High Dynamic Range Lying

It would be a lie to deny my almost unconditional love for all things related to gigantic robots. I grew up with the likes of Voltron/GoLion (百獣王ゴライオン) and The Transformers, and was, to some extent, privy to Gundam and its ilk. I dreamed of having my own giant robot to stop intergalactic evil with, and spent my younger days with friends, make-believing we were brave pilots in a squadron of giant robots.

As a young child, though, I never dreamed that I would ever have the chance to play a game that would allow me to control Gundam, Voltron, and Great Mazinger. The Super Robot Wars series offers such a thrill, and has for 15 years now. With other mecha based strategy RPGs like Front Mission on my list of must haves, it is no surprise that the SRW series creeped onto it as well. Finally finding its way onto the phenomenally successful Nintendo DS, SRW might finally find not only a larger audience in Japan, but also in the US.

Developed and published by Banpresto, the Super Robot Wars series is characterized as a Strategy RPG series, made famous by its excellent 2D animation, and its attention to detail when emulating the special attacks of famous giant robots. Titles in the series span several different anime plotlines and characters, as well as several systems. The series first began on the Game Boy, and over the years has spread to the Super Famicom, Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox 360, WonderSwan, Game Boy Advance, and now the illustrious Nintendo DS.

Contrasting from most western created turn based strategy games, but more in line with the japanese strategy ilk, the play field in SRW is made up of a square grid, rather than a hexagonal one. Players pick a set number of giant robot units in a starting formation, and do battle with units that appear. Turns consist of a player phase and an enemy phase. During a phase, the player is able to move all of their units, and perform one attack, before handing control over to the CPU to take their turn. When players or the CPU attacks another unit, the signature SRW animation sequences take place, which are usually lovingly animated, and always over the top. Super Robot Wars W is no different in this regard.

Sadly, because of the multitudes of licensing issues inherent to a crossover franchise like SRW, the series never saw release outside of Japan, save for its Original Generations series (SRW titles filled with mecha designed by Banpresto, avoiding licensing issues altogether), which was published by Atlus in the US. Thankfully, with SRW’s entrance onto the DS, there’s never been an better or easier time to import an SRW title.

Super Robot Wars has characteristically drawn a distinction between two factions of robots: Super robots (magical or sentient robots with little to no scientific explanation, such as Voltron, Great Mazinger, and GaoGaiGar) and Real robots (military robots with plenty of scientific backing, such as Gundam, Evangelion, and Nadesico). While Super Robot Wars W still recognizes this difference, unlike past titles, players don’t get to choose whether or not their main character is a super robot or a real robot. Instead, they’re given the game’s main character, and can only modify his name, his mech’s name, the names of his mech’s attacks, and his mothership’s name.

However, robot units that join the player’s team still share this distinction, meaning that each unit has to be used in a different way to ensure that no units are lost. The up side is that even if a unit is lost, the only penalty incurred is a monetary deduction for rebuilding the unit. The actual size of the penalty is dependent on which unit is lost. Sometimes, though, the death of specific units can mean the end of the stage, but victory and failure conditions for a given stage are easily viewable, which helps to quell confusion on the subject.

Strangely, losing all your units and failing a mission can actually be more beneficial than losing a single unit, though. Unlike many SRPGs, where losing a mission means starting over completely, the Super Robot Wars series is famous for being rather lenient in this regard. Unlike the OG series (which is known for being far harder than the regular SRW titles), W lets the player keep all money and experience that units garnered before failing the mission. Players can then further strengthen their units (using money), and try the mission again without any repercussion. While this mechanic makes for less frustration when a mission is failed, it is wide open for abuse, allowing characters to strengthen their units to a ridiculous degree before even finishing the first 10 episodes.

SRW titles have always numbered their stages as if it were an anime series, calling each stage an episode rather than anything else, but it wasn’t until W that a single game included more than one season. Unlike past titles in the series, W is broken up into two seasons (part of the W/Double theme of the game), and some of the mecha that appear in the game are unique to some seasons (such as Gundam Seed Astray), while others appear in later versions of themselves in the second season (such as GaoGaiGar appearing as GaoFighGar in the second season). Strategy RPGs have long stages, and by nature, can become rather repetitive if the game isn’t kept fresh in some way, whether its varying objectives, or new environments. W does an excellent job of keeping the game fresh by seemingly starting the player’s experience over halfway through the game.

At the start of the first season, players choose which three included anime series are their favorites. Series that are chosen as a favorite can be customized to a higher degree, and earn experience and money bonuses when defeating enemies. Because new series are introduced in the second season, players get to re-pick their favorites at the start of the second season. This allows players to either redistribute favorites to newly added series, redistribute favorites to series that were neglected before, or even keep favorites the same as they were in the previous season.

Much like a sports title, one of the most important parts of a Super Robot Wars title is the unit roster. Past games have had such series as Macross, Gundam Seed, Mazinger Z, and even recent popular anime like Rahxephon and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Not one to be outdone by its past efforts, Banpresto introduced two new properties to the Robot Wars family: Voltron (百獣王ゴライオン) and Tekkaman Blade. In addition to the new additions, the game sports characters from Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Astray, GaoGaiGar, Mazin Kaiser, and Nadesico. On top of all this, the main hero, an original character created by Banpresto, has access to three different mech units through the course of the game.

Super Robot and Real Robot fans will find at least one unit that they will particularly fall in love with, if not the entire player roster.

One of the story staples of the SRW series, is that many times, new enemies will appear halfway through the stage, or as soon as the player has defeated the current boss character. While this makes for some great surprises in early stages, later stages in a given season can begin to drag on when the player is cheated out of victory with another wave of peons. Many stages also begin with a few lone units fighting off a veritable army until the player`s forces finally arrive three to four turns later to assist. Stages where all the player`s units are involved tend to be rather easy, so starting missions with a few strong units can make for an interesting challenge. It`s in these stages that strategy begins to really shine in W, as players are forced to use each character for a specific purpose, rather than predictably swarm the boss with every character at their disposal.

Unit placement starts out unimportant in W, but in the later stages of the game, many enemy units are able to use the Multi-Combo ability (linking and attacking between 1 and 5 adjacent enemy units for unblockable damage), forcing players to completely rethink the way they place their units during an assault. The difficulty never becomes prohibitive for casual SRPG fans, but it forces players to plan a little more in a given turn.

As in other SRW titles, but unlike many other SRPGs, buffs are a very important part of W. Along with unit placement strategy, using the proper buff on a given unit can mean the difference between killing a boss, and losing a unit. Buffs appear in SRW in the form of skills. As individual units defeat enemies and increase in level, their list of skills of increases. Skills can range from cutting down all damage for on turn to 1/4, to increasing attack range. Since an individual pilot`s skill use is dependent on how much SP the character has left, the player is forced to play a juggling game; does he forego using a skill this turn and risk losing half of his health in the next turn, or does he use a skill to block all attacks, and risk being useless to the team in the last turns against the level`s boss?

Super Robot Wars W is fairly long, clocking in at 55 episodes (longer than the individual OG games, but shorter than the likes of SRW α and SRW Impact), and two seasons. Players looking for an addictive and engaging SRPG need not look any farther. Not only is the gameplay exciting and quick, but the game is also on DS, meaning you can even sneak a few turns of battle in while at your work desk, or on the train home.

Addiction has a new name. Its name is Super Robot Wars W.