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Super Robot Taisen Original Generation Saga: Endless Frontier - First Impressions
The name is probably the first thing you notice about the game: Its excessively long, and what the frack (Yes, frack. Frack frack frack frackity frackity-frack. Frack.) does it mean?

If you don't really care, just skip the next part.

Well, for those of you that don't know, "Super Robot Taisen" is a rather popular series of strategy-RPGs (in Japan) that take all sorts of well-known (and obscure) robot shows, cartoons, video games, and so on, and mashes them into one giant video game. Which means you have Gundam's fighting against and with Macross robots and so on and so forth. A wet dream for anyone with a robot/mech fetish.
"Original Generation" is a spin-off of this series, instead of Gundam's and such, they have their own original characters and robot designs and are in their own seperate universe.

Anyway, on to my thoughts.

You are introduced to the first two main characters as they are exploring some "mysterious space ship" that crashed...and stuff. Yeah, they're bounty hunters so they do stuff, like exploring, it really doesn't go into more detail than that right now. You get Haken, this "cowboy" dressed in all black western clothing with two giant pistols that probably make up for his lack of other equipment. He's also a "womanizer" and refers to any female in the game by their bust size or lack of clothing. His partner is some kind of female model robot named Aschen, she's rather droll and sarcastic until she overheats and she turns into some kind of over-caffinated spazz. About 20 minutes into the game you meet a third character. A red haired, giant-larger-than-my-body-sword-wielding woman named Kaguya. Then you notice something that quickly becomes a trend in the game. All the females wear revealing clothing and will have back problems when they get older. In fact, let me get it out of the way right now.
BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS
If they aren't refering to boobs, they're directly commenting on them, if they aren't directly commenting on them, they're bouncing around during battle animations.
Suprisingly, despite its juvenile themes, the game is quite well written and I found myself laughing out loud during some of the dialogue scenes.
The battle system is awesome, its a mix of turn-based combat and a real-time fighting system like Street Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom. You're pretty much required to combo and special move your enemies to death.
The world map and dungeon exploring aren't as interesting, but there's some fun little puzzles and things in each dungeon that keep them from being bland and boring.
More details to come as I get farther into the game.

If people are interested, I'll find a link to the 11-minute battle sequence trailer I saw for this game.

it got average reviews. i was disappointed in the reviewers but yeah, I chose Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon instead >.>

I tend not to rely on reviews and go off of gameplay videos instead to see if it catches my interest. IMO, its definitely one of those gems that if you're into anime, don't mind the sometimes juvenile humor and like fighting games or action RPGs, you'd most likely enjoy this game.

Story (what I've gotten so far):
Apparently there's some kind of warp gates linking all sorts of different worlds together, there was some big war in the past but peace has been established and so on.
You're a bounty hunter/scavenger and you and your partner are exploring a supposedly inactive crashed ship looking for technology to sell for money. You enter an active part of the ship and find a princess from another world sleeping in one of the beds. Apparently, she randomly mashed buttons on the keypad until the locked doors opened and she went to sleep in one of the rooms.
...
Yeah, just accept it, it makes it easier.
...
So now you're off to take her back home and collect money for returning the princess safely and then all sorts of crazy-crap happens to make your day go bad. The game just keeps throwing events at you to keep some kind of plot together and get you from point A to point Z while introducing women with huge knockers to keep the fan service going.

Graphics:
They definitely put most of their time into the battle animations. They're smooth, no jerky animations, bright, easy to see, and bouncy. I mentioned boobs earlier right? The graphics are awesome and there's some very good sprite work done. On the other hand the dungeons aren't as finely detailed, Its enough to keep you going and they're nice to look at but nothing special.

Sound:
The sounds are clear and crisp and the voices are in japanese. Yes, japanese. They didn't dub any voice overs into english. Which means you have no idea what they're saying during battles, although they did translate all the text into english. Music isn't annoying but isn't that memorable, I don't think I'd find myself listening to the tunes outside of the game.

Gameplay:
Gameplay revolves around exploring the world map, random battles, dialogue scenes, and going to towns for healing items and equipment. The path so far seems fairly linear but is kept interesting because of the dialogue and character interactions. All the dungeons I've explored so far have a light puzzle elements to them and are fun to romp around in. The battle system is the main focus of the gameplay. Its all about well-timed combos and over-the-top special moves. Combos keep your enemy in the air, which means they can't block your moves, which means you do more damage and get in more hits, which in turn gets you more experience and better rewards after battle. Later on you can modify each characters move list and make your own deadly combos to attack with, there's a nice amount of customization that makes for some fun gameplay. I did find that button mashing will completely screw you over, I had to restart in the first 10 minutes because I wasn't timing my moves right and I ended up wasting all my healing items. Yes, the enemy can combo move you as well, so its all about being able to guard against an enemy attack or better yet, get rid of them before their turn comes around. One thing that does bug a bit, but isn't a major flaw: Boss battles seem to be numerous, so if you aren't a high enough level you'll get your face punched in or waste too many items during battles. Luckily, whenever you level up you regain all your health and special points (mana, basically), so save points are good areas to just grind for levels.

Dialogue:
I made a special section for this because it deserves it. While the storyline is kinda generic, the characters and their interactions make up for it. Sure, you have the stereotypical womanizer, cynic, spazz, ditz, and so on, their all very well written and genuinely funny. I find myself wanting to have a rewind button during dialogue so I can reread what they just said. Sure, they constantly talk about clevage, but the way they reference it is well done and rather unobtrusive. The dialogue holds its own and you keep playing just to see how your characters are going to react next.

Yeah, yeah, double post, but I found an example of some SRT: OG Saga dialogue.

Ha!
Ha!
Ha!

Kind of a necro there Unty...

I had a laugh and I wanted to show it. It was less then 2 weeks old. You were necroing by responding, since that comment had nothing to do with the thread. lol only kidding. I'm just practicing being more spastic.

Well stop it. Please?
Being a spastic is only good when you're a friendly spastic, and that is not the kind of spastic you are practising to be.

Glabbit wrote:Well stop it. Please?
Being a spastic is only good when you're a friendly spastic, and that is not the kind of spastic you are practising to be.

I'm gonna be honest here. And I'm gonna try to explain myself in a way that everyone will understand. Please, try your best before you make any assumptions. Thanks.

I don't know when I'm being spastic. I apologize for when I'm spastic if that offends you. I can't tell the times when I'm spastic from the times when I'm friendly spastic. That's the truth. So please, please, be patient with me. Tell me politely, please, when I'm not being friendly spastic so I can stop. I will do that if you tell me nicely. If someone accuses me abruptly like Ren's style "You're a spastic", then I find it hard not to take offense. I really want to stop this bitching that's going on. So I've said my side of things and I really hope that we can resolve this.

http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2008/04/27/ ... e-animati/
11 Minutes of battle animations.

bouncing boobs!

Ah, Japanese games. I would love them if only I didn't despise them so.

You're doing it wrong.
Spazzing out isn't something you practice, then it comes off as forced and dull, there's no suprise about it. You shouldn't be trying to make it happen, you should let it come to you. Eventually you'll learn to read the threads and you'll realize when its perfect.

Whatever.

Man, people take things too seriously here.