You’re thinking about trying out Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, but you don’t know the Principality of Zeon from the Zanscare Empire? Yeah, we feel you. Don’t worry, though, we’ve taken the characters form Gundam 2 and condensed decades of history into easy-to-read blurbs that contain every little drop and morsel of Gundam Knowledge you’ll ever need to know.

(1st Gundam) Amuro Ray

The classic all-American (Amuro is not American – Ed.) introverted techno-geek, Amuro Ray made fake history by becoming the first pilot of the Mobile Suit Gundam. This quiet warrior is the bearer of great power which will, no doubt, cause a great internal struggle as he wrestles with using it for good and not evil, like a jerk. 

As part of his attempt to be a good guy, and because getting involved with a “Principality” seems shady, Amuro joins the Earth Federation’s White Base, gets a cool uniform and fights to destroy the Principality of Zeon. Over the course of the One Year War he becomes a hero of the White Base and an arch-enemy to our next entry, super-hippy Char Aznable.

Being such a really cool dude, Amuro’s actions lead to the Federation’s victory. After that, he decides that he’s spent enough time being human and discovers his race is actually Newtype, a special race of humans who’ve evolved to deal with the harsh weather conditions in outer space. He still gets to wear his white jumpsuit when flying a Gundam.

(CCA) Char Aznable

A huge proponent of the “rid the Earth of all complex life” platform, Char is not often the life of the party. Since his political views are generally unpopular, he’s opted to try to get his way by circumventing due process and petition signatures. Instead, he takes control of the mobile suit Sazabi to pick a fight with his rival, Amuro, and the rest of the Nu Gundam crew.
 If he’d won, Char would have dropped an asteroid onto the planet and generally messed up everyone’s millennium. Of course, an asteroid that has entered a planet’s atmosphere is technically a meteorite, but that’s just one of the many flaws in Char’s plan. Luckily, he’s stopped by people in favor of not killing everyone, but his current whereabouts are unknown. He probably won’t even show up in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2. Our guess is he’s dead and the character art is commemorative. It’s a real shame, since Char is one of the few characters not afraid to wear orange.

Kamille Bidan

This asexual looking pilot is sometimes called the next Amuro, but whether anyone will truly ever replace Amuro is hard to say. Nonetheless, Kamille is an ace pilot of Zeta Gundam, a Gundam of his own design. That’s right, ladies, he can design and fly Zeta.

Also like Amuro, Kamille has discovered that he’s a member of the Newtype humans. While this grants him a great deal of non-specific power, it also becomes a great burden to his fragile personality and unstable character. Hopefully, Kamille won’t go all emo and mess everything up, but judging from the black accents to his jumpsuit, we’re not sure he can keep his cool.

Domon Kasshu

Domon, or as his friends call him, “Shoulders,” is known as both a ladies’ man and world champion martial artist. But perhaps his greatest achievement is his battle with his less successful brother Kyoji’s creation, the Dark Gundam – think regular Gundam, but more evil.

Even though going up against his brother is tough, Domon is discontented with attempting only a single heroic task at a time. While searching for the Dark Gundam, he enters the International Gundam Fight tournament as a representative of Neo Japan with his Burning Gundam – think boxing, but with more giant robots. And wouldn’t you know it? He defeats his former mentor Master Asia and wins.

Then, to top it all off, he beats the Dark Gundam and rescues major babe Rain Mikemura, who may or may not be profiled later in this article – we haven’t gone over all the names yet.

Heero Yuy

With a name like Heero, he’s gotta be good. Shockingly, though, he wasn’t always on the Earth’s side. Pilot of the Wing Gundam, Heero was sent to earth as a part of the dubious Operation Meteor. At first he was very effective as a highly skilled soldier, trained to value the mission objectives above all else, even his own life. However, as tends to happen with these things, his encounter with Milliardo Peacecraft’s sister Relena caused Heero to reflect on the wild way he lives his own life. Slowly, he stopped recklessly killing everyone and is now reasonably in touch with his “human” side.