Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier

While Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier is certainly a standout in the RPG genre, it seems to really only focus on two aspects. The game does have an interesting battle system and some interesting conversations, but everything else about the game seems unimportant. Almost to the point the the player is aware of it, and is easily forgiving because of it.

The games story has you taking the role of Hawken Browning. A Bounty Hunter in the world of Lost Herencia. Along with his android Aschen Brodel, they search a mysterious ship of there past and stumble upon a female by the name if Kaguya Nanbu. Kaguya, belongs to another world called Kagura Amahara where she is the princess of the Nanbu clan. Being the Bounty Hunter that he is, Hawken journeys to her world to receive a reward for bringing back the princess. On there way, they find mysterious crystals called Mild Keil that control people. So it’s up Hawken and his rag tag group to solve the the mysterious case as they travel from world to world.

One thing of note about the story is that there are multiple worlds in this game and all the people in these worlds are aware of it. Which makes this game the perfect excuse for cross-overs. Albeit minimal, there are some characters from other games that do appear in this game. Reiji and Xiaomu the two main characters from the never released to North America NAMCO X BANDAI make there debut and the every famous KOS-MOS of Xenosaga fame are all playable characters in this game. Each of those characters also have their own arch nemesis make an appearance as well. Saya for Reiji and Xiaomu and, of course, T-elos for KOS-MOS. Reiji and Xiaomu seem to have a competent reason as to why they would appear in this game but, KOS-MOS and T-elos are a whole different story. Instead of giving them some thought they make it just seem that they appear for no real reason. Which probably goes with one of this games aspects: Self-Awareness.

Not so much in the sense that this is a game, but rather in the sense of almost everything about the game being ridiculous. Most of the females in this game are big breasted and everyone from all worlds aren’t afraid to ridicule them. Most jokes, come from a sexual manner and those jokes, are around from beginning to end. It really does seem to be a twelve year old boys dream with all that is said. There are times when these jokes are rather hilarious but there are so many other times that these jokes miss that it pretty much desensitizes you, so when you do get around back to those jokes it really doesn’t mean much. In fact, there are very few times in the game when there really does seem a heart to heart moment. As i said in the beginning, the game does seem to understand its target audience with this game. If I had not been the person who I’am today I could of easily been put off with a lot of this game offered aside from its choice of dialog.

So you may be wondering about the title of the games name and yes, its true, it does have a lot of familiarities with the Super Robot Wars franchise. Three  mech units makes there appearance from the Super Robot Wars franchise (all of which are from original), and the two main characters share last names with with two characters from Super Robot Wars Original Generation, being Kyosuke Nanbu and Excellen Hawken but reverse their personalities. Not only do similarities arrive on characters but in combat as well.

The combat in the game is easy enough to get a grasp on but rather hard to master. When you enter combat, you have up to four characters upfront who can deal damage to your enemies. The way the battle system works in this game is, when pressing the A button you initiate a attack animation. During the attack, you watch as your character deals damage to the enemy. The enemy is seen juggling in the air and you have to chain your attacks properly for maximum damage. You can have up to five different attack patterns that are judge by your CP gauge, which is essentially an action point gauge. Once your CP gauge is empty your turn is over. You can also use skills, items and spirit commans (a Super Robot Wars feature) any time before you attack. These of course consume CP points so you should plan properly.

Sounds simple enough right? Well, one of the main objectives during battle is to keep your enemy in air for as long as possible. Initially, you only have two different attack patterns to choose from but as you level up you gain different ones to choose from which you can edit the order of which they come in the skills menu. Placing different attack patterns in a certain order makes you deal a lot more damage to the enemy or can do the opposite. At any time, you can interrupt your characters current attack with the next. Time it properly and you can be rewarded with some massive damage. Time it poorly and the enemy will hit the ground and you won’t get as much damage as you could of.

Essentially, the battle system is about keeping your combo streak going as you keep the enemy in the air. Other then just constantly attacking, you can chain together with fellow party members. If a party members turn is right after yours, just like interrupting attacks, you can then switch to the next member of the group by pressing right on the D-Pad and they can continue the onslaught. Once you get more then four members, the remaining ones will be placed on the back and be considered back attackers which works just like any other attack. Back attackers are called in at any time by pressing left on the D-Pad which will summon them in the order that you placed them, and they will do an attack animation and leave. Another neat fueature is the F-Skill. As you continue to fight a percentage gauge starts to fill. Once it reaches  one hundred percent you can press the Y button and your character will release their F-Skill which is basically an overdrive attack. It looks crazy and deals lots of damage to the enemy. Chain this with your own attacks and you can be easily entertained for a long while. But all this is ruined by the wonderful move that is introduced fairly early called Forced Evasion.

Forced Evasion is a mechanic that stops you entirely. You can’t do damage to the enemy, you can’t call in back attacks nor can you call in the next party member to chain your attacks. I’m not exactly sure how Forced Evasion works entirely, but, I can say, that it mostly has to do with making the enemy touch the ground. It’s almost as if the game is punishing you for not understanding the mechanics properly. Think of Forced Evasion as a counter to all the damage you could do so it prolongs the battle. But the problem is that, since this game is all about crazy attack chains, all enemies seems to have massive amounts of HP, which is probably ideal so you can see yourself doing all these crazy attacks, but throw in Forced Evasion and the fact that enemies can do massive amounts of damage to your party as well, Forced Evasion seems to prolong battles for far to long then they should.

Graphically, it’s 50/50. Character sprites are big and detailed with plenty of different portraits in dialogue scenes. And seeing the characters attack in the battle system is outstanding to watch. But where the game lacks is basically in game. Maps look generic and sprites look like it was made for the GBA (or even worse). The game basically looks like the grid based maps in Super Robot Wars and uses that for this games dungeon crawling, world mapping ways. When you see the character sprites from the dialog portions and the battle ones, seeing your character move and look in such a generic state really does take you out of the experience.

As a fan of the Super Robot Wars series, there’s a lot more I could say but, I think I’ll just end it here. It’s easy to say that Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier knows who there making this game for. And yes, those fans will be happy with this. But outside of that box, OG Saga is left in a questionable manner. With it’s poorly written story and over use (and yet sometimes clever) of cheap jokes, its easy to hate this game. But yet, for some odd reason, with the crazy battle system and characters of the world, everything seems to make a lot of sense.