GethN7
True & Honest Fan
- Highlight
- #1
While I still plan to do the SRW games threads, this is something a meta thread for sperging about SRW, SD Gundam, Gihren's Greed, and all the mecha nerding that can possibly be done in general concerning how the robot anime were adapted to vidya game format.
Going to start with some information that will amuse @Jaimas and @Cubanodun should find interesting.
Super Robot Wars "Classic Series"
------
The Classic name is applied to following games: SRW 2, 3, EX, 4/F/Final, Masoukishin, and any remakes and ports of the same.
SRW1 is not part of this, but I'll cover it anyway, as the Classic games essentially take what it started and build on it.
SRW1 - This was a weird game. There are no humans, the mecha are considered alive, and they are all beating the hell out of each other simply because some alien asshole decided to pit them against each other.
This barely resembles what is considered an SRW game, more of a curiosity really, and it featured a weird and frankly confusing "recruit an enemy mech to your team via trying to persuade them to switch sides" mechanic.
It's for original Game Boy, in English, I suggest hunting it down and giving it a whirl, just for the educational value.
Got an HD remake for the PS3 as a tie in bonus for SRW Z3 that just put it in color and had the same basic mechanics.
SRW2: This game is when Banpresto decided to revisit what they founded in SRW1 (mecha crossover game) and add humans to the mix and hang a story on it. The story is basically a guy named Bian Zoldark warned the world aliens would attack, no one listened, so he declared war on the world to make them give a shit.
That's basically it, and this was where the earliest form of the SRW engine got it's basis, featuring human pilots, dialogue scenes between stages, a prototype form of the Seishin/Spirit Skills, terrain having different effects, and the earliest and most rudimentary form of animation.
Was originally released for the NES, got a GBA re-release that was basically a port, both are in English. Got a Gameboy port a few years later that added G Gundam and Victory Gundam, but it's non-canon.
@Jaimas, you'll laugh hard at this: since they were still more concerned with making the game engine as opposed to plot, it's got the Zeon guys working with the Titans and the Dinosaur Empire and Dr. Hell are also working with them all under the banner of Bian Zoldark's Divine Crusaders, and the only thing really holding them together is shared hatred of the good guys.
About the only consistent plot thread from this that was retained was Paptimus Scirroco tried to take over the DC, Bian caught him, and Shu Shirakawa (who debuted here with Bian and Masaki) told Scirroco to not let the door hit him on the way out.
SRW 3: The aliens Bian mentioned finally show up, but you spend most of the game also fighting the Neo-Divine Crusaders, which Gihren Zabi and his family took over from Bian and used his corpse to smokescreen their interplanetary domination plans by claiming to represent what he fought for.
Still has the same weird mix of guys who should have no business being allies working together being allied since they all hate you basically, but they do follow up on Scirroco being pissed he got thrown out of the DC and wanting revenge, one route even makes him the final boss in a souped up version of Bian's machine from SRW2.
Lune Zoldark debuted here, and Shu was the canonical true final boss like in Alpha Gaiden.
Also the first game to let Anavel Gato join you if you went on a certain route, and the stupid love triangle from 0083 was resolved with Gato telling Kou that Kou's current girlfriend was his ex-girlfriend, they parted amicably, and he just wishes Kou the best with her if he joined.
This game introduced more Super Robots to the mix, generally minus most of their plots, and it also introduced the early form of unit upgrades seen in later games, and the seishin skills and passive pilot skills were refined into an early form of the modern game versions.
Translated into passable if slightly wooden Engrish, but it's perfectly playable for the SNES.
SRW EX: This game was technically the first Masoukishin game, but it's set after SRW3, which presumes the ally cast and a fair chunk of the surviving villains fell into a portal to the Masoukishin world of La Gias and were forced to join forces with different Masoukishin characters introduced like Masaki, Lune, and Shu.
Nothing too revolutionary happened this game aside from the art style being an early version of the cleaned up style later games in the series would gravitate towards.
SRW4: This game is basically when the game engine assumed the early form it would be for the rest of the series. Weapon upgrading was added, the art style received further polish to be less cartoony, and they introduced the idea of original characters you can pick from at the start, the Gespenst, Huckebein, and Grungust debuted here, and Gilliam Yeager (a character from a side project called Hero Senki) made a cameo here, his unit in that game was the Gespenst prototype, more or less. Resolves the alien plotline introduced in SRW3, you just fought their advance team in SRW3, they send their full forces after you this game.
The story writing also assumed the prototype of the style used from Alpha onwards, where they tried to make it be more coherent, allied enemy forces made way more sense (no aliens working with humans they'd otherwise shoot in their own canons or Zeon and Titans being buddy buddy), and they remade SRW 4 (for SNES) for the Playstation and Saturn, adding voiceovers, better music than the chiptunes they had been using, and adding in a lot of extra series (and dropping some others) in an attempt to flesh out the plot a lot more.
The PS1 SRW4 (aka F/F Final, because they had to split it into two discs due to all the added HQ voices and music) engine was later used to made modernized ports of 2/3/EX, which were added to the PS1 Complete Box collection, which updated their mechanics to be more like SRW4.
Masoukishin: The Lord of Elemental: The first all original SRW game, and the only one where they had mechanics that Disgaea players recognize like terrain height and unit direction playing a game mechanic role.
Winkysoft and Banpresto partnered up to do this game and a lot of the weirder engine design choices not retained for SRW Alpha onwards were their idea.
Covers the backstory of Shu Shirakawa and Masaki Andoh in much more detail, and is the first game in the Masoukishin line of games, which I'll cover another time.
This game is partial canon to SRW Classic, Alpha, and Original Generations timelines as well.
Got a Nintendo DS and PSP port, though only the original SNES version is in English, though game mechanics are identical across them all, all they did was modernize the art a little in remakes and change the scripts ever so slightly.
Going to start with some information that will amuse @Jaimas and @Cubanodun should find interesting.
Super Robot Wars "Classic Series"
------
The Classic name is applied to following games: SRW 2, 3, EX, 4/F/Final, Masoukishin, and any remakes and ports of the same.
SRW1 is not part of this, but I'll cover it anyway, as the Classic games essentially take what it started and build on it.
SRW1 - This was a weird game. There are no humans, the mecha are considered alive, and they are all beating the hell out of each other simply because some alien asshole decided to pit them against each other.
This barely resembles what is considered an SRW game, more of a curiosity really, and it featured a weird and frankly confusing "recruit an enemy mech to your team via trying to persuade them to switch sides" mechanic.
It's for original Game Boy, in English, I suggest hunting it down and giving it a whirl, just for the educational value.
Got an HD remake for the PS3 as a tie in bonus for SRW Z3 that just put it in color and had the same basic mechanics.
SRW2: This game is when Banpresto decided to revisit what they founded in SRW1 (mecha crossover game) and add humans to the mix and hang a story on it. The story is basically a guy named Bian Zoldark warned the world aliens would attack, no one listened, so he declared war on the world to make them give a shit.
That's basically it, and this was where the earliest form of the SRW engine got it's basis, featuring human pilots, dialogue scenes between stages, a prototype form of the Seishin/Spirit Skills, terrain having different effects, and the earliest and most rudimentary form of animation.
Was originally released for the NES, got a GBA re-release that was basically a port, both are in English. Got a Gameboy port a few years later that added G Gundam and Victory Gundam, but it's non-canon.
@Jaimas, you'll laugh hard at this: since they were still more concerned with making the game engine as opposed to plot, it's got the Zeon guys working with the Titans and the Dinosaur Empire and Dr. Hell are also working with them all under the banner of Bian Zoldark's Divine Crusaders, and the only thing really holding them together is shared hatred of the good guys.
About the only consistent plot thread from this that was retained was Paptimus Scirroco tried to take over the DC, Bian caught him, and Shu Shirakawa (who debuted here with Bian and Masaki) told Scirroco to not let the door hit him on the way out.
SRW 3: The aliens Bian mentioned finally show up, but you spend most of the game also fighting the Neo-Divine Crusaders, which Gihren Zabi and his family took over from Bian and used his corpse to smokescreen their interplanetary domination plans by claiming to represent what he fought for.
Still has the same weird mix of guys who should have no business being allies working together being allied since they all hate you basically, but they do follow up on Scirroco being pissed he got thrown out of the DC and wanting revenge, one route even makes him the final boss in a souped up version of Bian's machine from SRW2.
Lune Zoldark debuted here, and Shu was the canonical true final boss like in Alpha Gaiden.
Also the first game to let Anavel Gato join you if you went on a certain route, and the stupid love triangle from 0083 was resolved with Gato telling Kou that Kou's current girlfriend was his ex-girlfriend, they parted amicably, and he just wishes Kou the best with her if he joined.
This game introduced more Super Robots to the mix, generally minus most of their plots, and it also introduced the early form of unit upgrades seen in later games, and the seishin skills and passive pilot skills were refined into an early form of the modern game versions.
Translated into passable if slightly wooden Engrish, but it's perfectly playable for the SNES.
SRW EX: This game was technically the first Masoukishin game, but it's set after SRW3, which presumes the ally cast and a fair chunk of the surviving villains fell into a portal to the Masoukishin world of La Gias and were forced to join forces with different Masoukishin characters introduced like Masaki, Lune, and Shu.
Nothing too revolutionary happened this game aside from the art style being an early version of the cleaned up style later games in the series would gravitate towards.
SRW4: This game is basically when the game engine assumed the early form it would be for the rest of the series. Weapon upgrading was added, the art style received further polish to be less cartoony, and they introduced the idea of original characters you can pick from at the start, the Gespenst, Huckebein, and Grungust debuted here, and Gilliam Yeager (a character from a side project called Hero Senki) made a cameo here, his unit in that game was the Gespenst prototype, more or less. Resolves the alien plotline introduced in SRW3, you just fought their advance team in SRW3, they send their full forces after you this game.
The story writing also assumed the prototype of the style used from Alpha onwards, where they tried to make it be more coherent, allied enemy forces made way more sense (no aliens working with humans they'd otherwise shoot in their own canons or Zeon and Titans being buddy buddy), and they remade SRW 4 (for SNES) for the Playstation and Saturn, adding voiceovers, better music than the chiptunes they had been using, and adding in a lot of extra series (and dropping some others) in an attempt to flesh out the plot a lot more.
The PS1 SRW4 (aka F/F Final, because they had to split it into two discs due to all the added HQ voices and music) engine was later used to made modernized ports of 2/3/EX, which were added to the PS1 Complete Box collection, which updated their mechanics to be more like SRW4.
Masoukishin: The Lord of Elemental: The first all original SRW game, and the only one where they had mechanics that Disgaea players recognize like terrain height and unit direction playing a game mechanic role.
Winkysoft and Banpresto partnered up to do this game and a lot of the weirder engine design choices not retained for SRW Alpha onwards were their idea.
Covers the backstory of Shu Shirakawa and Masaki Andoh in much more detail, and is the first game in the Masoukishin line of games, which I'll cover another time.
This game is partial canon to SRW Classic, Alpha, and Original Generations timelines as well.
Got a Nintendo DS and PSP port, though only the original SNES version is in English, though game mechanics are identical across them all, all they did was modernize the art a little in remakes and change the scripts ever so slightly.