A few years ago, the Super Robot Wars franchise finally received an English localisation for the international audience on their crossover games, starting off with Super Robot Wars V which is the start of a new trilogy that included X & T.
V, is just like the other games in the franchise in which it's a tactical RPG that lets you control multiple mecha units on the board to defeat the other opponents. You can get as many as about 16-20 units on the map at once and can control each of them at any time as long as its your turn on the battle. In V, you also have commander ship types that you must protect otherwise it's game over and you start the fight all over again. There are no checkpoints, though you can put the game on standby and come back to the same point later.
V includes a number of anime franchises, most are from Sunrise. The main ones are from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise with the Universal Century timeline titles like Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Gundam: Char's Counterattack, Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Hathaway and Crossbone Gundam. There's also alternate timeline Gundam titles like Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED. Plus you have Full Metal Panic!, Martian Successor Nadesico, Cross Ange: Rondo of Angels and Dragons, Getter Robo Armageddon, Mazinger Z: The Impact!, Rebuild of Evangelion, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Brave Express Might Gaine and also classic Yoshiyuki Tomino shows Super Machine Zambot 3 and The Unchallengeable Daitarn 3.
While this game is a mish-mash of franchise, it is highly recommended that you know the whole storyline for a lot of these due to spoilers on specific plot points that appear. The main ones in particular are Gundam Unicorn, Gundam 00 the Movie, Nadesico the Movie, Cross Ange, and Space Battleship Yamato 2199. The rest do cover aspects but they're not the main focus or can be skipped due to multiple branches along the way.
Also to note, due to licensing reasons, you can't take screencaps or take recordings for any of the gameplay for Super Robot Wars.
The game starts off with two characters that you can chose to play as; Soji Murakumo and Chitose Kisaragi, each mostly cover the same main story but they do have different dialogue choices and the final few scenarios will differ depending on which character you chose. Along the way, you also have sub-scenario paths that you can decide where to go, but it does mean you only have access to specific units in your team. In addition there are also secret scenarios that are available which will unlock extra units for instance Bonta-kun and Evangelion: Unit 13. I have not managed to go through these secret scenarios but I did unlock the original Super Robot Wars characters from previous games along the way.
There are also two difficulty mode options; Beginner Mode which will let you breeze through the story without too much issue, and Standard Mode which is an interesting mix between Normal and Hard difficulty depending on whether you manage to win SR points. SR points are achieved by doing specific tasks like killing all enemies before the boss within a few turns etc. The more SR points you acquire, the harder the game will be.
During combat, you have a grid where you can control your team. Like Fire Emblem, you have limited space to move your character and can choose whether they should attack or standby. If you attack, you can also use special points to use abilities like extra power or 100% dodge their attacks. Speaking of percentages, the way the attacks work is like a game of chance. 100% means you are 100% likely to make a hit against the opponent, while 0% means they will dodge it completely and the same applies to the opponents against you. If you lose your HP, the character is out of the battle, however if that person is a major character in the scenario it can lead to a game over so be careful. Fortunately, the game is very generous on how you can handle specific situations.
The options available also include Spirit commands like dealing extra damage, an extra action and also have your teammates provide you with HP, SP points, 100% dodge success, and a special combo of abilities that let you increase accuracy and dodge completely which is very handy if you can't heal at that moment. You can also upgrade these abilities and improve the characters and their mechs in-between scenarios using money. The money can be used to improve their HP, Armour, Sight, Mobility and EM points.
My team mainly consisted of my MC, the two SRW original characters as well as Setsuna (Gundam 00), Maito (Brave Express Might Gaine), Akito (Nadesico), Ryoma (Getter Robo Armageddon), Tetsuya (Great Mazinger), Ange (Cross Ange), Salia (Cross Ange), Hilda (Cross Ange), Amuro (Gundam: Char's Counterattack), Tobia (Crossbone Gundam), Athrun (Gundam SEED), Kira (Gundam SEED), Sousuke (Full Metal Panic!), Kouji Kabuto (Mazinger Z), Shinji (Evangelion), Judau (Gundam ZZ), Hathaway (Gundam Hathaway) and Banagher (Gundam Unicorn).
If you upgrade your team members consistently, they will be really good during combat and can make or break the situation you're in, especially those that will provide a game over if you don't defeat all of the enemies within a specific number of turns.
The story of Super Robot Wars V, despite the recaps of specific storylines of various anime titles, is pretty solid and the dialogue interactions between each character is great. It also helps that this is a pretty long game, so there's enough room to develop each one. The first playthrough will take 42.5 hours at least on Standard Mode, and that includes a couple game overs here and there. The hardest parts were in fact the ones where you had to fight the Evangelion due to their unique fighting capabilities (you can't deal damage to them unless your attack power is roughly 4500 or higher in a sense). The game does provide New Game+ so you can carry over your money and progress over to the next playthrough.
Despite not having much knowledge for some of the shows here, it has done a great job introducing me to Getter Robo, Mazinger Z and Brave Express Might Gaine and their battle animations were all pretty epic. In addition, I also liked the Cross Ange cast considering the show's reputation so I look forward to watching the anime for each of these (depending on availability of course). Yamato 2199's involvement was also great though the artstyle for some of the characters are slightly off (likely because they couldn't use the original artstyle for approval reasons or other matters).
In terms of criticisms, the final quarter of the game does get very anime in terms of the battles. What I mean by this is that once you finish the enemies or the main goal, more enemies show up on the other side of the map which basically extends the runtime of the battle which can be quite tedious. It does get even more insane the closer you finish the story. The other criticism I have is with the main character Soji who is actually pretty unlikeable due to the way he interacts with everyone around him, and you can tell some of the characters ain't a fan of him. He's just cringe for a lot of the conversations unfortunately.
Overall, Super Robot Wars V has been a blast to play. The combat is fun, the character interactions work really well, visually its very retro but it works and the pacing is pretty solid. The game is also quite expensive because it's only available in Asia, so you'll need to rely on Bazaar Bazaar or Play-Asia to find a physical copy or download via the Singapore PSN/eShop store to get the English version. Super Robot Wars V is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch and Steam (Asia only).
