Summary
Super Robot Wars, known as Super Robot Taisen in the East, is every Gundam anime fans dream. Tactical combat featuring not only original mobile suits, but also ones straight from multiple anime are thrown inwith super robots, alien monsters, demons, and more depending on which game you pick up.
It’s a series that has been running for over 30 years, but is only recently picking up steam in the West. If games like Super Robot Wars 30 or Super Robot Wars Y have you craving more mecha combat, check out the best games in the series.
PlayStation 2
PlayStation Portable
Super Robot Wars MX was a trailblazer for the series. Launched in 2006, it did away with the option of selecting your protagonist, instead making both of the original characters the pilots of your mech. The difference was that you selected your robot.
It also shifted away from the tradition of the Gundam series being central to the main plot, instead shifting those characters to more of a supporting role. A lot of the changes that Super Robot Wars MX made are still central to the series today.
Platforms
Game Boy Advance
While the Super Robot Wars series is mostly known for bringing together incredible robots from a variety of licensed sources, it has no shortage of original mecha to offer. Super Robot Wars: Original Generation focused on this, hosting no licensed characters whatsoever.
These robots remain some of the most popular in the series, serving as highly anticipated DLC units in the more modern games with extra love and care being given to their over-the-top attack animations.
It would be reasonable to assume that Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2 was more of the same from the previous OG game, but it served to push the series forward in real and meaningful ways.
With a completely redesigned UI and longer attack animations, something the series would become known for, OG2 took real strides to establish itself as more than just a direct sequel to the previous game.
PlayStation 4
Nintendo Switch
PC
Part of the VXT trilogy, X is a superb entry point to the series. It doesn’t lean as heavily on the serious and sometimes grim tone of the other games, while bringing with it much of the improved features of the other more modern games.
With the debut of series like Buddy Complex and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water alongside fan favourites likethe powerful Gurren Lagann, it also has one of the most interesting rosters of any Super Robot Wars game.
Super Robot Wars T has a broad roster that will appeal to a lot of fans, although depending on who you ask, it either benefits or suffers from being less difficult than earlier games in the series. Accessibility is essential, but many love a real tactical test.
Although Super Robot Wars T never officially released in the western world, it does have an English-language version that will work perfectly fine in your Nintendo Switch if you can track down a copy.
Nintendo DS
Super Robot Wars W made a lot of changes to the formula. It made use of the two screens andtouch-screen capability of the Nintendo DS. This overhauled the interface, alongside changes to the combo attack system and the support systems.
Changes like these could lead to a game feeling like it has lost the identity of its series, but this never happened with W. In fact, it’s one of the most requested games in the series to receive a port, remaster, or remake.
Super Robot Wars V makes excellent use of the Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 anime license, using it to establish a melancholy tone from the beginning of the game that it then subverts with a shift to a much less bleak reality.
How much you enjoy the story of any entry in the series is a matter of personal taste, but Super Robot Wars V sports one of the best and brings tight gameplay to the table alongside it, with some interesting licenses that haven’t been seen since.
Super Robot Wars 30, named to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series, is easiest to play outside of Japan since it was the first game in the series to receive a true international release. It also has an almost absurdly stacked roster of playable robots and pilots.
The game allows you to tackle its missions in almost any order you like, often leading to unique interactions between characters, and is a love letter to the series as a whole. It’s hard to find a better tactical time sink than Super Robot Wars 30.
