Super Robot Taisen EX

Well, it's been a long time since my last post. At least for my standards. Anyhoo, a penpal of mine, Aki-san, mentioned a favourite of him, Super Robot Taisen EX. That could be translated as Super Robotic Great War EX (lots of super/duper/ultra stuff here... =/) or Great War of the Super Robots EX (which makes a little more sense).

If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Shining Force, you'll know the genre: strategy RPGs... sort of. I wouldn't call this a strategy RPG, that's Shining Force. FF Tactics actually gives you some choice. This game's got a story, but it's er.. kind of linear. You just read the dialogues and play the battles. Or so it seems from the 4 battles I've fought already.

As you might've brilliantly guessed from the title, yes, it's about robots. Even more, the usual Japanese robots: Mazinger Z, Aphrodite (actually, Diana A or something of the sort), and mobile suit alikes (like Silver Star), and the like. There's several game modes:

- Easy (Main Character: Masaki) - Well, no doubt it's easy. You get Masaki, a high-level pilot with the mecha equivalent of a nuclear bomb in his arsenal. Especially useful for his Psy Blast, which is a map attack: basically, a blast big enough to damage a whole area of the map.
- Normal (Main Character: Rune) - Haven't gotten this far yet, hey. xD Though, from the training lessons, it seems Rune has an attack similar to the Psy Blast.
- Training (lead by Sasuga Mio) - Masaki teaches Mio how to fight, basically.

It looks like a pretty hard-core game: there seems to be references to characters from several different mecha series, and also there's quite a bit of detail when it comes to strategic points. Different types of terrain affect your accuracy and evade ratio. Beam weapons don't work underwater. There's weapons which don't work on earth: they seem to be earth-air and air-air and that's it. And enemies you fire at can counterattack, which they do quite frequently.

There's weapons which don't let you counterattack, like energy swords a la Deathscythe (not so high-powered, though), or Anti-Counterattack Bazookas (surprisingly, used by regular troop).

It's funny, since in the 3rd battle, a weird threesome riding a single robot will just appear out of thin air, act as support and then -pop- go away. And in the 4th... Mazinger Z joins your group. Yes, Mazinger Z. And Aphrodite (didn't know her real name WASN'T Aprodite, but Dianan A or something of the sort). Complete with those :cough: weird :cough: missiles. The author was a perv, mind you.

Characters level up by earning experience, getting better stats and new skills. "Seishin" skills... now, how'd I translate that? Seishin means the human mind. For example, seishin kantoo is "human mind expert" -> psychologist. I'd rather just use Skills, than use expressions like "Mind Skills". That sounds like hypnosis. You have points to use them (just like MP), and they vary a lot between character and character.

Some allow you to stop certain enemies for a turn or so, others pump up your speed or your evade/accuracy ratios, and others repair your robot. Poor Soldier A spent the 4th battle fixing his robot, the poor guy. Good thing: you can actually use a skill and then fire, but somehow it's much harder moving and then firing. Gotta get the hang of that.

Also, yours or the enemy's mechas might or not be able to fly, and thus you might or might not be able to access difficult terrain, or climb cliffs / canyons.

Reading is a lot harder than with Tokyo Mew Mew and just a little more than with DQ5. Mucho kanji around. Glad I reviewed the Geography part in my vocab book (otherwise, I wouldn't have understood much the point of the 4th battle, which takes place in a canyon, to avoid the enemy from displaying his superior firepower - 14 machines against, what, 5?). I still need to get a grip on military ranks. I'm sure Masaki is a high-graded militar and so Toulouse, but other than that...

On the next post: Pics!