Super Robot Taisen, Comes Out Today!

[Keith Justice]

It's finally landed. And we can finally understand what's going on in the story. :thumbs:

 

[Kamen Rider Nikku]

..I've been playing the SRT saga since I was a small child.. ..Imagine the look on my face as I thought hell was freezing over to see an SRT game come stateside.

Of course, it'll be the two games where Banpresto owns the copyright too, but, Atlus should take good care of this series to make it come out right with a --good-- translation. I will probably pick this up myself to see how much was changed storywise, what wasn't changed etc. ..I am a bit saddened to see the more 'professional' reviewers literally --rip-- into this game with all it's problems, but what they really neglect is that this game is over 4 years old and finally seeing the light of day here.

Well, OG2 should get some better reception when it hits here and hopefully it won't be canned midway or something and maybe, just maybe if this does good enough, Atlus will try and port Original Generations for the PS2 when it does finally come out in Japan [That one is looking --really-- nice.]

Hope those new and old to the SRT series gives this one a shot. Enjoy!

 

[Kyusaku]

Why aren't they calling it "Super Robot Wars"? I think keeping the word "Taisen" might alienate newcomers to the franchise. Keeping a simple word like that also makes me hesitant on the translation.

 

[Keith Justice]

I was wondering the same thing, actually.

So, is this one any good? Should I buy it?

 

[Kyusaku]

So, is this one any good? Should I buy it?

There's nothing wrong with the game, it's a typical SRW game. Except, you won't see any of your classic Super Robot anime heroes like Getter Robo or Mazinger Z because it's OG.(Which is why it was so easy to bring it over, no licensing conflicts) If you like their general style of gameplay(which I do) it's definitely something you should consider.

 

[Kamen Rider Nikku]

Why aren't they calling it "Super Robot Wars"? I think keeping the word "Taisen" might alienate newcomers to the franchise. Keeping a simple word like that also makes me hesitant on the translation.

Well, there really wasn't an offical reasoning as to why they choose to call it Taisen over Wars, infact, even in Japan I notice it's refered too as SRW more often then not, at little strange.

But, what does seem to be accepted is that it was due to Copyright Issues / Not to confuse people with the already existing "Robot Wars" which is a TV show and had a game or two come out as well. So they were left with the option to use Taisen rather then come up with some wacky name.

I was wondering the same thing, actually.

So, is this one any good? Should I buy it?

Kyusaku summed it up pretty nice, there really is nothing --wrong-- with it outside of the fact it's a bit old, but if you can play older games with no problem, don't mind up to date graphics etc, this game can be quite enjoyable.

The OG series really felt like it was more of a "Storytelling" game then the usual one, being that it focused on their own characters and there's no distracting Gundams, EVAs, and other giant robots to confuse the player with the jumble mass of ideas and confusion. The OG series really plays quite nicely and should be something for everyone. Provided you're into the whole giant robot genre period.

Now, OG2, which is to be released sometime after OG1, takes everything that made OG2 so great and fun and makes it even better, but really, OG1 introduces people who aren't so familiar with the characters allows you to learn them, sets up their OG selfs, and then OG2 continues on with the story.

As OG2 ends up being better then the first (In my opinion of course.) Part of it's charm is the surprises for long-time players of the series. Stage 15 comes to mind at an instant.

Anyway, long and unneeded explanation of the game aside, I think it's worth a shot really. IF you're into Giant Robots, and don't mind the complete lack of the usual suspects [Mazinger-Z, Getter Robo, Gundams etc].

Edit: Though my long-winded post, I neglected to explain how the game operates, as I'm actually use to people who are long-time familiar with the game series, even my friends who have no knowledge of japanese outside of a few words caught onto this game series quick.

Anyway, it generally works like this, you start off in OG1 by selecting your pilot and who's story you wish to follow, there's two main characters each with their seperate story paths and while they do merge at times and share some stages, in the end they branch off as well, the following two characters are as follows:

Ryusei Date - Your typical anime / giant robot / video game loving guy who gets to live out his dreams - The "Super" Robot route.

Kyosuke Nambu - Who can be summed up as your aloof loner type pilot with a lucky streak that could rival Irresponsible Captain Taylor. The "Real" Robot route.

Anyway, in the SRW world, 95% of the robots are either "Super Robot" type which involves overly large breaking the complete laws of physics in all sorts of ways with overly silly names for their equipment. The typical "Voltron" type robot, they can combine etc. In the SRW world, they're reflected by their higher armor, higher hit points, usually low attack ranges depending on the machine but disgustingly powerful attacks that can drain all their energy in a few swings, but leave you a big smile on your face when you cleave the boss in one hit... Oh yeah, they have trouble hitting things at times.

The "Real" robot, is what more people tend to be familiar about, the "Gundam"ish type models. Faster, slimer, more sleek and could be possible somewhere in the future. These tend to be the beam-sabering beam rifle blasters we all know. While they own in matters of speed, number of attacks, the ability to often hit and never be hit at all, they do lack in insane high damage attacks that the super robots can do, can't take as much hits so they need their speed to survive. Great for popping up everyone around.

Incase you're curious, here's a nice picture, just a size comparsion chart:

http://www.dra-mata.com/images/super-real-heightcomparison.jpg

Super robots on the left, real robots on the right.

Now, as for the actual gameplay and how this works, every stage you'll be greeted by much story, conversations to the characters, teams, sometimes you'll get to listen in on the bad guys as they discuss how to accomplish their plans, but, after-awhile, you'll be taken to your battle phase. Where each side takes their turn moving all their units to their desired locations, you'll start to see the 'real' and 'super' type differences already, as real robots will get to move further, and super robots move their spaces slower. If an enemy is in range, you'll get the ability to initate an attack, and if the enemy is able to attack back, they may attempt a counter attack as well. Rinse and repeat. During the attacks you'll be treated to a cutscene of what's going on, between your attempt to shoot at your target, to trying to dodge an enemy attack. Now, all attacks, have a % which is used, and at times.. it may feel cheesy as you miss a few 90% rolls, and the CPU will nail you on a 3% chance 3 times in a row. ..OG2 I found this happening often, but it's still fun regardless, but, having played SRW F and SRW F Final [Regarded as the hardest of all the SRW games], it wasn't too bad, but keeps you on your toes, luckly there's an in-battle save you can take advantage of if you want.

Of course, there are variables to the mix, some units can fly, some stages enemies will get reinforcements, you have "Spells" you can cast which give advantages such as "always have 100% hit for the entire turn" or "Dodge the very next attack" so there are stragetic elements to the game. Eventually, as you progress the game, you'll be able to level your characters up (Only takes 500 experience to attain a level up) and you'll get a large amount of characters, and it's --always-- easy to catch an individual's levels up, as it's scaled. Example:

We'll take Ryusei (Level 26) and he attacks Random Enemy Pilot who matches his level, and defeats him, he'll net bout 134 experience.

Now, we'll use Kyosuke (Level 10) and he attacks the same random enemy pilot (level 26) but destorys him with the use of "Seishin" [Your spells] or has some help weaking him, that could net Kyosuke well over 2000 experience, and with the certain pilots to have the ability to grant double experience to themselves or other team members, it could go to 4000, netting him 8 levels like that. To anyone who's played games like FFT, Suikoden Tactics etc, it can get annoying trying to get a low level pilot up there. So this helps out.

Inbetween battles, you'll get a chance to upgrade your mechs, from their hp, armor, speed etc, down to the strength of their weapons and for pilots you've been using who have been making kills etc, you'll have "Pilot Points" which can be used to purchase stat-increases, or special skills such as the regeneration of 10 Spell points a turn. Really nice seeing some great spells can be used for 10 SP a go, meaning it'll increase right back, and you can stack seishin together.

Anyway, after that, you're back to more story, and then more strategy fights, and during the stages, you can earn "Skill Points" which you get 1 per stage for acomplishing some wack task during the fight, such as "Clearing all the enemies before turn 5" or defeating this insanely powerful boss who will run when you knock him down to 30% HP, and more skill points can change the difficulty of the stage, resulting in more cash, more challenge and secret units and all that good stuff.

So that's how the game flows over-all, I might have missed something, but it really does feel like your tradtional turn-based strategy game. Banpresto must be doing something right, as the the series is celebrating it's 15th year aniversery.

On a random note.. I do agree with Kyusaku on one other thing, and that was the translation.. I did see some --REALLY-- early US screenshots, and they did a complete literally translation and a lot of the names came out funny, as with some of the text. I believe this was corrected later on, but.. I'll have to try it out to see how it feels / compares to what I've played before.

Anyway! Hope this helps out.

 

[Kyusaku]

Well, there really wasn't an offical reasoning as to why they choose to call it Taisen over Wars, infact, even in Japan I notice it's refered too as SRW more often then not, at little strange.

But, what does seem to be accepted is that it was due to Copyright Issues / Not to confuse people with the already existing "Robot Wars" which is a TV show and had a game or two come out as well. So they were left with the option to use Taisen rather then come up with some wacky name.

That's a good point I totally forgot about the Robot Wars series. Then it makes some sense as to not confuse fans of Robot Wars games.