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By Anthony Swinnich on June 16th, 2007
Towards the launch of the GameBoy Advance, Super Robot Taisen Original Generation would have been welcomed with open arms. Advance Wars was clearly inspired by this series and might not have quite had quite the impact it did if it came out after this game. Super Robot Taisen may be a functional turn-based strategy RPG, but it’s clear that the game isn’t worth your time after the first few hours — the spiritless story and lack of engaging gameplay elements drag this title into the junkyard and bury it underneath its own mediocrity.
"... anyone interested in strategy RPGs would do well to pass up this title completely."
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It’s always a bad sign when a game begins and the story seems like its already hours into itself. To say the player will feel disoriented would be an understatement. Creating a narrative with tons characters and complex politics is one thing, but throwing someone into the middle of tale resembling a spider’s web of corruption and greed with no briefing makes little sense, especially in a genre that relies on story to drive it’s somewhat repetitious gameplay. Apparently it wasn’t enough to have just one aneurysm inducing plotline either, because there are two selectable characters with interweaving storylines.
Super Robot Taisen does little for the genre that hasn’t already been done, and nothing strategy RPG fans will have to worry about missing. The game starts out easy enough, with small groups of enemies that take one or two hits to kill and do little-to-no damage. As the game progresses, players will face larger groups of enemies that do more damage and can withstand more punishment, though as long as the player upgrades his troops in the between-battle menus it has little impact on the difficulty. Higher difficulty during battle might have made things better, but the largest misstep here is the lack of strategy required to succeed. So long as players keep their ships healed, and concentrate on one enemy at a time, losing battles becomes a rare occurrence. Obviously what I just described is a strategy, but I was talking more about battle plans. Strategic options like flanking, bringing up the rear, and simply using the environment to your advantage are rendered moot when the game rewards players for picking enemies off one at a time.
"Super Robot Taisen does little for the genre that hasn’t already been done..."
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Most gamers will become bored around seven or eight missions into the forty-mission campaign, but not just because battles fail to engage the player. As confusing as the story is, you’ll spend just as much time reading text as you do in fighting enemy troops. Once in a while the story will outline battle objectives, but usually there’s little reason to sit through the well translated, yet poorly composed text leaving players to bash on the face buttons Mario Party style until the story part ends. Battles are also dragged out longer than they need to be by attack animations — they slow the game down immensely, no matter how well animated they are. I feel confident there’s a God, however, because an option is included to turn them off.
Mech-heads and anime fans may find something worth a look in Super Robot Taisen due to the battle animations and convoluted storyline (which is standard for most anime anyhow), but anyone interested in strategy RPGs would do well to pass up this title completely. The game isn’t just devoid of strategy; it’s simply no fun at all. | 
