SRW 30: My Thoughts
Date: 2025-1-4
It must be said that if I had to, as part of some awful curse, claim only one anime “allegiance” it would be to the Gundam franchise. I was absolutely taken with my first ever exposure to Gundam as a young kid in the early 90s and the obsession has more or less never slowed down. Ultimately what that means is that Gundam acted as a gateway drug to all things Big Robots…
Or should I say “most things Big Robots” because even though I did fall head over heels for other big robots (Eva, Gunbuster, Rayearth, Escaflowne, Macross, Full Metal Panic) I was either blind to or put off by some of Gundam’s own peers, influences and offshoots.
As such, despite knowing about and seeing a lot of Super Robot Wars over more or less my entire gaming life, I really only knew the Gundams and in my fits and starts of trying to play translated SRWs before this one, it never really stuck.
Until SRW 30, that is—and wowzers did it STICK!
I had an absolute blast with this game. As a lover of grid-based tactical games and a love of big robots, I couldn’t get enough. It helped get its claws in me by my knowing that the Rayearth gals were in it—and I used them a lot—and I liked that I could have a lady protagonist. But from the jump I was enthralled.
I absolutely adored the combat animations, and I love how SRW has its own funky timeline where it seems like the OYW, the happenings of Mazinger and some other of the OG robot things a) all happened and b) all happened like 10 years ago. Incredible stuff.
Also this game introduced me to the fact that a show I watched as a kid (Super Human Samurai Syber Squad) was a Power Ranger-ized Gridman! I stinking loved Gridman! How fun to use.
All in all, I spent about 50 hours with this, so I spent a long time with all of these bots, and I loved it, but I’m glad it’s over with.
A couple little quick hits from my notes:
- It’s a shame the Quaster suits are SO boring since we fight them all the time.
- I loved how when the Victory tire suits/ships show up everyone acts as they should (Uh?…)
- The super huge optional boss bad guy the only time I did one of his missions had this like 30 second long multi-dimensional horror attack that did….3k damage hahaha I love that sort of thing
- The first time you fight Infinity it has a tiny little Mazinger on its head and I thought that was adorable
