Quick Look: Super Robot Wars 30

「Well then, crazy ghost-chan of rampage, let’s go!」

「i love anime 」

「I was expecting different thumbnail...」

「Giant robots are cool!」

We need to strap Jan to a chair and have him watch the entirety of Eva in order to podcast as his mind goes「places」.

Don't worry, @janman . I haven't seen NGEvangelion beyond a VHS of the first couple episodes. And if anyone roasts you because of not seeing NGE, you are better off not knowing them. But a better question would be how much of Cowboy Bebop have you seen?

TBH, if you never want to watch NGE, then it's fine, because you are saving yourself a lot of mental anguish as some episodes in that show are hard as fuck to get through.

it's a cool game for those who are into tactics and mecha anime. It helps to have one or two robot anime that you like, but you don't need to watch all the series first.

One of the huge benefits of getting an official English translation is you can enjoy seeing the characters interact with each other as part of the crossover and that can make for a lot of amusing or interesting moments.

If anything, playing this game has made me want to check out certain shows later, such as L-GAIM. It's an older series yet I dig their aesthetic.

Oh, and this particular Super Robot Wars game includes Magic Knight Rayearth. That's neat and most people wouldn't know that series would fit in the giant robot genre, but technically it does!

Jan: "This is the first release of this franchise... in the US."

SRW: Original Generation games: "Are we all jokes to you?!"

The Original Generation games (which used only characters original to the series) were previously the only ones that made it to North America. It was mostly due to the licensing nightmare, as different companies held rights to the different anime series and didn't play nice with each other. You could get official English versions of some games by using a VPN and hitting certain Asian marketplaces though.

In fact Ryusei, Aya, Raidese, and the SRX mech (among others) are all original characters made just for the Super Robot Wars franchise. Though you can technically see them in anime, as the Original Generation games were made into anime after they were released. Though they are extremely difficult to find. I think the only existing copies of the anime version of the first game are poor quality bootlegs. You can Google specific terms to find a weird backdoor into part of Crunchyroll off the main site to watch it.

I started getting Battletech vibes when we started going to the menus. Jan should look at a video overview of Roguetech mods.

*reads description* Then what are we even doing here!? Though I guess Futurama taught us better about dating robots.

Loving the edited QL's on Youtube, works really well for me.

I still need answers about the space compass.

「Aw yiss SRW on GB.」

There's probably a lot of questions you guys have that never got answered, but I'll get a quick one out of the way. The brackets are the Japanese equivalent of the quotation marks in English, and them being there in this game is just an odd translation choice by the localization team.

Also @janman, I'll say that you probably shouldn't feel bad about thinking there's something lacking about the game in terms of it being a strategy game; aside from a few exceptions, this series really has been mostly about the "crossover fanservice" of the participating mecha animes, and the "strategy game" aspect of it is kinda secondary. They're usually balanced in such a way where if you know what you're doing (like focusing EXP on units you'll actually use, being efficient about earning money, etc), the game becomes kind of a cakewalk for the most part. That being said, if you like stomping through hoards of enemy units with cool looking mechs, it'll definitely satisfy that particular desire.

Jan, if you like Uso, you should watch Victory Gundam, but like... OH boy... it's pretty brutal.

It's got a good opening theme though:

https://youtu.be/OTYPjcrB9l8

@escapevelocity: After 5 games in English I'm pretty sure the bracketed text is an engine thing and not a translation choice.

Thanks for showcasing this - as only the third official US release for the series (with the prior two that were released here being on the GBA), this one is kind-of a big deal. The recent games have had official English translations, but you needed to import them from the SEA region (Singapore or HK) to get them. Licensing of the various shows is usually a mess here in the US due to deals worked out in the 70s and 80s.

That said, it would have helped both of you, I think, if you brought someone along who was a bit more familiar with the SRW games and mecha anime in general. Don't take that as a harsh criticism - it's just that as you noticed, these games are a bit dense. The primary draw is the way they weave the various series and storylines together. There's also quite a bit of history with the series, and with this game in particular being a 30th anniversary thing.

For example, the SRX and its pilots (Ryusei, Rai, Aya) are originally from Super Robot Wars Alpha (PS1 title). They're Banpresto "Original" characters, so not from a pre-existing series, though they've snce appeared in the two Super Robot Wars anime series. The SRX itself is actualy a combiner, formed of their three individual mechs (unfortunately just named R1, R2, and R3-Powered). The combination sequence is pretty badass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qhGkwMHz4Y

(From the SRW: The Inspectors anime)

The final attack in that clip requires a third mech - the R-Gun-Powered - which unfortunately doesn't appear in SRW 30.

Since you took the Space route, you're getting mostly "Real Robot" mecha (smaller more military-type units, like the Gundams), rather than "Super Robots" (the big stompy robots like Mazinger Z, GaoGaiGar, or the SRX). Reals tend to be more dodgy with more ranged attacks, while Supers are usually more tanky with primarily melee-type attacks. Both get big flashy attacks, but the Supers tend to be more over-the-top.

As a side note on that, if you haven't seen it, you'll probably *love* GaoGaiGar, which features pretty prominently in this game (though in a post-series capacity, following the plot of a proposed GGG x Betterman crossover).

I am a certified Gundam fan and man does this look not appealing at all lmao

「Fun fact: Kite from Victory Gundam is actually known as "Kate Bush." Obv they had to change it for the game.」

No clue where it came from or if it's a SRW thing, but seeing the name "Zanscare Empire" in my head cannon is headed up by "Zan", the evil Jan counter figure.

May wait for the game to go on sale but its not lacking missions from what I hear. Thanks for the quicklook Jan & Jess.

@nthnmllr: Guess you should return your Gundam fan certification!

The way these games rewrite and re-contextualize Gundam storylines in particular is very interesting. This one for example plays around in the space of exploring Char and Amuro's legacy in light of the world not rallying together after a literal miracle occurred explored by having Char and Amuro both survive CCA, and both very fucked up by the state of things. But in other games you also get SRWZ completely redoing SEED Destiny, to the point where the original cast came away going "oh yeah, this is a better version of this story."

Anyway Jan my recommendation is don't watch Evangelion, but do watch GaoGaiGar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgAazreoQqA

@janman A SORTIE, is to attack from a defensive position. I had to google that. Deligang represent.

A good looking anime tactical role-playing game.

The way VB says "ball guy" at 25:35 is excruciatingly cute

It's OK, Jan. I HAVE seen Neon Genesis Evangelion and it is overrated... 🤷‍♀️

It's influential and important but vastly overrated... so it's basically the Mario 64 of anime