Year: 2019 |Publisher: Namco Bandai|Developer: BB Studio |Original format: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch | Version played: Nintendo Switch
If there’s one long running series I really should love to bits, it’s Super Robot Wars. Strategy RPGs are my number one, all time favourite videogame genre, and I love robots of all sizes, especially giant ones, too! So why am I only just getting into this series in the year of its 30th anniversary?
It’s not for want of trying. I remember buying Super Robot Wars 64 on a trip to Japan in 2002, just because it had my best boy Giant Robo on the cover. But I’d sold my N64 by this point, so the box just looked pretty on a shelf. On the same trip I also bough Super Robot Wars A on Game Boy Advance. The tactical battles scratched that familiar Fire Emblem itch, but there was so much text that the ratio of time spent reading to battling just made everything a bit of a slog. An issue not helped, I suspect, by the fact I can’t read Japanese. What I couldn’t appreciate at the time is that the reading is a huge part of the appeal in this series. One might even argue Super Robot Wars is as much a visual novel as it is a tactics game, as I’ve come to understand playing Super Robot Wars T.
Traditionally speaking, releasing Super Robot Wars in the west has basically been impossible, one assumes, because of the tangled web of licenses that would need to negotiated in order for all those robots to appear in one game together. In Japan, of course, things were much simpler as Bandai owned both original developer Banpresto, and Sunrise, the animation studio responsible for a crazy number of robot shows, including the decades spanning Mobile Suit Gundam series. For this reason, only the Original Generation games, which exclusively featured new robots unique to the game, ever made their way to western shores. I never played those because, well, if there are no famous robots then what’s the point?
However, something changed in 2017 when Namco Bandai began releasing English language versions of the main series in Asian countries outside Japan. Quite why they did this, I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a large enough contingent of English speaking players in Hong Kong? Or maybe, just maybe, they knew that by using this loophole they could cater to import gamers who’ve been dying to play the series for so long?
Whatever the reason, I finally jumped back in to give the series another shot in 2019, when Super Robot Wars T released on Nintendo Switch. With this entry, I could finally play both in English and on a handheld – the best way to experience text heavy games, with all the personal intimacy of curling up with a good book.
It also helped that I had a passing familiarity with a good number of the anime series represented in this entry. The last thirty years of Super Robot Wars has been a revolving door of iconic Japanese robots. Some, like Gundam, Mazinger and Getter Robo tend to be evergreens, cropping up in almost every single entry, while others come and go, with each new game debuting a couple of series that have never featured before. As such, you tend to get a slightly different selection of robots each time and it might not necessarily be the case that your favourites will show up.
My own personal taste in robot anime is a little off the beaten path to say the least. My preference leans more towards retro style super robots, than it does mechs or “real robots”. So I adore the likes of Tetsujin 28 and Giant Robo, which have their roots planted firmly in the fun loving 1960s, or The Big O, which took inspiration from the latter and mixed it up with a little Batman: The Animated Series. Each of these robots has made only fleeting appearances in Super Robot Wars over the years, and I’m almost certain there’s never been a game that featured all of them at once. What’s more, I’ve never been a huge Gundam fan either. Which is unfortunate because Super Robot Wars is regularly stuffed to the brim with robots from at least five different Gundam series at any one time.
Though I had a general awareness of Gundam throughout most of the 90s – and I even loved the designs enough to buy one of those awesome plastic model kits – I didn’t get to watch any of the anime series until Gundam Wing aired on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s, and boy did I find that series boring! It was so dull that it put me off the whole franchise and I didn’t watch another Gundam until years later. When I eventually found out that Mobile Fighter G Gundam, a spin-off show about pugilistic fighting robots, was written and directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, creator of the incredible 1990s Giant Robo series, I finally knew that there was a Gundam made for me. In turn, when it was announced that Super Robot Wars T would be… a) In English! b) On Switch! c) Include G Gundam! I knew this was the best time to jump in and try again!
As well as G Gundam, Super Robot Wars T also features the debut of Cowboy Bebop. A strange choice perhaps, as it’s represented on the battlefield by a spaceship rather than a robot, but it is a crowd-pleasing choice. Even if you’re only a casual anime fan, Bebop is one of the most popular shows ever made and there’s a strong chance you’ve seen it. It was reassuring to me to know there would be at least two sets of characters here that I actually understand! On top of this, there are plenty of series that – even if you’ve never seen them – are popular enough to have penetrated the geek culture zeitgeist. Series like Getter Robo Armageddon, Mazinger Z or Arcadia Of My Youth, starring the iconic Captain Harlock, feature characters or robots you’ve probably at least seen in GIF.
Intermission… I guess this is a problem that only affects a minority of people, but I need to have a moan about it anyway. Any time you take a screenshot of Super Robot Wars T using the Switch’s screenshot tool, it plasters a huge logo in the top left of the screen along with a ludicrous amount of copyright text. Taking a video recording is completely prohibited and there are after a certain chapter it became impossible to take screenshots at all. Publishers… Please stop doing this!
Now as someone who really loves turn based strategy games, I have to say that Super Robot Wars is distinctly b-tier when it comes to pure gameplay. If you’re expecting something to rival Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force or Fire Emblem then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Battles play out on huge open maps with virtually zero level design, the enemy robots are pretty dumb and follow no recognisable strategy whatsoever, and your own units are massively overpowered. Each robot has a range of over-the-top attacks that do immense damage every time and though they do have a power cost for each use, your total power reserve is so large that there’s never any real limit to your options.
The whole game is a bit of a doddle. But maybe that’s the point. Sure, you could just spam the heaviest attacks until the battle is over, but when each move unleashes an astonishing anime quality attack animation, you really have to try each one just to see how cool it looks! Those missiles that leave behind smoke trails and seem to wind around in impossible arcs before reaching their target… A Gundam igniting its knock-off lightsaber before dashing through the shell of its adversary… A pirate themed robot shooting a chained anchor right into an unsuspecting victim… I can’t get enough!
There’s something about seeing these delightfully designed giant robots do their thing that somehow elevates the routine tactical game beneath. Which is absolutely what I expected to be honest. But what’s less obvious is the fun you can have with the pilots inside those robots. All the human characters from each robot’s series are here, and they’re the stars of the show in the other half of the game… The long, talky-talky bits that are kind of boring on the surface but become more fun the more you get to know the characters.
The visual novel sections are the part of Super Robot Wars that really run with the crossover concept and play with it. For the characters I do know well, it’s amazing to see how much of their personality, their nuances and habits make it across to the game screen, and in turn how these distinct characters behave when they come into contact with one another. The attention to detail has such a knowing quality to it that you can tell the writers – and presumably the localisers – have either done their homework or are real fans of these shows.
In many ways, it reminds me of Project X Zone, which was also published by Namco Bandai but developed by a completely different team at Monolith Soft. Somehow it pulls exactly the same trick, only crossing over classic videogame characters instead of robots. My level of familiarity with the cast was naturally way higher in that game and, again, any disappointment in its basic gameplay was rendered irrelevant by the sheer nerdy thrill of seeing Chris Redfield have a conversation with not-Bruce Willis from Die Hard Arcade.
When I put myself in the shoes of the hardcore, obsessive anime fan, I can totally see why so many of them have made an annual ritual of playing Super Robot Wars. Seeing these characters cross paths and do battle side by side is a great novelty when you only know a couple of them, so I imagine it’s a synapse firing joy when you know every single one!
Curiously, there is an unexpected side effect I wasn’t anticipating as a semi-casual fan and that’s the game’s ability to act as a gateway into anime I hadn’t seen before. Throughout the story, I found myself really interested in the character of Van from Gun Sword. This intriguing figure makes a bold first impression. He looks like a witch hunter and is obsessed with finding “the man with the clawed hand” who apparently killed his wife. He’s so obsessed; in fact, he practically accuses everyone he meets of secretly being his sworn rival. He’s a fun character and I liked him enough to head to Wikipedia and find out more about the show he stars in. Which means it’s only a matter of 5-20 years before I find myself on Crunchyroll typing in “Gun Sword” after I inevitably forget all about him and then remember again while playing another Super Robot Wars in the future!
This power the game has, to draw you in with your affection for one or two series and then spit you out interested in a couple more… I suspect that all plays in to Bandai’s master plan to endlessly sell more videogames, cartoons and toys; the marketing machine perpetually feeding itself. And you know what, I don’t mind at all. Playing this game finally inspired me to try out the original 1979 Gundam series, decades after I’d originally written it off, and just a few episodes in I’m realising that it’s a classic for a reason. I really like it, and if I had to play a few tepid strategy battles to reach that conclusion, then so be it!
In October this year, Namco Bandai will release Super Robot Wars 30, a special 30th anniversary installment that will see the series officially release in the west for the first time via Steam. I’m sure the anniversary will inspire the devs to pack it with more fan service and crossover madness than ever before, and this time I’ll be ready for it. I’ll be all Gundammed up by then and I might find time to watch a little of the new hotness that is SSSS.Gridman or hunt down a fan-sub of the super Nineties looking Brave Police J-Decker. Maybe I’ll finally fire up that copy of Super Robot Wars Alpha on the PlayStation just to see a chunky Giant Robo in action. I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of an obsession here, one that could wipe out any and all objectivity about the Super Robot Wars gameplay once and for all. And really, who cares?! If I want quality tactical battles then Fire Emblem will always be there, but until Nintendo’s finest can pull out an anime quality battle animation of G Gundam’s “Burning Finger” there will always be a place for Super Robot Wars!
SIX LITTLE THINGS ABOUT SUPER ROBOT WARS T THAT I RATHER LIKED
1. Gun Sword’s Brownie has an attack where she shoots directly from her butt. It is magnificent.
2. Though there’s no real animation as such in the dialogue scenes, there sure are some great facial expressions!
3. As well as his obsession with finding the claw handed man, Van also seems to love food, and there are several scenes where he eats some really weird recipes. I really, really hope this character trait is in the anime.
4. A genuinely useful part of the game’s options is the Library section, which allows you to look up info on all of the robots, characters and the series they come from. Whether you’re intrigued or mystified by the story, it’s a great resource. There’s even a glossary section that explains any specific terminology used in the script.
5. Some attacks briefly overlay the pilot art over the top of the action for a beat, and I absolutely love it! I’m not sure why but it just feels like it makes the attack that little bit more dramatic.
Finally, let’s enjoy some G Gundam attack animations in Super Robot Wars T…
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