Richard is right, the list _has_ been quiet lately. Anyway, as a followup to my review of the US release of Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for GBA, I am pleased to say that it's recently released sequel is even better. It's fundamentally the same game, of course, with the same engine (though some of the animations have had a step up in quality) and gameplay mechanics, but a number of subtle tweaks improve the game greatly.
Gameplay wise, the biggest difference is that there is no longer the single branching path. There are now three distinct parts in the story where you can choose two different routes. Depending on which you choose, you play with certain characters and are given certain opportunities to get different unlockables. In each case, the story reconnects after some number of missions and you get your other characters back. This potentially increases replayability, as certain unlockables become mutually exclusive based on the routes you choose. There is also a greater emphasis on 'combination attacks'. Whereas in SRT:OG, there were really only two combo attacks (the R1, R2, and R3's 'R-Formation', and the Alteisen and Weiss Ritter's 'Rampage Ghost'), there are something like 4 or 5 more now. Some of which are absolutely deadly. Combined with some new attack possibilities (stun shot makes boss killing much, much easier), boss fights are quite different from the EN drain and armor breaker spamming you had to do in the first one. There have been a few changes to how both characters and your robots level up as well that can make replaying stages to powerlevel worth it. Characters now get an 'ace' bonus after getting 50 kills. This can be as simple as a 10% increase to melee damage or a 20% increase to experience, to somewhat more exotic and character specific bonuses. Likewise, robots now get a 'full upgrade' bonus that can make it worth spending those 200,000 credits to get the last few mobility points on your super robots. Once you have purchased all of the upgrades you unlock a final 'full upgrade' bonus that could be 10% more hitpoints, armour, or mobility, or even in some cases, +200 to your melee or range attack. Given that money also seems to be slightly more plentiful (I don't think I ever full upgraded anything in the first one, and by the end of my first play through the second I have something like 8 robots fully done), it is well worth your while to pursue these upgrades on your 'key' units. As for the characters, all of your favourites return along with a few new ones. Sanger Zonvolt, always a popular choice, gets a much bigger role this time. Latooni oddly changes from a shooting to a melee character but is useful as always. Perhaps by virtue of different requirements, certain characters that I hardly used in the first one became favoured parts for me in the second, and vice versa. You can't forget the robots, of course, and there is a pleasing variety. The Supers are well represented, with the Grungusts and Giganscudo returning early on. A few mid-game additions are absolutely dynamite and amongst the best in any SRT game. The Reals really seem to get their due this time around. In many cases they were underpowered in the first one, but this time the Huckbeins (our favourite Gundam standin, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rtx-008.jpg) are hugely useful. It overall seems to be a better balance between the two and you can be quite effective with the Reals rather than having to rely on the heavy hitting of the Supers. The translation by Atlus is more than serviceable, and the story has a few more arcs than the first one, but the humour doesn't really translate well. The bulk of the character driven humour revolves around certain characters being unabashed perverts and constantly commenting on certain characters' bust size and whatnot. This is certainly prototypical Japanese humour but this kind of delivery doesn't really translate into the western style of comedy. Likewise, before one of the final battles, there is an extended dialogue with all of the characters sitting down and eating different foods, along with what I can assume were probably funny jokes in their native language about what kinds of foods certain characters are eating. It doesn't really detract, especially since this is a pretty niche game, but ... well, hell. I suppose if they tried to rewrite the jokes and "Westernize" them people would be bitching that it wasn't a faithful translation. So we should probably just suck it up :) Perhaps my only real complaint is that pretty early on you have access to a huge cast of characters and robots, and it's just not possible to use all of your characters. This results in having to make really tough choices as to who you want to bring. The downside to this, of course, is that occasionally you run into missions where these wayward characters get auto-launched and are underpowered for the given level. I suppose it is impressive work for you to care enough about the characters to be disappointed that you can't use some of them. All in all, both Original Generation games are a fine continuation of a long running series, and an excellent choice for US localization. I've heard that an enhanced PS2 version will be released by Atlus this year, combining both games under the title 'Original Generations', which should give non-portable gamers a chance to play them. That being said, they're such excellent portable games it's almost worth it to pick up a Gameboy Micro or DS lite, or a used GBA SP and both games to have something to carry with you. There's an absolute ton of depth and replayability, even without going into some of the ways you can limit yourself (certain personal challenges would be to play without mech or character upgrades, or forcing yourself to get battle mastery on every stage to unlock the 'real' ending). Also on a related note, I've been watching the Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation TV show. It's been pretty good, and is basically a retelling of the first game. Lots of robots in a variety of styles and a big cast of characters. MUCH better than the disappointing OVA was. Nicholas -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
