#23 & #24

(This is a two-fer)

Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 1 and 2 (Originally released in 2006 on the GBA.)

I had always seen the chibi robot games as kind of silly and never looked that much into them. The main reason I never did was because I never had the chance. The Super Robot Wars series had been a japan release only series due to all the legal issues with the anime characters that were found within the game. Well, when Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation was created it did not have the limitations that the other games in the series possessed. Within its contents were new characters not tied to anime TV shows so the company could actually distribute to the US without any problems. The SRW franchise finally came over to the states in GBA form in the OG series, and I started to pay attention.

Original Generation 1 was my first attempt at this series. It was a pretty ugly game for its time, or so I thought. The map graphics were nothing to write home about, but the in battle graphics were not all that bad. They resembled the sort of anime look you would find in most 90s Japanimation. It gave it a real old school appeal to the game. The game is a SRPG and the rpg market was running dry on SRPGs and was starving even more for good and great ones. After the first couple of maps I knew this game was going to be special.

SWT:OG deals with giant mech-like battles so you deal with not only characters, but an assortment of robots the characters can pilot. 

At the start of the game you have the option of picking from two characters. You can pick from Kyosuke, the more serious of the two, or Ryusei the younger of the two who loves Robots. When I say Ryusei loves robots I mean its to the point of obsession and sometimes creeps out the other pilots. Both pilots are hot blooded and love the heat of the moment-type situations, but Kyosuke is the better leader by far. In the second game he is the hands down main character and for the most part is commanding everyone else. Kyosuke is also very lucky in battles, having survived numerous near death situations. He loves to gamble and also has a fiery girlfriend named Excellen. The two make quite the team, both as a couple and in combat.

In this game everyone who has a picture is either a pilot who possibly joins you at some point, or a villain who you will have to defeat eventually. Sometimes both situations can occur. There are certain stipulations for each map that award you with a medal. These medals are extremely important to the story because you generate different paths by the amount of medals you have collected. It changes the overall story ever so slightly, but you maps or characters that join you are affected. If you are a completion monger, you really have to go out of your way in some maps to collect each medal. It is not needed, but for those that enjoy the extra challenge. 

Each pilot is unique in the fact that they all get skills and different strengths and weaknesses like being more proficient in space, air, ground, or water battles. They all have all the normal stats you would find in almost every rpg and of course some pilots are just more talented and have better skills then others. Some pilots are obvious support units who aren't meant for battle up in the front lines. Others are good at pure attack, while others enjoy superior evasions skills and can pick apart the enemy with counterattacks.

The game separate the robots into two categories. There are real robots and super robots. Real robots are the more evasive type. Super robots are the bigger and bulkier models who can take a hit and dish out the major damage. Every robot also has weapons that you can pay to upgrade. Upgrading is very costly so don't expect to max out all of your units by the end of the game. Every robot has slots for equipping spare parts. Some robots have more slots available then others and some robots are better piloted by specific pilots. Basically you can assign almost anyone to any mech. It allows for tons of micromanaging during the intermission stages of the game. 

The first game is the introduction, while the second game is the more polished of the two. The second game introduces even more characters for you to play around with plus all of the pilots from the first game as well. There is also tons of new robots in the second game as well. The second game also improves on the battle sequences and makes them more pretty and a lot more flashy. I would just like to point out that while Gilliam gets no special treatment in either game, the dude is sick nasty and is my favorite pilot from the two games.

The second game tells a more complete story, but even at the end it seems as though there is more story left to be told. Sadly, a third OG game has yet to be announced. The two games that we did receive were blessings in disguise. I was not expecting these games to be so enthralling. After beating these games, I searched online for more of the series. There are only a handful of games that have been translated, but I have played through most of them and enjoyed every moment of them all. In fact, I just found out that one more has been translated, so it looks like I should be signing off...