 2D style to accompany their attacks, resembling the similar jump cuts in the various Gundam anime series. The Switch port looks more or less identical to the PC, except for the animation in battle scenes being about 30 FPS to the PC 60 FPS. The quality doesn't really suffer, just the scenes in question are animated more slowly due to the limitations of the Switch processor.

Music and sound effects are cribbed directly from the series depicted, many of them as accurate as possible to the units and series they entail, with instrumental recordings of the music from each depicted canon playing when and where appropriate. The PC port has a custom BGM setting, where the player can use music on their PC to substitute for the stock game music. The music must be in MP3 format and can only affect the playable characters that the player can modify. Temporary playable characters in the campaign maps are not able to have their music modified, not without modifying the stock game files. Voices are all in Japanese with English subtitles. The Switch port lacks any form of modification, again due to the limitations of the Switch.

The game has full support for both keyboard and mouse and most officially Steam-supported game controllers on PC. The game is quite playable using either, depending on player preference. The Switch port defaults to the various buttons on the Switch controller. Both ports allow remapping keys to the preference of the player if need be.

The online features extend to the dispatch missions for which a few notes should be made for the Switch port. One, these missions require an active internet connection, and they have a measure to prevent cheating, saving all data to the game developer servers from before the dispatch mission, so if a player attempted to cheat by modifying values like money and other data with external tools, it would be negated when the dispatch mission ends. Any attempt to modify the server values during the dispatch missions is thus incredibly unadvised and could get the player banned from use of the online features.

The PC port, on the other hand, lacks this issue. While the Switch links up to real servers, it is all handled client-side despite the network connection check. This means, while not officially supported, you can use cheats and save hacking tools without fear of getting online banned, but this is not officially supported like the Switch version. The game does reset certain values after dispatch missions like the Switch port, so cheats and save hacking will be reverted to those values, so PC players should NOT do dispatch missions (or have any in progress) until after using cheats and save hacking.

Stability is quite good, though I did notice one or two unexplained CTDs (Crashes to Desktop) on the PC. While playing with a dedicated graphics card is recommended, a fairly high-end integrated graphics chipset would also be sufficient, provided all other minimum requirements are met. The game engine, similar to the Unreal and Unity engines, can be modified somewhat, allowing modding in custom music for temporary characters, changing out voice files and character cut-in art, and some other modifications are possible. Again, these changes are NOT officially supported outside of the custom BGM feature provided in-game, so this may affect game stability and is done at the player's own risk.

The Switch port is markedly more stable. I have yet to notice any crashing or issues on the Switch port. If Linux players wish to enjoy this via Steam Proton on PC, some minor issues may require some configuration, though reports vary, generally the game may require installation of Japanese fonts and locale settings. Otherwise, it runs more or less at native degrees of compatibility.

Morally, being a "Historical" game, it depicts events from the Gundam series depicted as they originally were and thus has some red flag content.

Violence is of the "give orders and watch it happen" RPG variety. While some of the origins of the conflicts are presented as morally grey in-universe, all of them generally take place within the context of military-grade weapons and their pilots engaging in combat where it is "kill or be killed", but the player is never given an option to shoot someone who is not capable of fighting back unless the character in question is a stationary device like an explosive or controlled by a computer AI, which also falls under the self-defense rationale. Some pilot cut-ins, if they sustain enough damage to their units, show a mild degree of blood and injury to indicate their situation is critical. No actual gore or remains are left behind when a unit piloted by a human being is shot down/destroyed.

Language tends to run the gamut of most of the PG-13 spectrum, with b**t**d, a**, s***, and b***h being rarer but occurring on occasion. Sexual content is generally low, with almost everyone wearing street legal clothing or pilot suits that are occasionally form-fitting but appropriate for military use in the real world. Mild flirting is generally the worst the dialogue gets in terms of innuendo, most being fairly tame and rare as the game is much more interested in military conflicts and politics. There is one scene where a man heavily implies he slept with a woman he was not married to, but he's regarded rather poorly by others for licentious behavior and even tells a woman who offers to sleep with him in exchange for his help she's better than him and shouldn't lower herself like that.

Update 9/12/2022: There is what appears to be a "lesbian" couple in one of the campaigns mentioned briefly, though this is shown to have been arranged without the consent of either the women in question by their families due to lack of male heirs. The circumstances are quite negatively portrayed, and both, while shown to have platonic concern for each other's well-being, are able to leave the circumstances that forced them into this arrangement, which both sides are pleased to do. The game is silent on whether homosexuality is approved of or not in the script. Still, it's not shown to be likely due to the lack of any explicitly romantic dialogue between the two parties.

Being based on showing content from the more "hard sci-fi" Gundam series, there is little to no supernatural content. There are a lot of units named after various mythological beings, like Archangel and Astaroth, but these names are all generally used as military codenames and other utility purposes only, just like in real-world militaries. One character goes from Muslim to apostate due to childhood trauma, although atheism is not promoted through this character story.

Given the Gundam franchise is often quite morally grey, it's very hard to tell most of the time who you are fighting for and if their cause is just, and sometimes both sides are morally questionable at best. Being a "Historical" game, you will be required to assist the protagonists, no matter how honorable or scummy they turn out to be. This can involve missions of assassination, rebellion against lawful authority, and other actions that could be considered crimes against peace on occasion.

Overall, this is a fairly deep strategy game for Gundam fans and those who like turn-based strategy with lots of customization potential. It's somewhat pricey even without the DLC, so it's recommended to get it when it's on sale, but it's a very technically sound game that is very fun once you get the hang of it. The PC port is superior in some ways, but the Switch port is both portable and more stable, so either is a good choice depending on your preference.

Morally, it has lots of military conflicts, some harsh language, and some morally grey at best themes, so it is not recommended for anyone who is not an older teen bare minimum, much like the shows it's based on. If you are mature enough to handle the content, though, this is worth getting if you want a fun if somewhat grindy strategy game.