Super Robot Taisen (Classic)

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/superrobotwars/superrobotwars.htm

A fairly large look at the Super Robot Wars (Classic) series. There used to be a running joke in the forums where someone new would come in and want to write about this series, never minding that there are well over fifty installments and spinoffs, each of which require numerous screenshots. The whole project is a bit too expansive, but SilverStarRipper has done a fantastic job of compiling what's known in Japan as the "DC series", showing how they began up until the beginning of the PSOne era. It also includes a briefing on all of the various anime/mecha shows on display, since they're pretty much the crux of the series.

[magus]

nice to see this on HG101,i thought we would never see such an article here based on the "ALL OR NOTHING" rule...

...if we are breaking such a rule,a tales of article would be cool

EDIT: the article is nice and all,but i think it should have go up to the alpha series considering that when most people think about super robot taisen they think of super robot pilot screaming on top of their lungs

[Ace Whatever]

Is this seriously the completed article? Because while I can appreciate the effort, there are several glaring issues with the whole thing.

For starters, several of the games have very short descriptions that give off a heavy impression that that the author barely played them.

The inclusion of the Shin SRW and the spin-offs is very unnecessary in an article only covering the classic timeline because they namedrop several characters that don't become relevant until the later games.

Also, several games in this article have remakes that are just mentioned in passing and have no boxshots or even screenshots (save for 2G). Since when was this minimal coverage acceptable?

The explanation for the spirit powers system is very loose and never explains how it changed between the first game and the rest of the series (most notably the fact that now everyone can use them), as is the explanation for the energy and ammo system. Or how about the non-existent description of upgrading and the use of morale?

Also, it's nice that the author took my advice on how to handle explaining each series, but he seems to have forgotten completely about the mechs themselves as only a handful of show summaries have mech sections.

Moving on:

SRW1: "Items are equippable onto the robot itself as opposed to later games that are designated to the pilot."

To my knowledge items were always equipable on the mechs themselves. Which SRW game let you equip them on the pilots?

SRW 3 and EX have practically no plot summary at all. Especially glaring in 3 where the paragraph talks about the DC but the character section mentions two guys from the Inspectors.

SRW4: Several of the character archtypes you can use to make your characters go on to become original characters in the OG games. This is not mentioned.

SRW Gaiden has no character section at all.

Shin SRW: The description for Layzner mentions "4 Layzner units". I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there's only one Layzner.

Also, is the description of the SRX team accurate to the game or is it based on their appearance in later games?

SRW F Final: The description of the Ide Gauge should be in the Ideon's own section since it's a feature unique to that robot

Shin Masoukishin - Panzer Warfare - Playstation (1999)

This game plays more like a CD based version of Super Robot Taisen Gaiden, yet has nothing in common with it. Not much else is known about this game, other than it has loose ties to the Robot Wars series. If you know anything, don't hesitate to send an e-mail this way.

WHAT THE HELL, MAN?! If you know so little about the game that you're soliciting the readers for info then why are you mentioning it in the first place?

Cybuster anime: No screenshots or even an opinion. Considering most major video game to anime adaptations are reviewed here along their respective articles, this is a bit lazy.

[Discoalucard]

The series is so gigantic that a full-size article covering everything (or even parts of it) in the same depth as other articles would basically be impossible, so I'm willing to allow part of the series being addressed, and capsule reviews to go along with it.

I'm not familiar with the series at all, though, so the author will have to weigh on stuff that's correct/incorrect. (It still needs to be copy edited properly though)

[aganar]

Makes me glad that Atlus localized the Original Generations series. I've seen maybe 5% of the mecha cartoons featured.

[llj]

Aug 13, 2011 12:43:42 GMT -5 aganar said:

Makes me glad that Atlus localized the Original Generations series. I've seen maybe 5% of the mecha cartoons featured.

Maybe some of the newer ones, with the Evas and Gurren Laganns, would be more familiar to today's fans.

I'm familiar with a good majority of mecha anime in this series (even the really old ones), but have only seen maybe 25% of them, and finished maybe less than that.

[cj iwakura]

Raidis and Aya show the same character image on page 3.

It seems terse, but comprehensive enough to not make a reader totally clueless about the series(which I pretty much am aside from the OG games).

[ldorado]

I would like to make some interesting points about SRW 4, regarding two units: S Gundam/Ex-S Gundam and Blood Temple. SRW 4 is the only game in the series that has both of those two due to copyright reasons. Also, Blood Temple never appeared in the actual L-Gaim anime, although it is the one that Poseidal used to kill off the Yaman Tribe. The one you see in the game is actually the L.E.D. Mirage from Five Star Stories, more or less a reimagining of the L-Gaim world by the same creator, Mamoru Nagano.

Also, if I am correct, the difference between the Super Famicom version of SRW4 and the PS version is that the PS version fixed a lot of the bugs in the original version. Among them is the bug that keeps Dancougar from being able to separate and re-combine in most stages. Also, the point in the game where to must choose between keeping Dancougar or Combattler V has been removed--you can keep both . And I think they put in the Upgrade Bonus similar to SRW 2G and upgrading certain stats of robots dramatically improves them from the SNES version, such as allowing Dancougar to fly so that it can match Shinobu's terrain-adaption stats (which was a stupid idea to begin with). I think improvements were made to L-Gaim units by having the Power Launcher use up energy instead of ammo.

Oh, and could someone give me a link to the emulator and ISO for Shin Super Robot Wars and SRW F Final? I've been DYING to play those two!!

[Ryu the Grappler]

Aug 13, 2011 11:24:56 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

The series is so gigantic that a full-size article covering everything (or even parts of it) in the same depth as other articles would basically be impossible, so I'm willing to allow part of the series being addressed, and capsule reviews to go along with it.

I'm not familiar with the series at all, though, so the author will have to weigh on stuff that's correct/incorrect. (It still needs to be copy edited properly though)

Which is precisely the more reason why you need to go even more in-depth if you're only going to cover a few games in a large series.

I'll be blunt. This article is not very good. Each of the so-called "reviews" (which aren't really reviews, since there's very little attempt at evaluating each game) are just plot summaries, superficial observations of the graphics, and information about the anime shows represented in each game that you could easily get from a Wikipedia article.

The changes made to the overall game system are only mentioned for a few installments (like the ability to change pilots in Super Robot Wars III), but with little or no explanation as to how they affect the player's strategy (i.e. does changing Gundam's pilot from Amuro to Char have an effect in its performance). It's possible that there's very little fundamental changes between specific games (like in the NES Mega Man games, where most of changes amount to adding a new power-up), but there's not even an attempt to elaborate that.

It reminds of a common criticism I've seen in other forums, in which some of the articles give too much attention to plot and character bios and not enough in the games' systems.

Speaking of superficial observations.

Graphically the game hasn't advanced too much from the Game Boy title. It may be on a more powerful system, but the battle scenes aren't much too different from the original. The maps are roughly the same size, yet music has now been added to enemy attacks and some special maps.

I wouldn't call the addition of colors (no matter how limited the palette may be) and a higher resolution to be minor changes.

[Discoalucard]

Aug 13, 2011 19:34:17 GMT -5 cj iwakura said:

It seems terse, but comprehensive enough to not make a reader totally clueless about the series(which I pretty much am aside from the OG games).

These are my feelings as well. It's not super in-depth, but someone who knows almost nothing about the series, it's a good introduction, and the visuals and brief anime/manga write-ups make it more digestible than a Wikipedia article, especially for someone who barely follows mecha anime at all. Some things could be expanded a bit, but overall (now that I've finally cleaned it up a bit) I'm pretty happy with it.

[Ganelon]

Although I think more info would be great, I think new fans could still learn a lot from this article. The only tidbit I felt should be mentioned is that Neo SRW is unique in the SRW series for having proportional—rather than SD—licensed mecha. However, I do have 1 main gripe.

Can the title be changed to Super Robot Wars? Super Robot Taisen is a moniker normally only used by 3 different groups:

1. Pirates who never read any of the manuals
2. Japanese or Japanophiles who always prefer the JP names over official translations
3. Newer Original Generations fans who were introduced from Atlus's translation

These games are very clear that "Super Robot Wars" is the official English title. From as at least early as SRWIII, the English title has consistently been written as such in all official material including manuals and guides. There have been no exceptions to this rule so there's no reason to not go along with what Banpresto put forth.

When Atlus was pressed for why it didn't use the set SRW title in its localizations, one of its representatives stated that they tried but it was too close to the Robot Wars game (based on the TV series) in the US. That's the only reason Atlus decided to use the secondary Super Robot Taisen title instead.

As is, there's also inconsistency in the naming when the article doesn't use Wars for Taisen but it does use Final in place of Kanketsuhen. A few samples of the official English translations that were already given in the game manuals in place of the straight JP romaji in the article are:

"Super Robot Wars IV" instead of "Dai 4 Ji Super Robot Taisen"
"Neo Super Robot Wars" instead of "Shin Super Robot Taisen"
"All Super Robot Wars Electronic Encyclopedia" instead of "Zen Super Robot Taisen Denshi Daihyakka"

More and more modern fans buying the games nowadays are starting to refer to the series by the appropriate SRW title (maybe since it's listed in the manual of just about every JP SRW game in the past decade). Since a lot of new folks may read this article, it would be great if they're introduced to what Banpresto has always wanted. If you need any more proof, just check out the company's official English history: www.banpresto.co.jp/japan/company/kigyo/english/history.html

[Discoalucard]

That's a reasonable request. The submitted article was inconsistent in terminology so I changed it all (or at least what I caught) to Super Robot Taisen since it matched the Japanese name. But if it is indeed the official English name then it would make sense to keep it as Super Robot Wars.

[Ganelon]

Cool. Oh, and the the article should probably state at the very beginning that Banpresto created the series and that Winky Soft developed every game in the DC era.

Also, if the article isn't expanding in the future to include later games, then it should clearly indicate that the classic SRW series consists of the DC conflicts' timespan, before the series went isometric on consoles. Otherwise, it doesn't seem clear what distinguishes the classic series from later games.

[Ace Whatever]

People prefer to call it Shin SRW now to avoid confusion with SRW Neo that came out on Wii.

I still think Shin SRW and the spin-off section should removed until the article is expanded to include the later games. Since Shin is not part of the classic timeline and alot of the namedrops in the spin-off section are from the later games.

[silvastarripper]

Hi guys. Glad people are reading the article.

To address a few issues, I made the article to appeal to people that want to know the basics about the series without going crazy into the mythos. I apologize if I missed a few things here and there or if it doesn't seem up to snuff to the rest on the site. On the topic of Shin SRT: I had a tough decision on whether I should include it or not since it does (more or less) act as a prequel to the Alpha series, but I decided that some of the mecha in the game show up in F/F Final so I included it in there. (Mostly Gundam Wing though). The characters missing from Gaiden is an oversite on my end. I apologize for that.

Lastly, the Panzer Warfare game. There is little info out on it and the only thing I can find is some rumor that Winkysoft fell out of their relationship from Banpresto and made their own version, but I have not found any evidence to support this.

Hope this clears some things up!