[Famicompendium] Super Robot Wars D
Posted on 10 years ago by Patrick(@Patricklous) in Famicompendium, Features, GBA | 5 Comments
So lately I’ve been hooked on a little game called Destiny. Like many others, I got sucked into its futuristic world and addictive gameplay of upgrading weapons to shoot down waves of aliens. Sure, sometimes fights take far too long, but it’s still quite impressive for a Game Boy Advance game. Yep, Super Robot Wars Destiny (D for short) is one interesting strategy RPG and a good jumping-off point for discussing the Super Robot Wars series as a whole. Hope you like giant robots!
What makes the Super Robot Wars titles fascinating to me is the way in which they mix together various robot-centric anime characters and storylines into one cohesive crossover game. In other words it’s officially sanctioned fan-fiction masquerading as a strategy RPG. Confusingly, two of the GBA entries in the series were released in the US with the Japanese title “Super Robot Taisen”, probably to avoid any legal issues with a certain similarly named TV program (real talk: a strategy RPG featuring the likes of Sergeant Bash and Sir Killalot would be awesome). Despite featuring the same gameplay mechanics, these “Original Generation” games were centred entirely on original characters free from any messy anime licenses, which is probably why they never clicked with me. Sure, taking turns leading militias of mecha into battle with each other is a decent enough premise for a game, but the thrill of seeing the likes of Gunbuster and Gurren Lagann team up and be faithfully adapted to an RPG form is the big draw of the series for me. I can’t think of any equivalent in western media that doesn’t involve teaching kids about the dangers of marijuana. The Super Robot Wars games are those rare licensed games that are not only perfectly playable, but totally get the appeal of the source material and adapt it in interesting ways.
