#please play super robot wars tumblr friends i'm screaming into the void

[rlyehtaxidermist]

SRW T first playthrough final thoughts

this’ll probably be a long one. or it won’t be? idk editing is for cowards and these posts are about COURAGE

Mechanics:

Nice quick section because there wasn’t that much changed from SRW X, aside from one nice addition.

They added a “Supporter” mechanic, where characters who play prominent roles in a series but don’t necessarily take to the field in mecha themselves can use a single large SP pool to support the active characters in a variety of ways; e.g., Vanilla, Gotho, and Coconna from VOTOMS give a bonus to money for one turn. This is a nice way to get the supporting casts a bit more of a chance to shine without either putting them in mecha or dropping them as sub-pilots on battleships, so I’m all for it. Plus, Rain’s SP restore was pretty clutch for my turn count in later stages.

I don’t think I talked about this in my X spaghetti post, but recent games (starting with V? probably?) have also allowed combination attacks to be used without deploying every single unit involved (albeit at a scaling damage penalty). In X, about the only use I got out of this was with Great Mightgaine, but here it boosted Mazinger Z, Rayearth, and Burning Gundam as well, so it really felt like a QoL option in a game with a very stacked roster.

Debuts:

The reason everyone got so fucking hyped about this game. I mean, Cowboy Bebop? Magic Knight Rayearth? Literally any iteration at all of Captain Harlock? Talk about your all-star addition list. But despite that, as I sort of mentioned before, the newcomer I ended up liking the most in T was the one that I barely counted as one when the roster was announced.

So lets talk for a bit about Mazinger Z: Infinity. I still haven’t seen the movie (though I’ve heard it’s good, and now fully intend to), but god, it gave us the dynamic I’d never known I’d wanted all along: an “X years later” Koji to go with Amuro from Char’s Counterattack and Ryoma from Armageddon. The latter two have been mainstays in SRW for a long time now (in fact, I can’t remember when any other version of the two last appeared; was it really all the way back in Z1?), but every prior Mazinger option has Koji more or less still in his “hot-blooded teenager” phase. T took this opportunity and ran with it, with Amuro, Ryoma, and Koji portrayed as old comrades reuniting after ten years of very divergent lives. It was the absolute highlight of T’s character writing to me (and T did pretty well on that front in general), and I strongly recommend the game to anyone who’s a fan of those three and their historical roles in SRW.

Rayearth was pretty prominently featured on the more “super-robot” heavy routes I took in this playthrough, and I feel like it had a pretty solid adaptation all told. It was definitely the most “straightforward” as integration goes, with Cephiro remaining an alternate world and thus apart from the rest of the setting, albeit partially fused with the Byston Well of New Dunbine. It was also the focus of the “SRW doesn’t pull all its punches” moment of T, with Zagato and Emeraude’s deaths not only unavoidable, but played out directly in battle in consecutive boss battles.

Captain Harlock is Captain Harlock. I haven’t seen the particular iteration that is Endless Orbit SSX but I assume it’s a spinoff of the Arcadia of My Youth film. The extremely thorny question of Matsumoto’s personal politics aside, Harlock is an absolute legend as far as anime space opera goes, and SRW fans have been wanting him and his crew around for as long as I’ve been in the fandom. It really didn’t disappoint, either as a unit or just... the fact that Harlock is there. It definitely felt more like “an SRW version of Harlock and the Arcadia” rather than “an SRW adaptation of a specific version of the Harlock story”, which is definitely the best way to go in my opinion. While I praise the Koji-Ryoma-Amuro dynamic the most, Harlock’s friendship with Bright was also a more unexpected but definitely good dynamic.

(Plus, the Arcadia’s final attack involves Harlock taking a boarding tube over and attacking with his gravity sabre. Chirico’s pistol has finally met its match.)

Cowboy Bebop was... I can’t actually say disappointing because god, it’s Bebop in SRW. Like, who the fuck can complain about that? But at the same time, most of the actual plot of Bebop didn’t actually get covered, aside from a few adaptations of one-off episodes. While I didn’t follow all of its route splits, I never saw Vicious once, and Spike’s dramatic final feud with the Red Dragons was only alluded to in the ending sequence, when the other characters note his absence. While their confrontation is on foot and intensely personal, it’s not like SRW hasn’t put villains in mechs who didn’t have them before, or set aside a stage for duels while the main battle’s raging outside. Mightgaine even brings a whole thematically appropriate organisation for Vicious to violently coup in the form of Hoi Kow Low’s Asian Mafia. Really, the Bebop crew and Spike in particular were essentially played as members of the Arcadia crew and foils to Harlock, and god damn it I can’t even keep complaining because that’s the most awesome fucking phrase I have ever written.

Oh, and Expelled from Paradise was there too.

(Yeah I know that’s the meme but I also didn’t really take any of its route splits and I haven’t seen the original show, so I don’t have much to say. Arhan is a pretty cool design and from what I saw they worked it into the Astragius side of things well, but that’s all I can say until I finish 100%.)

Other Stuff:

I already mentioned that the character writing in this was great but I’d like to give a specific nod to the OG cast. It’s the first proper, formal group we’ve had as English SRW characters, and I’m very much looking forward to their appearances in a future OG series (in part because their name pays an obvious homage to Alpha’s Project TD). They feel almost like the SRW equivalents of the Dai-Guard cast, but piloting the OG answer to the 00 Gundam. That said, OG will probably give us Saizo’s version of events rather than Sagiri’s, and I can’t speak to his route yet.

Also, to bring this maybe around to relevant to some of the people who follow me on this website, in a franchise that has no shortage of willingness to completely rewrite character interactions for the male and female protagonists, the whole supporting cast ends up gay for Sagiri. Textually. So score one for LGBT rep in SRW... now where’s my Samurai Flamenco debut BB Studio give it to me

SRW and post-series plots has always been a mixed bag but I’d like to give a nod to the handling of G Gundam. Its characters have their own arcs in the “aftermath”, and it’s tied in to Getter and GaoGaiGar’s plots pretty well. Domon also acts as the “edgy vengeance dude whisperer” around Van and Akito, which was another point in the “good character dynamics” checklist for T. It’s kind of a shame that they removed some of the combination attacks (Double Burning Finger was a very telling absence, with Allenby playable from nearly the start of the game, and even if Rain wasn’t playable, there was a perfect chance lategame to give Domon access to Sekiha Love-Love Tenkyoken), but G was always a bit heavy on those (if I recall correctly, at least once Domon had four!).

This SRW also debuted two more non-show units: the Shin Getter Dragon, originally from... a PS2 game or something?, and the Bellvine, from the New Dunbine artbook. I can’t say I expected either; Show getting an upgrade in particular took me by surprise (in part for reasons listed under Biggest Gripe). This coming after Mazin Emperor G makes me very optimistic about SRW’s willingness to expand rosters and gives them another tool to freshen the post-series plot problem.

Biggest Gripe:

I could put up with it in X but please, BB Studio. Please get rid of pilot-locked attacks. Kamille and Judau, I understand; you’ll probably not take them out of the Zeta or ZZ anyway, unless you’re doing something like an All Female Pilots run. But let Roux fire the High-Mega Cannon at full power anyway, BB Studio, you cowards. She doesn’t get the Zeta in this timeline, at least give her something.

Amuro... probably shouldn’t have a pilot-locked attack in the Nu Gundam if you ever expect me to put him in the Hi-Nu (in order to use both units at full efficiency, the Hi-Nu ended up going to Haman).

But oh, the worst by far, is Show Zama. He has not one but two pilot-exclusive attacks, one in the Billbine and one in the... not-quite SRW-original Bellvine; so if you want to use both of those units, you just have to accept that one of them will be missing its strongest attack. (Though it’s questionable to do so regardless, since someone seems to have decreed that every Battler other than Show be given a mediocre to terrible set of Spirits anyway. Seriously, Marvel and Tod have no way to boost their evasion despite dying in one hit to basically every boss after Chapter 35 or so!)