I played a lot of Super Robot Wars D in college and later moved on to OG and OG2. I never actually completed them, as I eventually hit a wall one way or another. For D, it was the language barrier—my units wound up being very weak near the end since I could never quite tell what the stats or equipment were really doing. With OG, I didn’t get the satisfaction of being able to use Mazinger or Getter, which was a disappointment for me.
And that’s the rub with Super Robot Wars games. It’s not the gameplay, or the story, or even the complexity of the systems that make you like them—it’s the fact that you love the underlying shows. They’re fun, and if you grew up with Gundam, Macross, Getter Robo, Mazinger, or GaoGaiGar, then you’ll most likely get a kick out of playing these games. It all depends on whether or not the game includes your favorites.
For Super Robot Wars 30, the lineup is pretty solid. You've got Mazinger, Getter Robo, GaoGaiGar, Code Geass, Gun X Sword, Magic Knight Rayearth, plus a slew of others recognizable across the SRW universe. The stories follow the plotlines of SSSS.Gridman, Code Geass, Gun X Sword, Magic Knight Rayearth, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and a ton of Gundam series. Gundam makes up the majority of the plotlines and pilots, with almost half of the entire roster coming from a Gundam universe. If you love Gundam, everything’s here for you. G Gundam, which was my favorite, is unfortunately missing from this one—but good old Amuro and Char are in the cast, and that’s good enough for me.
Combat is your standard tactical strategy. It’s not bad, but it’s a bit lackluster. Pick a unit, move, attack, defend—rinse and repeat. There aren't a ton of mechanics to the combat; there are a few layered systems like the EX system, which gives you bonuses as you destroy enemies, and the Spirit system, which has been around since the beginning. The main draw of combat is the animations. The move animations are awesomely detailed, and the voice acting is fantastic. However, they do eventually wear out their welcome—after watching Getter Robo Dragon do Shin Shine Spark for the 15th time, you’ll probably start skipping them just to move things along.
That’s a common issue with this series: it’s long. If you’re trying to engage with the story and complete all the missions, there’s over 100 hours of raw content. Probably only about 40 of those are actual missions—the rest is reading story text as the adventure novel plays out. Unfortunately, the story is somewhat hard to follow. Unlike older games, this one gives you the freedom to play missions in any order you want, which creates a nasty context-switching problem that happens over and over again. Wait, how did the last L-Gaim mission end? Dang—it’s been like 8 unrelated missions since then, so I forgot what was going on. I really wish there was more rhyme or reason to how the plotlines are laid out.
The biggest issue with this game is the mech balancing. Most of the Gundam mechs you get are underwhelming and won’t provide you with decent stats. You can consider them bottom-tier. On the other hand, you can get Cybuster, a DLC character and original unit from SRW 2 that eventually got its own show back in 1999. And man, Cybuster just breaks the game. You’ll essentially use the EX bonus to get an extra turn, run deep into enemy lines, and Cyflash your way to victory. Repeat until the map is done. It’s Thunder God Cid all over again.
Overall, the decision to play this comes down to whether or not you love the shows it features. If you’re a huge fan of Code Geass, L-Gaim, Mazinger, Gridman, or Majestic Prince, then you’ll probably have a good time. I can’t guarantee you’ll finish it—because the game does start to wear out its welcome around hour 50—but diehard fans of the anime will definitely enjoy it.
In the fashion of Josh Strife Hayes, I give this game a solid CYFLASH/10.
