Still Playing Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout as my primary game. I think I should be in the later half of the story, not sure though. Pretty much just playing this now, so should be able to finish it soon-ish.
One exception though, with all the Donkey Kong drops, I started Donkey Kong Country 2 (NSO SNES) again. And I don’t know what issue I had last time, but this time I was able to clear the first area pretty easily. Died couple of times in last level, but other than that it was pretty simple. I didn’t find all the secrets though. Only 2 DK tokens, though got most of the KONG letters, not sure about other secrets, but I am sure I missed some.
Stopped playing at first level of the second area / world. The lava one. Only started it on impulse and may play it a bit here or there, but will return to it seriously only after finishing Atelier Ryza. I really enjoyed playing it though, hope difficulty won’t spike too much as the game progresses.
What about all of you? What have you been playing?
I know a friend who loves Super Robot Wars, haven’t gotten around to play it myself though. How are you enjoying it?
Super Robot Wars
Did someone type the magic words to summon me? 😆 I’ve commented that I love this series in the past but I don’t think I’ve mentioned how deep I am into it with… 38 games beaten according to my notes.
So yeah, if you want to know more about the series just ask me.
Yeah, I would love to know more about the series. Don’t have any idea about it, so not sure what to ask, so leaving it for you to decide.
BTW I think we have talked about this before, but I couldn’t find it int my saved posts, so maybe not.
SRW games are love letters to fans of Mecha anime that also happens to be surprisingly good Strategy RPGs.
Gameplay loop is fairly simple, short VN-style story sections -> Customize/upgrade units -> Battle.
Stages are turn-based, and late game you can deploy around 20 units. Recent games are more on the easy side (with SRW30 being the biggest offender), but some of the older games like the OG series have a rather good challenge curve. They’re very friendly to handheld play since you can save at almost any time.
Most games are crossovers of 15+ different anime, and the main story is a combination of plotlines from those series. This is one of the reasons why familiarity with at least part of the series helps, if you know nothing at all you about them it may get quite overwhelming with too many characters and plotlines. To their credit, they do a decent job trying to ease you into it, slowly adding series and also featuring a very detailed encyclopedia with series details, character and mecha profiles.
The fancy battle animations are this game series’ trademark, mimicking in good detail the original anime series.
If that sounds interesting, there’s 4 games on the Switch with official english translation: The V/X/T trilogy and the most recent game which was the 30 year anniversary game for the series.
I personally think the V/X/T games are much better, and would recommend any of them as a starting point. There’s virtually no connection between them (just small cameos), so you can play them at any order.
They need to be imported physically or bought from eastern eShops, and one thing to keep in mind that for T you need specifically the Asian version. For V, X and 30 both the Asian and the Japanese versions are multi language.
If you have any interest in giant robot media, or tokusatsu stuff, or enjoy tactical RPGs with tons and tons of characters, it’s the game for you. I’m really enjoying SRW V, but I’m not sure it’s the best place to start with, given how many of it’s mecha crossovers start at their “late stage” and kinda assume you’re familiar with the source material. I’m pretty familiar with the Gundams but some of the other shows I was a bit lost about, such as Nadesico and Fullmetal Panic. Then again, V is one of the most popular recent games. Every game in the franchise is independent from one another, though, and they all explain all the basics you need to understand the plot. Just pick the one with the robots/shows you think are the coolest.
I have interest in ‘giant robot media’, but the only one I have ever watched is Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan, don’t know anything about any other one. It is on my list to properly get into it one day.
TTGL is peak (mecha) fiction so thats a great one to have watched. Very much in the “super robot” camp that this series is named after, as opposed to “real robots” like Gundam, where the mecha are more akin to military machines than giant superheroes and get treated as such. SRW does a good job of mixing the vibes and themes of the two.
