We don't always like being nonplussed

Friday, August 20, 2010

Favorite Flails: Super Robot Wars/Taisen

Now here's just about my most flailed series of all time- the one I plucked the menu screen from for yesterday's FIY. Super Robot Wars (Or Super Robot Taisen if you really prefer) is a series of simulation games much, much lighter on the strategy and number-crunching than Gihren's Greed. And once again, it will never make it to the US- at least not in its purest form. The villain here is the licensing fees: the main SRW series is a mashup of giant-robot anime from Mazinger-Z to Gundam to Evangelion and well beyond, featuring adorable little Super Deformed versions of things like Evas, which you wouldn't think could be adorable.

Aw, so cute! I wonder who it's about to eat?



Naturally you're going to get more out of it if you've seen some or all of the series involved: while the overarching plot apparently tries to combine all the series into one seamless storyline, individual stages are usually based on specific battles from the anime series that the game's robots hail from. There are bonuses of various kinds for following the plot of the series- finishing enemies in the right order, or with the right attack, and so on.

There is money, and some stuff to buy, but for the most part you're going to be worrying about damage and range numbers instead of resources and alignment. Every stage takes place on a grid, and movement and attack are pretty easily decipherable even in Japanese. It's actually not too bad to play through, with a few minor hiccups. You'll get shown a space on the map, and you may have to escort specific units to them, or keep the enemy from entering, or get your entire army there yourself. Watch for dialogue with numbers in it as turns begin; you may have a time limit to beat the stage. Or escape the stage. Or something. In most of the games you can save at any point, and I recommend it.

If you want to ease into the system before flailing your way through with your favorite robots, there are a pair of Original Generations games available in English for the Game Boy Advance. They don't feature any licensed robots, paring the series down to just the characters, plot points and machines created by Banpresto to glue all the licenses together. There's also a spinoff called Endless Frontier for the DS- I haven't played it, but judging from the screens I've seen I can determine that the character designer is a straight male and had way too much fun with the assignment. When you import, the best experience will come from the PS2 or PSP; hearing the original voice actors scream attack names in Japanese really adds something fun to the experience.

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