What if OG Gaiden came out four whole years after OGs, but still cockteased you and dicked around setting shit up for later instead of doing anything actually substantial? That's what Moon Dwellers essentially is. OGG gets a bit of a pass considering it only came out like 6 months after OGs, but there's a whole four year gap (I guess more like three if you count Dark Prison) between 2ndOGs and MD. They really don't do hell of a lot in this game - after juggling ten million different things in the previous game, MD only really features J and GC, padding out the rest with original enemies called Lamalice (who are a fucking pain in the ass to fight) tied into the Dark Brain Generals. We get meager scraps of Alpha 3 foreshadowing when they really could have just done it this game. Half of the game just feels like filler with what feels like endless stages of just fighting Lamalice over and over. The pacing is all fucked up because they give you 90% of the cast before Stage 20 out of 47, leaving you with too little deploy slots for most of the game and very little to actually look forward to getting once you get to the midgame. Compared to 2ndOGs's excellent pacing where it always felt like you were getting new shit every stage with so many things happening everywhere, MD just really feels like chaff. The gameplay is fine, and essentially identical to 2ndOGs - the animations and music are about on par too, the relatively small amount of new shit they give you this game IS still really damn good as per OG expectations. I just can't help but feel that this game could have been so much more than it is.

oh yeah the fucking translation's hilarious, quality ranging from stilted, dry, yet passable enough english, to WHAT A DAMN ITTY OPERATOR DOING HERE AMEBA YARO SUCH WORDS EVEN I COULD...? only a complete damn mashed sweetened chestnut fella could have been behind this dumpster fire

Take everything good about Original Generations on the PS2 and just multiply fucking everything tenfold. The series makes the massive jump to the PS3 in quite possibly the flashiest way imaginable, breaking through with a shit ton of beams, bullets, missiles, energy balls, sword slashes, about five unique cut-ins, and a dynamic kill to top it all off. The already solid gameplay systems of the PS2 OG titles are refined even further, with new features such as ability parts and pre-deployment pair sorting allowing you to actually field most of your roster - a problem that was quite apparent in the later stages of the PS2 games, where you'd get way too many units with extremely limited deployment slots. It goes without saying that the animations are the best they've ever been, this game still continues to be the absolute peak of the series in terms of choreography and style. Even outside of battle, the presentation in this game just levels up completely, with dynamically animated map events and CGs. The music fucking bangs too, the only real disappointment is every track that returns from the PS2 games are ported as they are - not that they're bad, they're in fact very, very, good. It'd just be nice to hear a new take on some of the same exact songs we've been hearing the past 15 years. What really impresses me the most though is just how much goddamn content and story they've managed to pack into the game - Alpha 2, MX, D, EX, 4/F/Final, Real Robot Regiment, a bit of Alpha 3, and even completely new original OGs as if they couldn't jam more shit into this. The stakes are higher than ever, everything's going to shit, the fucking Earth disappears, a fucking eldritch horror popped out of the cross-gate, everything is fucking exploding and dear fucking lord it could not be anymore hype. This game just fucking blows every expectation for the series' PS3 debut out of the water, it's just a shame nothing else has quite come close to it ever since. Best fucking SRW ever. それも私だ.

This game coming out literally like, 6 months after Original Generations makes me think they were supposed part of the same game. God it's hard to imagine OGs being even more packed but hey. Being essentially just more OGs but with some new, flashier faces, it's really hard to pass up on. The main issues I have with it are its length - 36 stages just go by waaaay to quickly, which is made worse by the fact that you mostly don't even get choose your deploys until about 20 stages into the game. You're given waaaay too little time to actually make use of your fancy new toys like the totally not Hokuto no Ken inspired Shura guys, or Axel Almer's kung-fu moustacheman. Not to mention the godawful hp bloat bosses the game just throws at you at the tail end like Dark Brain who are just begging to be cheesed instead of being beaten "legitimately". Still well worth the play, but it just can't help but feel like a leftover piece of the already overstuffed OGs pie. At least the pie is still really damn good.

Everything about this game is just pure unadulterated mecha passion. Some of best animations the series has to offer. A gargantuan amount of content due to being two (and a half) games totaling over a hundred stages, jam packed into one disk. Just a shit ton of variety with all the units you get to play around with, along with pilot swapping and customization. Sure it doesn't have the fanservice of the mainline series' licensed anime crossover fare, but god damn does it make up for it in every other way possible. ROCK ALRIGHT DARE YORI MO