0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Afraid Gear

        

Afraid Gear is a mecha fighting game with strategy and simulation elements, it was developed by Office Create for the Playstation 1, the game which was published by Asmik Ace Entertainment, and was released exclusively in Japan on the 29^th of October 1998.

The game is based around the player building his own mecha and fight in tournaments against other mecha in order to win money and purchase new parts and weapons for your mecha, you do this my navigating a small map with shop locations on you need to upgrade your mecha’s parts and weapons to give you a better chance of defeating better opponents, it may sound similar to Armored Core but the game has several differences that separate the two games.

The battle system is the first major difference, with it being almost completely automated, you can assume control of you mecha, but you are limited by what you can do, you can choose what weapon to fire and the amount of power the weapon uses, as well as aim the weapon at what part of the enemy mecha you want to hit,

The game has two modes regular and beginner mode the latter is where you are taken through the base mechanics of the game and how to build your mecha, this is also the mode that contains the story based elements of the game, via several anime cut scenes some of which are several minutes in length, while losing some quality due to disc limitations they still look pretty good for a game released in 1998, this is the only mode that has story elements, regular mode is just the mecha combat.

Sadly reviews for this game from critics are impossible to find so we head to GameFAQs, usually this just involves user rating, difficulty rating and playtime, this time however we have a couple of user reviews, first up a review from Goemon, who gave the game a 3.5/5 his review headline reading "Big, heavily armed robots that fall down all the time. Whee!", overall though he was fairly positive his conclusion reads, For some strange reason, I like this game.

I enjoy buying parts for my mecha and rooting for it in the fights, and cursing at it when it falls down. It's like watching sports on TV, only after the match, you can change stuff around and fight again! The anime sequences are well done, the battle music is good, and I think it's pretty fun. I like the non-linear structure of the main game, and the Beginner Mode is good for new players or anyone who likes good cutscenes. It may not be much like Armored Core, but it's a nice break from the ranks of the Ravens.

The second review from Tamahome, who was much more critical of the game, in conclusion the review had this to say in their 2.5/5 review, It is a weird combat system in which you have to take steps slowly and fire your weapons, and lock on and everything. Even if you put your robot on autopilot, the battle is still so slow that it is almost impossible to kill an opponent. IF you try the manual control, your robots will just fall down a lot and overheat a lot, overall this is a very disappointing game and a waste of money. I wouldn't recommend this game for anyone.

We also have GameFAQs user ratings, where a total of 8 users have rated Afraid Gear, with the game currently sitting at an average rating of 3.25/5, where 3 users rated the at a average 2.5/5, these were the lowest rating for the game with 2 users each rating the game a 3/5 and 4.5/5, the remaining user settling on a 3.5/5 for the game.

Difficulty wise 4 users rated this with 3 rating the game as having just right difficulty with the remaining user rating the game as tough, playtime date is very limited with just 1 user rating this category, they rated the lifespan of this game at 4 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, along with Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com, sadly none of these three retailers stock the game, so we head on to Amazon.com which does stock the game, there are currently two versions available, the original release from 1998 and the reprint, we will start with the original.

The original a very good quality used copy imported from Japan and coming with free shipping, will cost you $9.72, this is the cheapest for a very good quality copy, this converts to £7.58 in the UK, in Euro region countries it will cost €8.27 and in Nigeria it will cost you 3523.50 Nigerian Naira.

For a new copy of the original release this is where the price stops being reasonable, with prices for a new copy of the original game starting at $138.11, this converts  to 50064.88 Nigerian Naira, in Euro zone countries it will cost €117.44, and in the UK it will set you back £107.72.

On to the reprint where a used copy in very good condition can be picked up for around $14 slightly more than an original very good condition used copy, not the case for a new copy however which can be picked up for about $20.

Ebay.com are light on copies of this game with a used copy of the game, this is a complete copy in good condition, shipped from Japan can be picked up for $10 + $6 for shipping, another copy is slightly cheaper, this ships from France and is currently on sale this one comes to around $12 once shipping is added in

Written by

P J Gibbon