There are a lot of things I like about the game (The Dreisstrager crew and Az are charming and Az's battle themes in particular are great, having Amuro and Char actually deal with the aftereffects of CCA, the main theme, using GaoGaiGar vs. Betterman instead of retreading the original GGG or Final again, the remixes of each series's theme, the way the game pairs up series like Gridman and J-Decker or Victory Gundam and L-Gaim based off of similarities in themes or in ways that would make sense within the mixed up fanfiction world that is any SRW, and the ability to make even your favorite background character the most powerful being in existence), but the game is just way too fucking long. Yeah there are only like 40 missions that are "required", but since a bunch of the crossover character moments and cool weapons/unit upgrades are in the optional mission, that more than triples the final mission count of the game. I did basically everything other than the repeatable front missions (this includes the first DLC pac since of course I was going to use the Sakura Wars units) and ended with a total mission count of 155 and a final playtime of 168 hours. If some of the missions had been combined to shave that total count down to like 100, the game would have been great, but the relatively simple mechanics of SRW just can't carry a game for this long.
But this is the only game where I can watch Gridman, Guy Shishioh, Quattro Bajeena, and Ichiro Ogami fight together so it's a 10/10 in my heart
But this is the only game where I can watch Gridman, Guy Shishioh, Quattro Bajeena, and Ichiro Ogami fight together so it's a 10/10 in my heart
On one hand, I really enjoyed the storylines that I cared about. On the other hand, I was subjected to what basically amounted to unskippable cutscenes of the characters I couldn't stand.
Which, it's a battle tactics game that is also pretty much a visual novel. It's a collection of mecha series and it's got a damn big collection going for it. But... at the same time, out of the ~33(?) properties that were used in the game, I only actually really cared about what eleven or so of the casts had to say.
On the other hand, I loved the original characters in this one and it has perhaps fried parts of my brain forever. You can really tell that the scenario writers were having fun, and a lot of the time it IS infectious, just like another reviewer said.
As a battle tactics game I also have to say that it was too easy to the point of not being particularly engaging, even on the harder difficulties for me.
Which, it's a battle tactics game that is also pretty much a visual novel. It's a collection of mecha series and it's got a damn big collection going for it. But... at the same time, out of the ~33(?) properties that were used in the game, I only actually really cared about what eleven or so of the casts had to say.
On the other hand, I loved the original characters in this one and it has perhaps fried parts of my brain forever. You can really tell that the scenario writers were having fun, and a lot of the time it IS infectious, just like another reviewer said.
As a battle tactics game I also have to say that it was too easy to the point of not being particularly engaging, even on the harder difficulties for me.
这作任务很多 随便打打就碾压了
还有 我的多蒙呢！
还有 我的多蒙呢！
(Review orginally posted on Steam.)
Super Robot Wars 30 is one of the most infectiously fun games I’ve played - every new mech, weapon, and character makes me grin from ear to ear. The animations are so fun that I always join in with the characters - going IKEEEEEE! with Itsumi when Gridman does Gridman Beam, or BUSTAHHHHHH! when Masaki does Akashic Buster.
The game knows where its bread is buttered and knocks the most important thing out of the park - the attack animations you’ll see thousands and thousands of times. You pick the mechs you know best and are most fun to watch, and you overkill enemies with your superweapons, because there’s a reason this series became well known in the West through Youtube compilations of attack animations.
Speaking of which, it’s a miracle that this game came to the West at all. Super Robot Wars is huge in Japan and beloved by SRPG and mech enthusiasts, but due to nightmarish licensing, the only official Western releases were the Original Generations games on GBA. Even the PS2 remakes weren’t released here. That Super Robot Wars gets a chance to shine on Steam feels impossible, and the hope of getting more in English is arguably worth picking it up for alone.
Unfortunately, it’s also a very hard sell at the base price of $60, much less the laughable price of $130 for the game and every major DLC. No matter how fun the animations are and how fun it is to see series I recognize like SSSS.Gridman, the game is so poorly designed and mediocre that it just isn’t any fun to actually play it.
The primary problem is the difficulty, or lack thereof. The difficulty is done in the laziest way possible, as all but one of the higher difficulties increase enemy stats without changing anything else. But, comically, the highest base game difficulty is so badly designed that it makes the game easier - Super Expert increases enemy levels by 20 universally without adjusting your EXP, which mean you struggle at first, but soon your units level extremely fast and you snowball past your opponents. The only issue is early and new units, since your unupgraded units are severely outgunned, which is frustrating even on regular Expert.
That wouldn’t be as much of a problem if everything given to the player wasn’t so busted, so that the level scaling mattered. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of strange choices. Every type of upgrade you have (AOS, unit upgrades, skill upgrades) uses different resources and is just a raw boost, so there’s never an opportunity cost. The most ridiculous is the AOS system, which just gives you cheap, exponential benefits. For instance, you can spend resources in AOS to increase how many AOS resources you gain each mission, so it pays for itself and then every other upgrade instantly. The stacking AOS benefits make you and your units so strong they feel like cheats.
Even more strangely, there is a paid DLC including Super Expert Plus (yes, a DLC difficulty) that redesigns the game and seems like a response to these criticisms. Among other changes, experience gain is significantly lower and upgrades are significantly more expensive. It’s a bandaid, but it’s a great idea for people who want a challenge. Except that it is intentionally designed to be feasible only if you’re on NG+, and it inherits all the problems of base Super Expert, so unit introduction missions where you fight massive hordes of level 21+ units with your unupgraded level 1 unit are completely unfair.
There’s very little reason why the rule changes in Super Expert Plus couldn’t have been a separate mode, or even just the option for an Expert Plus difficulty that has the rule changes but is more reasonable. Instead, Super Expert Plus goes the complete opposite direction and is far too difficult unless you’re playing New Game Plus... meaning somewhere around 100 hours of play-in-your-sleep gameplay later. Why bother?
People will argue the game is a power fantasy, but even the most overt power fantasies exist to feel like you’ve overcome something. Doom with God Mode turned on might still be a power fantasy, but it’s a boring one when you can’t ever lose.
You will never die in Super Robot Wars 30, even on Expert. There are so many upgrades, all of your units start off ridiculous and only get better, and even light upgrades make already busted units invincible. The “evasion” stat is the worst, since it completely nullifies damage, so units with massive evasion stats ARE using God Mode. Combine this with equipment that makes it so that enemy units with a low chance to hit always miss, and it’s GG.
The lazy design decisions extend to the rest of the game too. Terrain is entirely vestigial from previous Super Robot Wars titles. The maps are almost entirely flat, unmodelled squares with no relevant terrain variety. There are almost no enemies that have to be fought in the air. And yet, I have never noticed a unit with less than a B in any terrain stat, and weapons have nonsense stats that contradict the game’s own dialogue.
For instance, Gridman has an entire mission about struggling against Air units, but the Sky Gridman it introduces - the weapon that literally has “Sky” in it - has an A in Air, not S. All of Gridman’s other attacks, including his Melee attacks, have an A in Air, meaning he’s just as effective fighting with a sword. And, in those animations, he just floats, since they couldn’t bother to make it so that Gridman can’t fight Air enemies without Sky Gridman, or to adjust the sprites so that he’s standing on the ground afterwards. It’s goofy and cheap.
OK, fine, but you’re not here for gameplay. It’s Super Robot Wars, you’re here for crossovers and characters. Well, those elements of the game are... questionable. At the game’s best, the characters and dialogue are a lot of fun, and a hugely appreciated amount of effort has gone into taking the game’s non-linearity into account and integrating DLC characters into the dialogue and story. If you know the series, like I do with Gridman, you’ll be over the moon at seeing them represented so well, and if you don’t know the series at all, like me with Gundam: IBO, you might enjoy what you see so much you check it out.
At the game’s worst, the dialogue is excruciating, while the presentation is so cheap it’s astonishing that it is in a $60 game. Sometimes, this is because of horrible characters, like those from Knight’s and Magic, a stereotypical, embarrassing isekai series. But most of the time, the localization is at fault. The localization for SRW30 is by a team including members of Carpe Fulgur, most famous for Recettear, and it shows. Characters are snarky and use slang-y, How Do You Do Fellow Kids tier dialogue regardless of their personalities or series. If you’re someone who hates “Whedon dialogue,” you’re going to find it very hard to sit through.
And, oh boy, will you be sitting through it - the presentation is embarrassing by the standards of RPG Maker 2000. My breaking point was the first Code Geass mission. The opening cutscene goes on for an entire half hour. During this sequence, characters are represented with nothing but a few static sprites. There are no animated sequences or scripted fights. There is no voice acting. Characters get into fights with each other or shoot each other, which is represented with just sound effects, so characters have to explain what just happened since there’s no visuals to indicate it. Calling it a VN is doing VNs a disservice - visual novels released for free on itch.io have better presentation than this.
While I’ve had a great deal of fun, and I know there’s plenty left I’ll enjoy, the game often is a total slog. At $60, I can’t recommend it at all, and $130 is a complete joke. If you’re an enthusiast of SRW or mecha, or just really love Gridman, consider it in a deep sale. Otherwise, I’d really suggest sticking with fan translated entries and holding off until the next title.
Super Robot Wars 30 is one of the most infectiously fun games I’ve played - every new mech, weapon, and character makes me grin from ear to ear. The animations are so fun that I always join in with the characters - going IKEEEEEE! with Itsumi when Gridman does Gridman Beam, or BUSTAHHHHHH! when Masaki does Akashic Buster.
The game knows where its bread is buttered and knocks the most important thing out of the park - the attack animations you’ll see thousands and thousands of times. You pick the mechs you know best and are most fun to watch, and you overkill enemies with your superweapons, because there’s a reason this series became well known in the West through Youtube compilations of attack animations.
Speaking of which, it’s a miracle that this game came to the West at all. Super Robot Wars is huge in Japan and beloved by SRPG and mech enthusiasts, but due to nightmarish licensing, the only official Western releases were the Original Generations games on GBA. Even the PS2 remakes weren’t released here. That Super Robot Wars gets a chance to shine on Steam feels impossible, and the hope of getting more in English is arguably worth picking it up for alone.
Unfortunately, it’s also a very hard sell at the base price of $60, much less the laughable price of $130 for the game and every major DLC. No matter how fun the animations are and how fun it is to see series I recognize like SSSS.Gridman, the game is so poorly designed and mediocre that it just isn’t any fun to actually play it.
The primary problem is the difficulty, or lack thereof. The difficulty is done in the laziest way possible, as all but one of the higher difficulties increase enemy stats without changing anything else. But, comically, the highest base game difficulty is so badly designed that it makes the game easier - Super Expert increases enemy levels by 20 universally without adjusting your EXP, which mean you struggle at first, but soon your units level extremely fast and you snowball past your opponents. The only issue is early and new units, since your unupgraded units are severely outgunned, which is frustrating even on regular Expert.
That wouldn’t be as much of a problem if everything given to the player wasn’t so busted, so that the level scaling mattered. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of strange choices. Every type of upgrade you have (AOS, unit upgrades, skill upgrades) uses different resources and is just a raw boost, so there’s never an opportunity cost. The most ridiculous is the AOS system, which just gives you cheap, exponential benefits. For instance, you can spend resources in AOS to increase how many AOS resources you gain each mission, so it pays for itself and then every other upgrade instantly. The stacking AOS benefits make you and your units so strong they feel like cheats.
Even more strangely, there is a paid DLC including Super Expert Plus (yes, a DLC difficulty) that redesigns the game and seems like a response to these criticisms. Among other changes, experience gain is significantly lower and upgrades are significantly more expensive. It’s a bandaid, but it’s a great idea for people who want a challenge. Except that it is intentionally designed to be feasible only if you’re on NG+, and it inherits all the problems of base Super Expert, so unit introduction missions where you fight massive hordes of level 21+ units with your unupgraded level 1 unit are completely unfair.
There’s very little reason why the rule changes in Super Expert Plus couldn’t have been a separate mode, or even just the option for an Expert Plus difficulty that has the rule changes but is more reasonable. Instead, Super Expert Plus goes the complete opposite direction and is far too difficult unless you’re playing New Game Plus... meaning somewhere around 100 hours of play-in-your-sleep gameplay later. Why bother?
People will argue the game is a power fantasy, but even the most overt power fantasies exist to feel like you’ve overcome something. Doom with God Mode turned on might still be a power fantasy, but it’s a boring one when you can’t ever lose.
You will never die in Super Robot Wars 30, even on Expert. There are so many upgrades, all of your units start off ridiculous and only get better, and even light upgrades make already busted units invincible. The “evasion” stat is the worst, since it completely nullifies damage, so units with massive evasion stats ARE using God Mode. Combine this with equipment that makes it so that enemy units with a low chance to hit always miss, and it’s GG.
The lazy design decisions extend to the rest of the game too. Terrain is entirely vestigial from previous Super Robot Wars titles. The maps are almost entirely flat, unmodelled squares with no relevant terrain variety. There are almost no enemies that have to be fought in the air. And yet, I have never noticed a unit with less than a B in any terrain stat, and weapons have nonsense stats that contradict the game’s own dialogue.
For instance, Gridman has an entire mission about struggling against Air units, but the Sky Gridman it introduces - the weapon that literally has “Sky” in it - has an A in Air, not S. All of Gridman’s other attacks, including his Melee attacks, have an A in Air, meaning he’s just as effective fighting with a sword. And, in those animations, he just floats, since they couldn’t bother to make it so that Gridman can’t fight Air enemies without Sky Gridman, or to adjust the sprites so that he’s standing on the ground afterwards. It’s goofy and cheap.
OK, fine, but you’re not here for gameplay. It’s Super Robot Wars, you’re here for crossovers and characters. Well, those elements of the game are... questionable. At the game’s best, the characters and dialogue are a lot of fun, and a hugely appreciated amount of effort has gone into taking the game’s non-linearity into account and integrating DLC characters into the dialogue and story. If you know the series, like I do with Gridman, you’ll be over the moon at seeing them represented so well, and if you don’t know the series at all, like me with Gundam: IBO, you might enjoy what you see so much you check it out.
At the game’s worst, the dialogue is excruciating, while the presentation is so cheap it’s astonishing that it is in a $60 game. Sometimes, this is because of horrible characters, like those from Knight’s and Magic, a stereotypical, embarrassing isekai series. But most of the time, the localization is at fault. The localization for SRW30 is by a team including members of Carpe Fulgur, most famous for Recettear, and it shows. Characters are snarky and use slang-y, How Do You Do Fellow Kids tier dialogue regardless of their personalities or series. If you’re someone who hates “Whedon dialogue,” you’re going to find it very hard to sit through.
And, oh boy, will you be sitting through it - the presentation is embarrassing by the standards of RPG Maker 2000. My breaking point was the first Code Geass mission. The opening cutscene goes on for an entire half hour. During this sequence, characters are represented with nothing but a few static sprites. There are no animated sequences or scripted fights. There is no voice acting. Characters get into fights with each other or shoot each other, which is represented with just sound effects, so characters have to explain what just happened since there’s no visuals to indicate it. Calling it a VN is doing VNs a disservice - visual novels released for free on itch.io have better presentation than this.
While I’ve had a great deal of fun, and I know there’s plenty left I’ll enjoy, the game often is a total slog. At $60, I can’t recommend it at all, and $130 is a complete joke. If you’re an enthusiast of SRW or mecha, or just really love Gridman, consider it in a deep sale. Otherwise, I’d really suggest sticking with fan translated entries and holding off until the next title.